TheMightyEthan

This just in: Thursday Next is secretly a teenage girl!

To be fair, Senators tend to be more reasonable than Representatives... Not that that's saying much...

Well the law in question is that it's a copyright violation to give a public performance without a license to do so. I haven't ever studied copyright law, but in the areas of law I have studied "public" usually means that basically any random person is invited to come participate, though charging a cover doesn't make something not-public, and neither does an age limit, etc. 17 USC 1 is the US copyright code, and section 101 defines a public performance as So watching a laptop on the grass in front of a dorm does fall under the literal meaning of the statute. However, I can't imagine any federal court would ever enforce it that way. The obvious intent of that definition is to prevent someone from showing a copyrighted work to a large number of people, and watching a movie on your own laptop does not implicate that purpose. The number of people who can watch a laptop at once is very limited, and if people started gathering to watch I'm sure your friend would have gotten very uncomfortable very quickly and stopped the movie or gone inside or something. So, having done a little more research, my conclusion is that one of two things happened: 1) The cop got overly literal with the term "public performance", not based on anything other than his own reading of the rule, or 2) The cop was bored and felt like being a dick. Possibly both. Also, a good rule of thumb is to take anything a cop says about what the law is with a MASSIVE grain of salt. They have an immense amount of practical experience, but almost no formal training about what the laws mean. Also, customary disclaimer: none of what I've said here is legal advice, it's all just for general discussion purposes. *Edit* - Wow, I wrote a lot more than I intended to when I started.

If the requirement of computer programming makes games not art, then no computer animated film can ever be art either. That's just silly.

I'm glad I have this uncanny ability to tell whether I'll like a game or not based on almost no information before it's even released. Only very rarely am I wrong.

See, I don't think that's true here.

lol, what happened Duke?

Were they actually charged/convicted of anything, or was it just a cop telling them to stop? If it was just a cop I'm inclined to say that that cop just didn't know wtf they were talking about, because watching a movie that you own on your laptop is perfectly fine, even if you're outside. Now, if you got one of those giant inflatable projector screen things and set it up outside the dorm, you might run into issues...

That case won't be the last we hear of it. And you're right, NEA policies aren't law, but to say that speech is unprotected under the first amendment you have to be able to say that it has absolutely no artistic, social, or scientific value whatsoever. The NEA saying it's art is very strong evidence in favor of it having artistic value.

"Frustrated" is more precise, I think. But yeah.

I don't remember the last time I paid more than like $15 for a game I ended up not liking, but a lot of that's probably because I never buy games day one unless I am absolutely 100% sure I'm going to love it.

Sounds like the Wii 2 is for you then. Also, I know I've said this before, but I would bet money that there's an optical drive in the 720.

So you just trust it without checking other review sources? BAH! No, I look at other review sources, I've just found based on my own experience that GT reviews tend to provide me the best information for determining whether I will like a game or not. Frequently GT will rate a game highly, but by their review I will be able to determine that it's not for me, or vice-versa. Also, what I'm saying is, unless I've played the game, I don't go arguing about whether GT knew what they were talking about, because unless I've played the game I don't have a fucking clue if they knew what they were talking about. This is unrelated to whether or not I look at other review sources.

Who were Adam and Eve running from in that vid though? I think the Templars are the descendants of their overlords. There overlords are the aliens. Presumably there's some alien DNA in the Assassin line, which is what makes them so badass. The Templars are just regular humans.

I don't want it to go to the "modern" time yet either, I want a new past time. There was some speculation that the next one would be during the American Revolution because of some hints at the end of the Da Vinci Disappearance DLC.

I wait for GT reviews before buying a game that I'm unsure about, because I don't want to pay $60 for something I might not enjoy. But I don't argue with other people about whether the GT review is accurate.

Even if you have friends apparently there's no easy way to join up with them for the freeplay multiplayer, only for the campaign. Also, though I like GT reviews, I usually ignore the numbers. The number at the end often (to me at least) seems to have little or nothing to do with their description of the game during the review itself.

Agreed. I meant the reviews generally, not the Joystiq one specifically.

I have an idea: how about people actually play the game before deciding if reviewers know wtf they're talking about? And I'm not even interested in it...

Ah, see here you have to put both parents regardless. Also for determining income IIRC it basically just asks what your income for federal income tax purposes is. So whatever you pay taxes on that's what they consider you to have for financial aid purposes.

According to the first test I'm an INFJ 44, 25, 25, 22.

Wow, that seems like an enormous loophole. Does that work for income taxes as well? Do you even have income taxes?

Well, recognized by the National Endowment for the Arts, anyway. But yeah, that's going to really help the anti-government-regulation argument in the courts. "See, the NEA recognizes it, therefore it's art, therefore it's protected by the first amendment, therefore you can't regulate it."

You can indent and also have a line break, but if you don't indent you definitely need a line break, and vice-versa.

I'll give a really brief overview of US school system (the public one, a lot of private schools do their own thing, but this is the "standard"): Preschool/Pre-K Before Kindergarten, so 4 or younger more or less. Basically this is more like educational day care than school proper. Kindergarten Age 4-5 or so. Often half-day, but I've heard of some full-day. Grade/Elementary School Grades 1-5 or 1-6, so ages 6 to about 11 or 12. Middle School/Junior High Grades 6-8, 6-9, 7-8, or 7-9, depending on where you are. Ages anywhere from 11-15, depending on which grades are in there. High School Grades 9-12 or 10-12. So ages 14 or 15 to 18. Most places though school is only mandatory until age 16, so some people drop out before finishing high school (then later when you realize you can't get a job without graduating high school you can take a test called the GED which gives you the equivalent of a high school diploma). Post high school graduation it gets more complicated. There are Community Colleges, which tend to offer 2 year degrees. There are Junior Colleges which (I believe) are also usually 2 years, but people normally go to those because either their grades weren't good enough or they couldn't afford to go to a 4 year university right out of high school, so they go to a Junior College first and then transfer to a 4 year university, because it's often easier to get accepted when transferring, and it's also cheaper. There are 4-year universities (colloquially referred to as "college") where you can go to get a 4-year Bachelor's degree, and then they also often have post graduate programs (like Master's/Doctorate programs). 4-year universities are usually made up of "colleges"; so like Kansas State University had the College of Engineering, and the College of Architecture, and the College of Arts and Sciences, etc.