Blizzard seems to be good at removing DRM with patches when they begin to stop support for it. Looking at Diablo 2 which used to required the CD to be loaded had that removed some time ago. I would like to believe that if the day comes that they stop supporting Diablo 3 that they may release a set of patches that would remove the DRM and allow for offline single player (and hopefully LAN multiplayer).

MrQuacker

softWare3ngineer

It's just a wild guess, but I think he may have been referring to the Army's budget vs NASA's budget.

Sometimes companies allow their profit margin to eat away for a while possibly hoping for costs to come down. At some point, when costs do not come down, we see a sudden spike in pricing. I recently saw a 25% spike in the price of cola products here, they could have raised the price slowly, a couple cents a year, but because of some psychological analysis companies prefer to use certain price points, usually ending in 5 or 9, to sell their products. This can lead to larger than usual spikes; they may also be anticipating not having to raise their prices for a good while afterwards and can therefore justify the slightly higher pricing.
Would it have been different if they only raised it to $14.98? Quite possibly, although that is still nearly a 50% spike in prices.

Currently the record is a person averaging under 7s at the official competitions. I attended one once and saw a guy who averaged around 9s, most people competing (really competing) were around 10-15s, then there was me around 30s (just thought it'd be fun to try). The only girl who showed up to compete got around 2mins.

I can solve a Rubik's cube in less than 30 seconds. How long does it take to pull off the stickers and put them back on?

Nah, I'd just set up a shop inside the city with books like, 1000 Recipes for Dog, or There's More Than One Way to Skin a Cat, Gold Fish Sandwiches and Other Fine Cuisine, etc. I'll also have a corner set aside with different utensils that can be used for these purposes and maybe have weekly workshops to show people the proper way to break the neck on an iguana before preparing the meat for iguana sausage.

Nothings changed, nobody appreciated an actual geek to begin with.

It might be interesting if a cloud floats over the car :-D

There's an article here that talks about it a little bit.
You both say it's not because of lack of demand and the grid can't handle the excess power. Excess power would be power not in demand right? The problem is too much snow melting, meaning too much water, meaning the dam's turbines are spinning too much and creating too much electricity.

This would be lack of demand. Whether it comes from surges due to snow melt off or people using less electricity it is still excess and not in demand.
The article also states that BPA refuses to pay negative prices to have California generators shut down and purchase the excess energy.

Yeah, they could use all that dam power which they have to just waste right now because there isn't enough demand for all the hydro or wind energy that we're creating.

Or people, people are the most useful hacking tool. A lot of hacks are done with no more than either a telephone call or a friendly conversation. We should just ban people, get it over with, lock everyone up and be done with it all.

Might bring a new meaning to Blue Screen of Death.

It is those uncommon uses which gives power to one who wishes to abuse. What may happen is that people get used to nobody doing anything about breaking it, then suddenly they "crack down" on it.
How about a car analogy. Let's say there is a law outlawing making left turns on Thursday.
        Some people object saying it is ridiculous, that there are justifiable reasons to make left turns on Thursday.
        The lawmakers say they only want this law for a particular case where there are certain intersections where there are a lot of accidents that occurred on Thursday involving people making left turns. The law gets passed.
        In the interim it is hardly enforced, nobody gets arrested for making left turns on Thursday. After a few years there is a political activists wanting to hold a protest on Thursday at a particular destination in which have to make a left turn to get to ( I'm not a civil engineer but let's say for some reason there was no way to make a right turn into it ). In order to stifle this movement the mayor orders the police officers to wait at that intersection and to arrest everyone for making a left turn there, thus getting rid of any protest there may have been.
        There is a large danger in having many laws that are obscure or not largely enforced, they can be forgotten by the masses and then used as a legal weapon by those who know the laws and have an agenda.

I know everybody just has those times they wish that they could either just "Acknowledge" that they've read the comment and care, such as a friend getting sick or being dumped or getting into a car crash, or wish that they could state that they do not like a comment, maybe they could introduce a "Wrong" button also.

My test in Taiwan was on a closed course, and during the 45 days of schooling we don't have a driving permit to go out with a licensed driver. I grew up in Washington state and my test there was fairly good.
1) Parallel parking at the DMV (hard to find a dynamic place to parallel park, so it makes sense)
2) Right turn out of DMV
3) Change lanes to the left, go through lighted intersection obeying traffic signals.
4) Change lanes back to the right, right turn into an (forgive my English, been out of states for too long) uncontrolled neighborhood (no stop signs or other traffic stuff)
5) Left and right turns, slowing down while approaching uncontrolled intersections
6) Parking on a hill with/out a curb.
7) Backing around a corner
8) Going back to the DMV
9) Reviewing how you did on the test and where you could improve EVEN if you passed the test

I guess it really depends on where you live. Comparing my two experiences were like night and day. The Washington test had points where each section was a maximum of four and tested you on various aspects such as proper signaling and looking with your head to lane travel and car control. The Taiwan test, in contrast, had 30 point penalties for rolling backwards while starting on a steep hill, or 15 point penalties for hitting a sensor that is on the inside of the white/yellow line while driving forward/backward.

Although I did hear from my instructor that Taiwan was going to be switching to a similar method as they do in the states where they drive in traffic for the test. Needless to say the instructors were non too happy because this means that it would be much harder for them to keep up their 100% pass advertisement while not actually teaching much about driving.