I use Adblock Plus, so I'm not entirely sure I take your point.

And I'll never buy another eBook the first time I see an ad in one. We balance out. Books are about immersion, and having ads will ruin it for me.

No joke. I'd hate to see how long it takes them to release the records of a governor who actually served a full term. And they're saying the volume of requests was a factor? Whether they get 1 request or 1 million, they only have to go through the data once. This is some combination of administrative incompetence and whitewashing the Tea Party's golden gi-- oh wait, even they're sick of her, and they're on the Michelle Bachmann bandwagon now.

Are you trying to say that transparency of government is not an important enough topic to protest?

Perhaps with enough publicity from this case, the "members" of the NAACP will realize that throwing a tantrum is not useful activism. Unfortunately, it's more likely that the various police involved will be targeted next, along with their supporters, families, and barbers.

There are legitimate reasons to transport savegames from console to console, but not to specifically hack the savegame file on your PC first in such a way that the achievements for that savegame can be transferred from one gamer tag to another. That's what they're checking for.

Here are a pair of tweets from Stephen Toulouse, the head of Microsoft's Xbox Policy and Enforcement Division.

"@Shaddz We confirmed there were cheated achievements and gave the parent the details. This wasnt a "he played too good" situation at all."

"@Shaddz I confirmed that achievements were illegitimately modified on the account and contacted the customer directly w/ specifics"

From user zzzaap: "@Stepto ppl seem to think XBL banned that autistic boy on the basis XBL knew he was autistic.I know u said he did cheat but comment on this"

The reply: "@zzzaap We had no idea. I won't be providing any more detail, the only person who gets the proof is the mom. :>"

Cheating is cheating. If being so labeled has a strong emotional impact, then perhaps someone will learn a valuable lesson.

Mom has the greatest motivation to lie of any of them. Her child has a terrible handicap that must be so painful to see as a parent, and she wants desperately to tell herself that there's a silver lining in that he's a gaming savant. If she has to admit to herself that her son is just a cheater, his status as a special snowflake is gone.

You make two false assumptions that invalidate your premise:

• Microsoft's cheat detection is entirely qualitative— based on assumptions, gut feelings, and "I think the kid's cheating," rather than having any quantitative technical component, such as detecting that he downloaded gamesaves to inflate his achievements.
• That the child's autism changes anything at all, and that because he is autistic, he must also be a savant.

Yes, his undeniable skill at video gaming and the sheer force of his savantism reached out to his Xbox's hard drive and altered checksums in such a way that his account would be flagged as having cheated. You think Microsoft's anti-cheat enforcement is entirely qualitative? They were able to ban one of my consoles for having modified firmware even though I never took it on Live, downloaded DLC, &c. You think they can't spot someone artificially inflating their Gamerscore?

Take a second, breathe deeply, be intellectually honest with yourself, and apply Occam's Razor. What's more likely: that Microsoft is engaging in an unfair and oppressive campaign against gaming savants (never mind that that's not how autism actually works) at the highest levels of their company, or that an 11 year old cheated at a video game? I find it actually more offensive that everyone's first reaction to this story is that the kid is being oppressed for having autism, which must clearly make him an unstoppable video game ninja, and that we should all be so lucky as to be autistic too.

It's worse than that. Even before Fergie, they had Kim Hill. The band has been a quartet for at least 15 years, including basically all of the creative output they're known for by the general public. Fergie's been in BEP for 9 years now. It's not like this is a recent development.

The vast majority of 360 hacks are firmware hacks. It's essentially a change to the dvd drive firmware to tell it not to check if the disc is signed or not.

LCD latency is indeed a problem these days if you're a gamer. They're just now coming out with decent gaming LCDs, and they still cost about 350USD. The problem isn't just response time, it's also a matter of input delay. If you're a gamer the ideal rig is --still-- a corded optical mouse, a CRT, and an ethernet LAN connection. There are finally wireless mice that are good for gaming (Logitech G700, Razer Mamba) but they're in the 100+ USD range. Even then, for some people, they're simply not worth it. Mouse weight is a very personal thing, and even in these higher end mice the battery still makes the unit too heavy for comfortable use. I can't see a ton of gamers lining up for this right now, but it's a cool development that'll be useful (maybe) in 10 years.

a device you own

What a trite, 20th century concept. Devices are no longer owned. They are leased from the manufacturer for the life of the product, and subject to you following their Terms of Use. Things got a lot easier after they coopted their EULA into the legal system. Welcome to the new world order.