New efforts!

[Harpospoke]

ESPN is now paying the price as customers tastes change with new ideas.

MMO's better pay attention to this as they continue this doomed to fail "shut down games" thing they are doing.  At some point, someone will come up with a better way to do things and the MMO's won't be able to kick customers in the crotch over and over.

[downix]

Not very single North Korean missile blows up on the launch pad. Well, the majority of the homegrown larger missiles do, but they could stick a nuke on one of the smaller imports if they're only attacking South Korea, which would also be remarkably stupid and suicidal for several reasons. North Korea is run by jackholes, but so far they're jackholes who are aware of the limits and dangers of their actions and have been careful to keep them within the realm where it allows them to maintain power. Of course that's relied on other countries not taking the NK rhetoric completely seriously and the other countries being run by people not foolish and impulsive enough to respond in kind, so things may get interesting now.

Actually, their failure rate is under 3%. Yesterday, for example, they launched over 300 missiles as part of their celebration, without a single failure.

[Angel Phoenix77]

Question, can I use the names of Paragon and Yin? The reason I ask is when I get stressed out I write short stories, and in one of my stories I use Paragon as a street and Yin as a US Army NCO. There is one other name, but as a last name Keyes.

[LaughingAlex]

Actually, their failure rate is under 3%. Yesterday, for example, they launched over 300 missiles as part of their celebration, without a single failure.

I'd hope they don't put even a small warhead on anything for there sake, even if they don't launch anywhere but the ocean.  Course they might decide to test it like idiots, send people to survey the carnage, then find those people sick of radiation poisoning and find out the hard way why nukes have never been used.

Pancake...even the smallest warheads were a problem....as they had the longest and most intense fallout....

[Ulysses Dare]

Question, can I use the names of Paragon and Yin? The reason I ask is when I get stressed out I write short stories, and in one of my stories I use Paragon as a street and Yin as a US Army NCO. There is one other name, but as a last name Keyes.

Yes you can. Copyright and trademark only apply to specific concepts. NCSoft doesn't own the word "paragon" or the name "Yin"; their IPs are "Paragon City" and "Penelope Yin". Technically, you could even get away with using those names if your Paragon City or Penelope Yin was nothing like theirs. (Probably not a good idea though, unless you really want to litigate it out.)

[Angel Phoenix77]

Yes you can. Copyright and trademark only apply to specific concepts. NCSoft doesn't own the word "paragon" or the name "Yin"; their IPs are "Paragon City" and "Penelope Yin". Technically, you could even get away with using those names if your Paragon City or Penelope Yin was nothing like theirs. (Probably not a good idea though, unless you really want to litigate it out.)

Cool, thank you for the reply

[Arcana]

Actually, their failure rate is under 3%. Yesterday, for example, they launched over 300 missiles as part of their celebration, without a single failure.

I read they fired 300 artillery shells as part of the 85th anniversary of the founding of the North Korean military.  Not really the same thing.

Their successful launch rate of ballistic missiles is actually fairly good.  However, whether they are successful missile flights or not is hard to tell, because no one knows where they are being aimed at.

North Korea's nuclear delivery capabilities are essentially terror-related.  They can probably deliver a nuclear warhead *somewhere* but probably not in a tactically significant way.  That's another way of saying they can probably kill a sizeable number of people with a nuclear weapon if they wanted to, but they almost certainly could not use that weapon in a way that would in any way impede any country with a counter-strike capability from retaliating.  They could not use them for any specific military purpose.

The first nuclear weapon North Korea successfully launches on a populated area will likely be the last weapon of any kind the North Korean military uses in an offensive capacity.  They are useful bargaining chips for North Korea but not useful weapons.  Not even China or Russia want to see a North Korea willing to lob nuclear weapons on the same continent they inhabit.  And if a single American citizen is killed in an offensive nuclear detonation, I have no doubt that the US military will not stop until all of North Korea is a parking lot, and pretty much every other nation-state in the world is going to hand the US a free pass and sit back with a box of popcorn.

[Arcana]

Yes you can. Copyright and trademark only apply to specific concepts. NCSoft doesn't own the word "paragon" or the name "Yin"; their IPs are "Paragon City" and "Penelope Yin". Technically, you could even get away with using those names if your Paragon City or Penelope Yin was nothing like theirs. (Probably not a good idea though, unless you really want to litigate it out.)

Just to clarify, copyright protection applies to creative works, not concepts.  Concepts themselves cannot be copyright protected.

The confusion surrounding this revolves around some people asserting copyright claims against other works that are conceptually similar.  But the legal principle here is that similarity of concept can be used as evidence to support the contention that a work was copied.  If it could be proven that a work was not copied, conceptual similarity would not be relevant.  Because there is often no way to prove absolutely that a work was or was not copied, conceptual similarity can be relevant to legal claims.

Trademark protection, incidentally, is totally different from copyright protection.

[LaughingAlex]

I read they fired 300 artillery shells as part of the 85th anniversary of the founding of the North Korean military.  Not really the same thing.

Their successful launch rate of ballistic missiles is actually fairly good.  However, whether they are successful missile flights or not is hard to tell, because no one knows where they are being aimed at.

North Korea's nuclear delivery capabilities are essentially terror-related.  They can probably deliver a nuclear warhead *somewhere* but probably not in a tactically significant way.  That's another way of saying they can probably kill a sizeable number of people with a nuclear weapon if they wanted to, but they almost certainly could not use that weapon in a way that would in any way impede any country with a counter-strike capability from retaliating.  They could not use them for any specific military purpose.

The first nuclear weapon North Korea successfully launches on a populated area will likely be the last weapon of any kind the North Korean military uses in an offensive capacity.  They are useful bargaining chips for North Korea but not useful weapons.  Not even China or Russia want to see a North Korea willing to lob nuclear weapons on the same continent they inhabit.  And if a single American citizen is killed in an offensive nuclear detonation, I have no doubt that the US military will not stop until all of North Korea is a parking lot, and pretty much every other nation-state in the world is going to hand the US a free pass and sit back with a box of popcorn.

Even so, I don't think south korea would appreciate the fallout floating over the border.

[downix]

I read they fired 300 artillery shells as part of the 85th anniversary of the founding of the North Korean military.  Not really the same thing.

Their successful launch rate of ballistic missiles is actually fairly good.  However, whether they are successful missile flights or not is hard to tell, because no one knows where they are being aimed at.

North Korea's nuclear delivery capabilities are essentially terror-related.  They can probably deliver a nuclear warhead *somewhere* but probably not in a tactically significant way.  That's another way of saying they can probably kill a sizeable number of people with a nuclear weapon if they wanted to, but they almost certainly could not use that weapon in a way that would in any way impede any country with a counter-strike capability from retaliating.  They could not use them for any specific military purpose.

The first nuclear weapon North Korea successfully launches on a populated area will likely be the last weapon of any kind the North Korean military uses in an offensive capacity.  They are useful bargaining chips for North Korea but not useful weapons.  Not even China or Russia want to see a North Korea willing to lob nuclear weapons on the same continent they inhabit.  And if a single American citizen is killed in an offensive nuclear detonation, I have no doubt that the US military will not stop until all of North Korea is a parking lot, and pretty much every other nation-state in the world is going to hand the US a free pass and sit back with a box of popcorn.

Over 200 artillery units, of which 40 were ballistic missile artillery. Each of those 40 launched 8 ballistic missiles.

No live warheads were used.

[Arcana]

Even so, I don't think south korea would appreciate the fallout floating over the border.

Even if North Korea used a nuclear weapon offensively, I doubt the US would retaliate with strategic nuclear weapons.  They might conceivably use tamped nuclear bunker busting weapons, maybe.

[Arcana]

Over 200 artillery units, of which 40 were ballistic missile artillery. Each of those 40 launched 8 ballistic missiles.

Source?

Seems odd to launch tactical ballistic missiles for a demonstration, as a genuine tactical ballistic missile would pretty much fly out of visual range of anyone observing from near the launch site.

[Odimodus]

If N. Korea used a nuke I think China will move in and take over N. Korea. I wouldn't be surprised if China does it anyways, just to keep the U.S. and S. Korea from doing it and moving that much closer to its borders. The last thing China wants is a large military presence right across its border right now.

 Would any of this have any effect on a deal going through, I think it all would probably make it much less likely. Not that it's very likely now, by the deafening and prolonged silence on the deal.

[adarict]

Source?

Seems odd to launch tactical ballistic missiles for a demonstration, as a genuine tactical ballistic missile would pretty much fly out of visual range of anyone observing from near the launch site.

Everything I have seen says it was 300 guns.  Basically howitzers, which are TECHNICALLY ballistic weapons.    I haven't seen anything that even implies that any missiles were fired in the exercise/celebration.  I would be surprised if they even used a short range ballistic missile for the celebration.  Even if the launch itself were impressive, they are not cheap pieces of equipment.  It would be foolish to use them as a party favor.  On the other hand, their ballistic missile tech isn't terribly advanced.  They could have been the equivalent of like V2s.  Pretty cheap to manufacture.  They wouldn't need to be able to hit anything in this kind of display.  Heck, as long as it made it off the launcher, as far as the people would be concerned, it was successful.

The other thing they reported, which amused me, was that they used aircraft to fly "zero feet above sea" and drop bombs on simulated targets.  Why do I find this funny?  Well, aside from teh fact that zero feet over sea I don't believe is used as a phrase by most countries.  It did used to be used to describe minimum altitude runs, though they weren't used to actually drop bombs.  That was how you GOT to your target.  Second though, the planes they used were MiG23 and Su25.  Neither of these planes is safe to fly nap of the earth, even the ones used by Russia, which has actually been able to upgrade their avionics. The chances that North Korea has avionics good enough to do it safely, or that their pilots have the necessary skill to do that, makes me laugh.  Granted, maybe the pilots were some of their elite pilots.

[downix]

Source?

Seems odd to launch tactical ballistic missiles for a demonstration, as a genuine tactical ballistic missile would pretty much fly out of visual range of anyone observing from near the launch site.

Honestly, watching the live newsfeed of the artillery exercise.

[Matt Bold]

Man this thread is hard to follow.  I want to read juicy rumors and substantiated claims!

[Tubbius]

Man this thread is hard to follow.  I want to read juicy rumors and substantiated claims!

How about juicy clams and substantiated rumors?

[MWRuger]

[LaughingAlex]

[MWRuger]

Oh I'm sure the game wold be great if trump properties took it over.  We'd force the healer on everyone, it's gonna be great.  We'll build a wall to stop all the real buffs/debuffs/cc.  We'll hike the taxes so all but 1 player(whoever has the most influence) have to pay 80% of there influence in taxes to the person with the most influence(he'll be exempt!).  We'll build a wall against the mobs, the freeloaders, and make incarnates only good for the top player.  We'll make pvp mandatory and IO's only available to the top player.   It'll be great!

I know you're joking, but that wouldn't be CoH.

It's why as much as I am willing to try any of the successors, what I want in my heart is the original. No offense to any one working on any of the successors or any other project. I was a CoH Player, not an MMORPG player.

I'll settle for whatever I can get, but I want what I want.