You understand that lab made diamonds are chemically identical, and have identical properties, to mined diamonds? And are orders of magnitude cheaper to create. Does that instantly make this viable? No. Does it mean that the fact that diamonds, which are themselves kept artificially priced high by cartels such as De Beers, will be the most cost prohibitive part of improving longevity and speed, and reducing cost in PCM? Seems unlikely to me. But who knows. Don't get caught up on the fact that it's diamond though.

All those kind, honest and benevolent carriers, doing something to unduly distress consumer? Bless my soul, I need a chair, so I might sit a spell til the shock wears off.

Did I miss me somehow defending militant Islamists vs the rest anywhere in my post? Was primarily calling out his entirely bogus false equivalency. Maybe there has been a case of a militant buddhist or two, but I've never seen any. Both both Muslims and Christians have a long and storied history of achieving their ends through violence. The state of Israel is no better either, given the internecine conflict between them and Palestine.

Yes, because the actions of a ruthless military junta to take over a 89% Buddhist country means those 89% are committing the violence. If other countries won't step in to help, how exactly do you overthrow a military regime with non-violence? Remember - they killed THOUSANDS in 1988 when people protested, and then in the first free elections, the junta refused to acknowledge the elections and kept power any way. I bet those non-ruling folks, mostly living in poverty, are incredibly peaceful. And of course, the ASEAN acknowledges that junta rule. So who exactly is to blame for the state of things in the country. Right.. continue blaming it on the Buddhists.

Frankly, yes? Because if you're going to actively vote against the human rights of others, and then try and dodge the title of anti-gay (or anti-black, or anti-woman, or any number of other examples in history) all it makes you is a hypocrite. If OP is so proud of his imaginary friend, one would assume he should be proud to embrace his stance, instead of trying to claim he's not anti-gay. It's hypocrisy, and even worse on a personal level, it's self-delusion.

Hate the sin, love the sinner is such a bullshit sentiment. Using your religion to justify taking away the rights of others doesn't make it right. It's just fatuous self-justification of immoral behavior.

I believe brain washing children is immoral and wrong, but you don't see me passing laws making it illegal for parents to indoctrinate children with their ancient sky-lord myths.

Can't we all just whoosh along?

For game players, anyone who played Dragon Age, one of the kind of funny, but very different from the norm things they did was that I personally was quite fond of: each race had an accent, even if it was very mild, but the best decision they made, is I think they had the first dwarves with VO in the last 30 years that WEREN'T FREAKIN SCOTTISH. Hell, my family is almost entirely scottish immigrant, love the accent, but when did dwarves become scots? I mean, the drinking, yes, but.. sheep, bagpipes and tartans? Don't think so!

In other news, hacktivists state that modern media corporations are the biggest threat to personal liberty and freedom in the last 100 years!

Annnddd... they're not very wrong.

It is idiocy as only someone like Michael Bay can imagine. Take a brand that has endured as long as it has, even if it's never had huge commercial success with the prime time market, and fuck it in the posterior so no new fans like it, and all the old fans want to nerd-rage murder him. This is brilliant.

I'm so angry right now, I'm molting. I would wish an aneurysm on him, but frankly, he's clearly already brain dead.

I think the main point, that you clearly missed, is the huge double standard that appears to go around on journalistic integrity.

Dan Rather - Stepped down after a story, which was true, but had a single letter that was falsified, came to light.

TLA - publicly and loudly retracts, and does a detailed report on what was inaccurate, to set the record straight. Still gets attacked for showing more integrity than any other news outlet has.. well, done in recent history, not sure about ever.

Fox "News" - We never see any stories on Slashdot, or the major networks, about Fox retracting a story, despite the fact that they make up a ton of shit. Daily. They went to court to FIGHT for the right to fabricate, FFS. So how is it relevant? How do you think? Insightful? You're a troll, sir.

It's just as well we don't have major sites, including Slashdot, reporting on every fabrication that Fox puts out. Jesus, we'd never see anything else in our RSS feeds.

Go easy on him.He missed his homeopathic focusin-variant today.

This is purely developer/publisher fault. Perhaps Apple and Google should put more in place to prevent this sort of thing, but the correct, and customer friendly route, to changing something like this, create a new version. Now you have Touch Racing Nitro, and Touch Racing Nitro+. Already bought the first? Awesome. Enjoy and have fun. It's no longer available for sale, but if you bought it, its yours. Play TRN+ for free, and here's all these IAP things, such as paying to remove advertising. If those various pay things are important to you, you have them, if not, you can keep playing for free. This keeps their early supporters happy, with the version they bought, and provides them a better revenue generating version for fans, new and old, that they can probably even afford to update and add new content to. This was just crappy behavior, or poor planning, on the part of TRN team.

And all 10 owners of the Playbook cheered.

Wish I could mod up in the same thread, that language clarification is very helpful. I will remember it in the future, as I think it's an important distinction to make.

This.

I am not particularly fond of Apple as a company. Their strong arm tactics drive me crazy, and the slavish fan base constantly going on about the innovation they supposedly do (with their devices). But...

The true innovation that Apple has done though had nothing to do with their devices, but the platforms they created when they figured out how to handle the iTunes store, the App store, and those annoying walled gardens we all love to love and love to hate. For all the bad, it really has changed how people think about software and media distribution, and opened up opportunities to a lot of people, when the old distribution channels were only open to the chosen few.

Their devices are not innovative, they are just the most polished and accessible devices pretty much available. No wonder they are so love/hate on Slashdot, but the rest of the world loves em. Combined with one of the most effective distribution channels ever made, it's a pretty remarkable combo for consumers.