joshwent

Without iterative games heavily influenced by their inspiration, we might still not be able to look up or down in FPSs. If all Overwatch was was a TF2 clone with more ladies, robots, and sparkly graphics, folks would mostly stick with TF2 anyway. Comparing them can be useful, but whining that one is like the other is ultimately pointless. Stating that they're similar tells the reader nothing about the actual quality of the game.

Also, maybe reconsider not going to a site you like just because of one writer. Whatever that dumb review was is one person's opinion. Don't punish a whole organization for an individual's flawed judgement.

And NSFW concerns as well. I have no idea how, but it seems like tons of duders browse this site from work. Having a bunch of FUCKs on the home page could cause those lucky jerks some unwanted problems.

It's funnysad funny how the characters involved in a situation can make folks completely flip their morals around.

Any rational person (and by extension most of the duders who post here), would wholeheartedly answer, "YES!", to the question, "Should a news outlet be forced to remove actual images of a nude person if said person requested it?". But when said person is an undesirable, that easy question becomes much harder to answer for those with an emotional reaction. At this point I feel like people only need to hear that Hogan received legal council from an MRA group, or that Trump tweeted him advice, or that whatever other broadly loathed group/individual that suits their distaste was involved, for them to fundamentally "switch sides" and exclaim, "Fuck that guy. Enabling laws against revenge porn posing as news 'sets a bad precedent'!".

Moral absolutes are generally misguided, but so many folks I see function under some kind of opposite paradigm. That morals and ethics are utterly fungible so long as the person you don't like gets screwed in the end.

P.S.: Apparently we had this same conversation 2 months, 5 days ago. The more things change... ;)

A movie that all too quickly came and went (at least in the US) was A Very Long Engagement. It was advertized as a romance, which it kind of is, but it's more about a mystery related to a soldier in WWI.

It's directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet who did City of Lost Children and Amelie (and Alien Ressurection, FWIW), and it's kind of similarly quirky and stylized, but it's all contrasted by some brutal trench warfare scenes that were incredibly, terrifyingly effective.

If for no other reason than the hipster cred of saying you saw a great French film that no one remembers, check it out!

And whoever shall speak a word against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him; but whoever shall speak against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, either in this age, or in the age to come.

If the duders have blasphemed, they've committed an unforgiveable sin. No backsies. So maybe just get on with your life happy with the knowledge that they're probably doomed to an eternity of suffering and torment from an all-loving magic man for saying a word in a way he doesn't like.

Except Drew, maybe.

I just hope more rabid Destiny fans like you see it that way. Cynical me thinks that The Taken King will be lauded as the seemingly inevitable success that fans knew they were playing the entire time... and critics just refused to see the potential that is finally being realized.

It worries me especially in the context of last year's cavalcade of games coming out unfinished/broken with pledges from publishers that the games would get better eventually so just buy it immediately on faith, and other sketchy history re-writing practices like Marvel Heroes changing its name to Marvel Heroes 2015, allowing them to eschew all of the bad press that game got on its original release.

I'm glad you and folks like you have had all the endless hours of fun you've had with Destiny, but others blindly rewarding the result of a game churning through carte blanche iteration limbo thanks to millions paying for piecemeal DLC sets a pretty dangerous precedent for AAA game development and the quality on release of games we're expected to buy.

I absolutely agree. But considering that, you still have to ask yourself, "Who faces more harm?".

Even if the "large corporations" have to prove something isn't fair use before issuing a take-down notice 99% of the time vs. a small person/label/dev/company/etc.'s 1%, that use probably doesn't significantly effect the potential profits from the work overall. For the small artist, the harm is far greater, precisely because their profits are far smaller. And then giving them the same work of creating a convincing burden of proof that a company could easily hire someone or, clearly, create an algorithm to do, is just vastly imbalanced.

The DMCA is the problem. The vagueness of Fair Use is the problem. And all I'm saying is that we should be weary of applauding a decision that doesn't change either of those obstacles in any way.

Even if it's a small step towards fairer copyright rules and processes, it's still a step.

Except... this really doesn't seem like a step in any direction but sidways, if not backwards.

All this seems to do is vaguely put the onus of claiming that use of a work violates an abstract concept, on the copyright holder themselves.

And it's easy to see anything like that as another win for the little person against the greedy leviathan, but it's also far too easy to forget that copyright protections are important for everyone. Especially the little people.

Say I'm a little known musician, trying to make a living from my art. I sell my songs from my site, or maybe even have a deal with Spotify to try and at least get some pocket change from folks who like my stuff. Then someone on YouTube decides to upload my album, because if we're being honest, that site is still one of the first places people go to to listen to copyrighted music for free. Whereas before it could have been relatively easy for me to at least make them prove they were using it in some acceptable capacity, now I have to do the extra work of quixotically proving that they're violating standards that aren't even illegal.

(And about that specifically, I unfortunately don't have the time tonight to read that full ruling. But it seems pretty clear that if judges have to question whether something is a law or not... it isn't.)

Current copyright law in the US is shameful and broken. It limits creativity rather than protecting and enriching it. And it's one of the clearest and most flagrant cases of cronyism working to allow business interests to dictate policy. But this doesn't do anything to change that, and in fact, may just make it harder for the folks who need them the most, to keep what little protections they have left.

It only makes it harder to achieve positive change, if we're satiated by an imitation of it.

The clear course of action would have been to quickly find the gift shop, buy the dude a new pair of glasses, and smash them on the ground as he appreciatively reached out for them. Then get the girl a hot dog with a topping of her choice.

The fact that no one else in this thread would be willing to do this is frankly disgusting. You all scare me. I mean, where are you even from... Canada?!?

Really though, not intervening when someone is actively hurting another, you might just be a bad person (or at least a person who is held back by understandable fear). Not imposing yourself in a situation you know nothing about after something bad happened... probably the best move for all involved.

Destiny is the opiate of the masses.