Actually, to take it a step further, it might be less stupid than mouse gestures. Sure, the implementation's not trivial, but once it works *snicker* it would be easier than fiddling with your mouse to get stuff done.

All things considered, I prefer "S" in that position, not Ctrl. Well, actually it's logically an "o" - but I acknowledge that the Dvorak layout is still pretty uncommon.

*pointedly ignores "noone."*

You just became *MY* favorite mod author of all time.

[Citation Needed]

Many games are available through Steam online, but if you purchase them physically in the store, there's no connection to Steam. Examples: Spore, Far Cry 2, Prey, just-about-anything-that-isn't-Valve-made. Purchasing those games in the store doesn't tie them to your Steam account even though you could have purchased them via Steam and had them tied. (But for Valve titles, it is as you say - the physical games require a Steam account and tie in to the system.)

Having worked at a music store (chain, not a mom-n-pop), I most certainly would have minded if any artist (whether I recognized the artist or not) tried to walk out without paying. If they could take the nebulous "music" without denying us the physical property (the CD) that we had to inventory, track, and account for - then yes. But since you can't (at this time in 99% or more of cases) take music from a music store without also taking the physical media, you also cannot take the music for free. No matter who you are.

They could still continue the series in the (ambiguously long) chunk of time between the end of the series and the movie. But yes, much of the mystery of the show is revealed in the movie so there would be less material to work with than if the movie hadn't been made.

I work in software development for the Navy. We use Symantec. Or is your point that the Norton brand name is for "personal" use and the Symantec brand is applied to the "corporate" products?

An MP3 is essentially an audio file run through and FFT with the coefficients stored. Sound familiar? It's very similar to JPG, but optimized to throw away stuff our ear won't hear instead of throwing away stuff our eye won't see.

Isn't this the internet? What's innocent?

I haven't played EaW or TFU so I have no comment. JK2 was a pale shadow of Jedi Knight (but still a good game). KotOR is already (in my book, at least) a classic, so I'll definitely agree with you there. But there was once a time when I would buy a game I had never heard of just because it had the LucasArts logo on the box. All of their games were sure-fire quality titles. That time has long passed. In the case of KotOR and JK2 at least, the talent wasn't contained within LucasArts anyway. They just licensed their intellectual property to another development house and published someone else's game. I miss the days when their development was in-house. But I'm crazy, I also miss the days when they developed adventures.

Anybody play Prey? "Death" was a mechanic used to get more ammo. That's a really good way to cheapen what's supposed to be a rather major mechanic of gameplay. In my opinion, Half-Life 2 got the perfect balance. *VERY* frequent auto-saves (and it keeps 2 of them) with the capability to quick save anywhere you want. Obviously things are different for a console game, but I feel that Half-Life 2 hit the sweet spot where you wanted to avoid death, but weren't frustrated by it.

LucasArts would never allow their IP to be distributed. They won't allow their stuff to be considered abandonware and will actively ensure that even their oldest games don't get redistributed freely. Sad but true, some of their old classics (as if they're making NEW classics. They aren't) are all but completely unavailable these days. Regardless, Freespace is better than any of the X-Wing games, and Freespace 2 is better than Freespace. However, XWA *was* a solidly good game. A nice throwback to the single-player goodness of TIE Fighter.