Since when is collecting samples and cataloging them not hard science? Not particularly difficult, but most definitely hard science.

Agile development is the fastest way to organically grow your shitstorm.

What corporate?

I first learned about statistics from reading an article in Dragon magazine about doing a Chi-squared test to determine which of your dice rolls more favorably for you. I learned probability from playing D&D. Like it or not, the two are inexorably tied, and for some of us, that's part of the fun.

I'd like to play Pathfinder adventures with 5e rules. Pathfinder has too many rules.

I really hated the paperwork involved with gaining a level in 3e & 3.5e. 3e was worse, though. What skills do you want to raise? Does that skill have any other skills that it synergizes with? Is the synergy active at this skill level? If so, do you want to spend less on that skill and more on another that doesn't have a synergy yet? Bah. I'm not interested in games that are as complicated as the tax code for no good reason. All the rules just slowed everything down. They added nothing to the gameplay. Nothing that couldn't be added by having a player make a DC modified by their class and level, that is.

IMO 5e is better than 0e, 1e, 2e, 3e, 3.5e, and 4e. It's a culmination of the best elements of all these editions, with none of the crap. It's a svelte paragon of the D&D genre that puts the gameplay back into the rolling of dice to determine success, without the irritating paperwork involved in 2e-3.5e. Most of 4e was pitched :)

Locked BIOS.

Oh but you know they're chomping at the bit to. Ever since they introduced their app store for OS X a few years back...

It's not their fault. It's duck.com's ISP that's causing the problem.

Not if you're reading comic books. 9:16 is perfect for that.

No doubt that gold plated connectors don't oxidize, but does the oxidation cause real issues with sound quality, in any meaningful measurement? How much oxidation would be required before a noticable degradation in signal would occur?

My experience with NewEgg has been impeccable as far as support goes. Try again.

A quick glance over at Newegg would throw into question your statement that "most intel/amd sound chips don't support high range, 5.1 or 7.1 surround". Supporting 5.1 & 7.1 surround are de rigeur on even the low end motherboards that are available. As far as "high range", if you don't define it, I guess we don't know if they support it.

I had a sound driver that could play digitized audio over my case buzzer. Worked OK on my laptop.