I actually see that the way Mint is now is how Ubuntu was when it was just beginning to gain in popularity. Give Mint time and eventually they will take the #1 spot from Ubuntu. I only hope that the Mint team doesn't eventually stop listening to users the way Canonical did.

My habit of opening new pages in tabs that don't focus immediately has saved me this time. Thanks for the warning!

... software now becomes the new hardware? Think about it...

Bravo my man, bravo!

I'm pretty sure if Gnome prevented the install of some KDE applications there would be similar controversy, but not much since the two DEs have not had a history of being anti-competitive towards each other. Microsoft does have a long history of being anti-competitive so it is understandable if this looks just a little bit suspicious. There is a difference between a random bug and a bug that conveniently strips away a competing product.

*** MINOR SPOILER ALERT *** Yeah, I watched The Mechanic too. I usually enjoy unrealistic physics in movies since I'm not anal enough to let a few inaccuracies spoil my entertainment, but this one had me shaking my head. They so should have been sliced in half or at least rendered paraplegic. The fall scene where the goon gets thrown off the building by Bishop looked and sounded pretty realistic however, and made up for that other fall scene.

This.

Games are all about delving into someone else's concept of an alternate reality and controlling the parameters in said reality within the constraints set by the creator. Too many constraints and the game is too linear. Too few constraints and the game has no direction and there's essentially no point in playing. Just like life, games wouldn't be worth playing if we got exactly what we want all the time or never got what we wanted. Complaints are inevitable in a world where we live with many people whose points of view differ from our own. Complaints are inevitable within games that have to cater to many individuals with differing tastes and points of view.

One thing that I would find handy is support for smartphone OSes in standard VMWare. Combine that with a laptop with a capacitive multitouch screen and you have the optimal workstation for smartphone development.

Electoral system reform. You know, so my vote actually counts for something?

My last mod point would have went to you if you weren't already scored a 5 on this. Great idea! Which brings up a very obvious point in that current games don't innovate enough (or intelligently enough) to keep people interested for very long, and do nothing to resolve long standing issues in games (like grinding).

I hope both of these douches exhaust all their available resources fighting each other. Obviously, Zuckerberg will barely flinch from this, but one can hope otherwise.

The walls of a weak sandbox can break, both in real life and in code.

I believe I said (with added emphasis):

The argument was not:

If you want to argue on whether or not privacy becomes less of an issue with increased self-esteem, go nuts. But don't argue on something you conjured up yourself and say that's countering my point. You're interpreting my words as you want to see them, rather than trying to understand what I was trying to say in the first place.

Social networking isn't going away whether people like themselves or not. However, when people allow themselves to be slaves to how society views them, they may weigh their popularity over any concerns of privacy. When you're confident enough to not care much about how society views you, then you leave your mind freer to prioritize over other things such as privacy.

Doesn't that just mean you're a statistical outlier in the context of this study? This is a trend, not a mathematical equation. One contradicting piece of data doesn't disprove a trend, whereas in math, one contradicting piece of data can disprove a whole equation.