Sins are a slippery slope. If I get a check that's personally addressed to me, I'd consider that either a gift or a bribe. Bribes are illegal. Gifts aren't, though you're beholden to report them to the IRS. There's no greed in taking the money. The only greed is in reporting it publicly for your own benefit... which also benefits EA. Thus, the only guilty parties are (indirectly) EA and (directly) the people who blogged about it so they can rake in advertising dollars.

I suppose I'm guilty for commenting in this thread... but since I won't see a dime from either EA or Slashdot I'm clearly not guilty of greed.

But getting a check from Knuth means you found a bug in LaTeX. There is genuine pride in debugging a piece of software like that. Being a video game blogger? Not so much.

I'll be honest... I'd cash it and then not comment about it. Maybe I'd send a private e-mail to EA thanking them for their generosity and informing them how I feel compelled not to comment on this game because of the clear conflict of interests involved.

At least this idea was previously discussed here in 2008

And now that it's time for them to collect on that debt, it's probably a good idea for them to stop giving us these cheap resources that are also important to their own development. In school lunch terms... if somebody borrowed $10 from you last week because they wanted to buy stuff from the cafeteria, would you agree to sell him your bag of Doritos this week for a quarter?

This is a hard lesson to learn, but those in debt deserve to be CUT OFF.

An advanced understanding? No. As an alternative operating system that can be used to replace Windows? Yes. Dell offers Linux as a preinstalled option. I believe HP does, too. I'm not sure how well they market it... but it's out there. Also, high schools typically have technology classes which teach everything from "how to use a computer to check your e-mail" to "programming FIRST robots". I'd expect the technology teachers at these high schools to know the difference between Linux/Mac/Windows and spend at least half a class period talking about it in even the most basic level of these classes (though on second thought, Microsoft spends a lot of money to ensure high schools aren't equipped with a Linux alternative so YMMV).

I'm reminded of the quote, "A reasonable man adapts himself to his environment while an unreasonable man adapts the environment to him. Progress depends on the unreasonable man."

My first impulse was that the "Who cares?" attitude was that of a troll, but after thinking about it a bit I realized how Windows-centric my University had been (RPI Computer Engineering - Class of 2005). Via a financial aid package I got a free (at the time) top of the line laptop which happily ran Windows during my time there. Then there was the Vorhees Computing Center which was divided up between Windows on the left (where you'd go to print stuff) and UNIX on the right (which was mostly ignored because it was fairly ancient).

Anyway... point is that AFTER college all of my computers have been loaded with Linux and my "work" computers continue to be predominantly Windows. This is a fact of life.

If you have the luxury, I'd put in the following recommendation: making sure she's got easy access to both Linux and Windows. Because I'll say this, knowing what Linux does well and learning what Windows can handle satisfactorily will give her an advantage over the people on campus who only know one way of doing things.

If easily/convenient computer labs on campus offer Windows desktops, send her to school with a Linux laptop. If not... is sending a student to campus with two laptops or a desktop+laptop really that hard to imagine?

And when she asks you how to configure Samba, Cygwin, Wine, Apache, and remote terminals... be prepared with the answers.

According to what I've read, one of the nasty parts of multi-album recording contracts is that the contract gives the record company final approval about what can get put on an album. The idea that they still hold any rights beyond the contract for songs they didn't select for album publication seems to do a disservice to this particular agreement.

I hope the Mexican court sees this for the evil it is.

The same "not in my backyard" argument that resisted cell towers is politically holding back adding the extra transmission capacity to connect solar farms to cities. Let me know if you need citations.

Moreso, I've read that the challenge of solar/wind in terms of harvesting the energy at sites in the middle of nowhere is storing the power for more than a few hours in case it gets cloudy or the wind calms down. Whereas all the other sources of energy can be controlled based on an input variable that's controlled by human interaction, wind and solar have completely external dependencies.

As far as you calling my comment stupid... you must have missed the overaching point that I was trying to make that solar panels don't generate very much energy based on the amount of space and resources they use. The key for solar is installing it in an area where space is a negligible consideration. Further... I think installing 100,000 acres of solar farms somewhere in the desert and then transmitting that power to a city would have unforeseen environmental effects because sand and solar panels have different heat absorption properties and it wouldn't surprise me if this cause negative weather effects.

Like I indicated... right now solar and wind are good rural and suburban options for roof installation. And that's significant. I'm not saying don't do solar. I'm just saying the technology doesn't currently exist to do it on a massive scale where it would make a dent in the national energy consumption requirements.

I wasn't talking about cost. I was talking about taking a great idea and then realizing after it's implemented that there were major drawbacks because nobody wants to live in a state that's completely blocked out by the sun (there are other reasons not to live in NJ... but that's for another topic).

It's an engineering challenge. The energy needs are X. The physical space and resources available are Y. If the energy solution generates power at a rate of X/Y then it's a non-starter.

Nuclear, hydro, wind, SOLAR, coal, gasoline, geothermal, natural gas, and steam. I support the energy sources that enable modern living. I was just pointing out that nuclear is a major benefit to densely populated areas. You can call me an Urban Playboy if you want because I think the advantages in terms of energy usage within cities far outweigh many other aspects. The two shiniest examples of why big urban centers are advantageous are public transportation utilization and district heating (where heat energy lost from operating systems is used instead of wasted like it is in areas where it easily escapes into the atmosphere).

Yeah... sure... put a solar panel on your house and watch your electricity bill go down to $10/month because you're generating 100kW with your panels. That's a good solution for you. I'd live in a place where energy costs are 50kW because I'm taking advantage of energy saving systems like Energy Star appliances, passive solar heating through insulated windows, and then shelling out the $100/month to pay for the energy generated by the electric and gas company that I've used. (caveat: the numbers I'm using here are pulled from my ass, but they are supposed to illustrate the point I'm making).

Yeah... Boeing and LM are just as big and resistant to change as any huge organization who has enjoyed many years with a business model that has let them coast along and collect money freely.

And as a further disclaimer... I work for a company who has been partnered with Orbital in the past, though I've never had anything to do with any of those projects.