Apparently Final Fantasy XIV sucks

At least according to almost all critics. Since I don't do MMOs, I haven't got it and never planned to. I thought trying to insert MMOs into the main Final Fantasy series was a horrible idea when FFXI came out, and think it's doubly so now.

I hope this won't be the deathknell of the Final Fantasy series. It certainly doesn't help after Final Fantasy XII and XIII were both radical departures from the tradition of the series in totally opposite directions (heck, Final Fantasy XIII even did away with even a vestigial airship for you to control). Don't get me wrong, I really liked XIII, and I loved XII. The series already feels like its losing cohesion.

If it were to end, then it's a pity they didn't stop with X. That would have been a perfect stopping point, considering both the overall feel of the game and the nice, round number. It also still is my favorite of the whole series. XII, and XIII too, should definitely have still been made, but should have been branded differently. Final Fantasy XII was heavily influenced by the Final Fantasy Tactics team anyway. It was awesome, but it was its own kind of awesome, not a specifically Final Fantasy kind of awesome. Final Fantasy X-2: nah. It's origin was the need to explicate Tidus' fate, and they did a horrible job even doing that. All you had to do was excise one solitary line of optional dialog from FFX which made you think the scene where he comes back might be a dream and it there'd have been no need anyway. Besides, I personally consider it to be a Compilation entry, like the movie Final Fantasy: Advent Children anyway, and not a real main Final Fantasy game.

If XV isn't torpedoed by Final Fantasy XIV, I think it needs to be like Final Fantasy IX: a return to tradition to bring the series as a whole back into focus. Getting Uematsu to do the entire soundtrack, as they did with Final Fantasy XIV (more's the pity!), would be awesome. I also feel like they not only need to have an airship, it should be a freely navigable airship like I-IX had. This need not mean bringing back the conventional overworld map. Seiken Densetsu II and III had an airship equivalent without an overworld map, as did Lost Odyssey for the XBox 360.

Jammie Thomas case shows how ludicrous copyright law is

$1.5 million for sharing $24 worth of songs? Really? Even the minimum statutory damage of $750, or $18,000 is still severe considering the crime. Going by the IFPI's figures, 40 billion files shared in 2008 (IFPI is the internation equivalent of the RIAA). If every person were to be made to pay the same amount as Jammie Thomas, the amount would be $2,500,000,000,000,000. That 2.5 quadrillion dollars, or 2,500 trillion dollars. It dwarfs the world GDP, which is only 57,843,376,000,000, i.e., 57 trillion dollars. It even dwarfs the entire net wealth of the planet. There is literally not enough money in the world for all the pirates to pay the RIAA at that level.

Obviously the sizes of the verdicts far beyond the minimum weren't based on the offense of sharing 24 songs, but rather on the supposed offense of fighting it in court rather than taking the RIAA's settlement. That is really screwed up too: to be punished for exercising your constitutional rights. The law needs to updated to take into account the individual non-commercial filesharers and have a much more reasonable damage award. $750 should be the top, or near the top, not the bottom, in such cases ($18,000 is a lot of money for normal people).

It's time for the filibuster to end

Matthew Yglesias is right: now is the right time to put the filibuster to rest. After this last congressional term it has finally matured from being something to use only in "extreme" circumstances to the default response to any bill you don't support, making 60 votes the new normal threshold for bills to pass. As such it is a critical threat to the proper functioning of our government.

As Yglesias says, now is the perfect time to get rid of it. With John Boehner becoming speaker, there is no chance that it will be "needed" to block the legislation of the Obama administration. Actually, getting rid of it is now as likely to bite Democrats on the ass as Republicans (which is why it won't get eliminated, more's the pity).