Don't forget, adding insult to injury, WiiWare games are inextricably linked to the system that downloaded them. If anything ever happens to that system, those games are gone forever.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to contact the FBI about some naked cartoon images that might not be of legal age.

I was positive this article was going to be about Bethesda games.

The Tony Hawk Pro Skater games were always developed by Neversoft. Neversoft was acquired by Activision in 1999.

And if you don't actively attempt to defend your trademarks... you can lose them.

I always hear fanboys trot this one out when a company stomps a fanmade project into the ground. But does it have any real merit? I'm not familiar with trademark law at all, but it seems fishy to me that you can legally own the rights to a property you developed, and then lose those rights to another party -- who would have no legal claim to said property otherwise -- simply because you didn't attack them with lawyers at every opportunity.

Can someone cite a case of this actually happening?

You obviously don't understand the difference between a game like DDR, where your input has no audible counterpart, and one like IIDX, where it does. I'd explain it, but you seem to be rather content in your ignorance. Enjoy.

He shouldn't have referenced "BPM" because it's not really accurate, but by "500 BPM," he's talking about the rate at which the notes are falling down the screen. Many people take advantage of Hi-speed settings which allow you to increase this rate, thus decreasing the total number of notes your brain has to process at any given time. So a 125BPM song at Hi-speed 4 scrolls the notes at a rate of "500BPM." The actual beats per minute remain the same, though, obviously.

DDR != any rhythm/timing based game. For example, early IIDX and Pop'n Music, pre-timing adjustment settings, are more or less unplayable on modern TVs. You're actually "building" the songs -- constructing them note by note -- as the basic framework plays on. Try doing that with terrible lag, it ain't pretty. In short, this:

"...any rhythm/timing based game will be perfectly fine with a fair amount of lag so long as the lag is consistent."

is completely false.

Agreed. Now tell me how I'm supposed to fix it when the fat retarded hypocrite reactionists who fully support these kinds of rulings outnumber me 100 to 1. They are The People. At least in the US.

It's cool if I forcibly strip-search a 13 year-old girl as long as I'm a school official working on "official business." I can't be held accountable.

But if that same girl willingly texts me a cellphone pic of herself in a bikini, I'm looking at time in hard prison and branded a sex offender for life.

Seems perfectly logical to me.

No, the child isn't being directly harmed by someone viewing their exploitation, however their honor and dignity are chipped away at with each viewing. Just because the video was already made -- the brunt of the damage has been done -- doesn't give us all the right to see it guilt-free. And completely decriminalizing possession would send an implicit message that the depictions themselves are acceptable.

That said, I certainly agree punishments shouldn't be anywhere near what they are today for mere possession, especially since regardless of conviction the person's life is oft-times destroyed upon mere accusation. (And as for your comparison up there, I actually think possessing videos depicting real murder should carry a similar punishment.)

Of course, as others have mentioned rational thought frequently doesn't enter the picture at all when this subject is on the table, so I see things getting worse, not better. The public hysteria has really reached a fever pitch with stuff like drawings being deemed child porn, or kids taking cell phone pics of THEMSELVES getting charged. It's classic witch hunt mentality, where you literally can't say ANYTHING against someone once they've played the pedophile card without eyes narrowing and the accusations swinging your way. "Oh, you're sticking up for the CHILD MOLESTERS, are you?! Methinks you may be one of them!" ::torches raise:: "GET HIM!"

And society's hypocrisy makes the whole thing even more ludicrous -- in the US anyway -- where the age of consent is 18 (if you're EVER attracted to anything below you're automatically pure evil -- no ifs, ands, or buts), and yet models regularly start their careers at 13/14, and marketing and media bombards us with idealized images of youth around the clock.

There are mods that allow you to rotate objects, and more easily line up books and other items.

Or did you actually play a Bethesda game on console...

::shudder::

Gah. Shoulda been "How Does Anyone Fall For It?"

Here's an interesting thread that discusses some of Scientology's favorite psychological methods and related famous experiments. Former Scientologists even chime in.

http://forums.whyweprotest.net/291-scientology-discussion/brainwashing-long-14420/

I like this quote:

An important note: the human brain is a pattern-recognizing machine that evolved over billions of years. It was not engineered to be flawless, and the studies I listed essentially 'reverse-engineer' the system and identify 'exploits.'

Calm down.