So there is a software bug, but it's fixed by gripping the phone in a certain way. Interesting.

I can think of many games I might have enjoyed, hadn't they been ridden with bullet time, time bending weapons, gravity controlling devices and the like. I understand that "keeping it real" is a huge constraint, but on the other hand a fantasy or sci-fi setting doesn't mean you can't just have a fantasy or sci-fi version of guns, shotguns and grenades. Also, like the post says, these gimmicks highlight the limits of alterable environments. Even the excellent Red Dead Redemption, which I just completed and absolutely enjoyed, would have been even more enjoyable to me had Rockstar been able to keep it fun, balanced and challenging without their version of bullet time. What I don't know is how many people actually enjoy such gimmicks.

Exactly. But in a pleasant episode of karmic justice, the 360 had a very early firmware hack and is now torn apart with the JTAG hack, while the PS3 is - at least practically - still unhackable.

In TFA, they asked Heck whether the 16GB limit is a technological limitation of file systems or a deliberate choice. It seems pretty obvious to me that it's artificial and meant to protect their disk drive market. Considering that USB devices will, unlike now, be trusted storage where one can write DLC, XBLA games and even full game installs and GOD, there's no reason why one would use an externally powered USB drive instead of a small pendrive. That would mean 100$ for a 1TB drive, going in the drive maker's pockets, instead of 100$ for a 120GB drive, going in MS's pockets.

And why would you do something Microsoft suggests? I am a gamer myself and have a 360 but it was clear to me from day one that MS and their stuff were an obstacle, not a friend and a service.

I don't know about you all, but struggling to watch a 1080p video on a 10 inch, 1024x600 screen is not exactly a priority, nor it seems to make much sense to me. SD is just fine for netbooks.

I understand Slashdot has lowered its standards, but such a post is embarassing. Twitter wasn't taken down. It was a case of local DNS servers poisoning. Bit of a difference.

Fixed.

Honestly, the 360 is not that bad as a standalone media center. It can play the most common video and audio formats, either locally from disc or USB or streaming from a PC (even Linux-based). Sure, it's not homebrew-friendly, you're basically limited to what you're officially allowed to (hacking on the 360 only went as far playing burned games), but it's not true that it's only meant to be an extension for a Windows-based Media Center PC. Also, there's Netflix if you're willing to pay. All in all, when obtained for free it's not a bad deal for a Media Center (forget Web browsing, of course).

I find the article pretty weak and the connection between politics in games and the expansion of co-op seems non-existent to me. However, the topic is interesting. I was thinking the other day about Rocksteady Studios, the makers of Batman: Arkham Asylum. I don't think I need to explain Batman; what's interesting is that their (only) previous game was Urban Chaos: Riot Response. A game where you control a cop fighting rioting gangs, in the aftermath of a terrorist attack. Maybe I shouldn't read into this, but... a Neo-Con studio perhaps?

Your MSI editing example shows the wrong reasons to drop legacy support: commercial advantages, carelessness or laziness. Instead, the burden of keeping an app compatible with several OS's, and behind held back in terms of features, performance and the like become valid reasons, sooner or later. In other words, dropping Win2K and XPSP3 "just because" seems... just stupid to me. But I'm not sure that's the case. Also, I understand MS make and sell XP, but you don't necessarily need to follow them in their forced upgrade path. We all know XP will still be around on millions of PCs when even its security updates are history. Then again, most of those PCs' users are not likely to keep Firefox extremely up-to-date, are they?

Like everyone else said, you can do all that with a friend, even a male one. You are underestimating the role of sex in shaping human relationships.

If you RTFA in its entirety, the point basically is that marriage is a form of long-term prostitution. Did they really need to study chimpanzees to find that out?

It's nice to see that you're at least learning from experience. You buy a defective by design device, hate its software requirements, official support is unhelpful and incompetent, you lose all your data and... you buy another device from the same company. Anyway, you buy Apple, you know what you get. They're the living definition of walled garden.