While patents, on the one hand, provide a measured amount of protection against aggressive and litigious competitors, they are only useful in bulk. This leaves many little guys hamstrung and at the whim of big guys like Motorola and Microsoft. Here we see to goliaths go at each other, and it's interesting because both sides have deep patent portfolios that they can wield against each other. The ultimate solution will be some sort of cross licensing deal, no doubt.

But for the little guy, a company like Microsoft can extinguish in short order due to a limited amount of leverage. Where Moto can respond with a set of infringed patents, the little guy won't have that type of MAD defensive position. As a result, the big guys get bigger, and the little guys get snuffed, and the consumers get screwed.

Patents were meant to foster competition and promote a plethora of ideas. It has not done that at all in the software sphere. Perhaps it is time to rethink the whole software patent system.

I was going to post something similar and risk the troll mods, but I realized the question isn't about why specific immature men find themselves gaming differently. It's about the general trend of the game industry towards networked games rather than simultaneous temporal multiplayer. Someone upthread nailed it in that the reason many game shops are eschewing the co-op gameplay experience is because of the additional fees to be made from multiplayer networking.

Additionally, creating a game that is networked is much simpler and allows much better use of hardware resources than one that must track two or more players at once. More money to be made, and simpler implementation. These are going to win every time.

You would detect it indirectly through observing its effects on objects we can observe.

I am the submitter, I don't think I said anything too far one way or the other.

It's true that /. editors change up the submissions, sometimes beyond recognition, I think the following quote from the summary is essentially the same as my agreement with it.

While you may not be able to run around claiming that String Theory is dead and disproved, evidently there are some adjustments that need to be made.

I agree with the summary, this isn't the defeat of String Theory. It is a chance to refine and improve it.

How can we be sure that the black holes were not created? String theory posits that there exist physical dimensions outside of our 4 dimensional universe, in fact that these are part and parcel of our universe. However, given our tools are all limited to 4 dimensions, it makes sense that there could be phenomena that is unobservable in our universe yet occurring in those other unexperienceable dimensions.

I agree with the summary, this isn't the defeat of String Theory. It is a chance to refine and improve it.

Obviously there would be exceptions to this, but in general most office workers do not need a whole lot of space.

Someone mentioned it above, but a lot of that room used to be taken up by a large CRT. Now with thin panel monitors, that space can be reclaimed. An old 17" CRT could easily take up 24x24 inches of desk space. That's 2 feet the walls can be pulled in resulting in savings of up to 30 square feet (9x9 to 7x7 feet).

When it's just you and your PC, you really don't need a whole lot of space. 7x7 feet seems about right for a comfortable cubicle.

These days many workers don't even have desktop PCs anymore. Everything is done on laptops via wifi. The only static device in the cube is the large monitor which attaches as a second screen to the laptop.

From another perspective, even these cubicles are unnecessary since you could put out a few couches and the employees will work with the laptops from just about anywhere they want. The freedom this provides is important and helps to foster creativity and a lively work atmosphere.

Doors and real offices are certainly necessary for some types of workers. Managers need offices to focus on their planning, so a true office is a must. However, given that a private room can usually be prepared for everyone's usage, the rank and file can usually get their private time taken care of in a shared room.

I'm not surprised by this development at all. It makes a lot of sense to maximize the space, and given how so many employees are versatile and can work from anywhere, it doesn't make sense to waste a lot of room building offices that they can't effectively use.

When he released Fahrenheit 9/11 and Bowling For Columbine, Moore was extremely relevant. Since then his relevance has waned. Without a Republican foil Moore is mostly toothless and impotent.

By dramatically glomming on to the topic du jour, he has found a way to put himself back in the limelight.

Michael Moore finds way to stay relevant

No. I am totally serious.

What's really great about these turrets is that besides being able to fire missiles long range, they can also detect cloaked units up to 7 spaces away. This is especially useful for detecting ghosts and wraiths.

The Juche spirit is indomitable. The capitalist lap dogs of the South cannot hope to win because their people are weak and unwilling to die for their country.

Intent

It turns it into a demo, which could lead to an actual game purchase.

Yes. I interact with Android phones, Blackberry phones, and the iPhone on a daily basis.

WP7 is heads and shoulders above Android in terms of UI quality. It's on par with iPhone, though they take a different tack towards UI design.