I'm sure there's an American equivalent to what we have in Australia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fringe_Benefits_Tax_(Australia)

I'm not sure about spoil, but definitely leave a bad impression. I started playing Heroes of Newerth without any DotA experience, and I can say the learning curve was STEEP, and people definitely hurled a lot of abuse at me (well, I was "letting the team down" and in hindsight, ruined a lot of games (they're normally 5 people vs 5, so one person learning is a huge disadvantage). That said, after I learnt how to play; and my stats got lower (which reflected the fact I was bad, the game became a lot more enjoyable. What they really need is a tutorial (which they have now implemented) and (forced) beginner games to classify people, and make sure they play with people their own skill level. After it's all said and done, it's a fantastic game -- and I highly recommend everyone give it a try. (And it runs great in Linux, which was the thing that got me hooked and preorder)

Or they could just restore it back to what it was..

Paranoid much?

Not sure why you need a fake SSH server (and how long could it take, anyway?) but I've seen what they do. First command was a uname -a, second command was to wget some binary. You can guess the third command

Ha. I got this (annoying) piece of crap on a reasonably fresh install of Windows (XP). The install was up to date, and barely used other than a few games (I use Fedora primarily). The thing I attributed it to was the fact the Windows install I got was from thepiratebay. After reinstalling with an MSDN install I haven't had the issue again (Which raises the question of why I didn't just download the msdn copy originally)

You're joking, right? The theory behind an aimbot is pretty much as simple as it gets. And it's not like you have to kill every person on the map, you could easily use the aimbot to achieve "snapping" to the target or what not.

While I'm sure you've proved something, it has nothing to do with this. If the task isn't suitable for a bot, don't do it with a bot. You'll notice I also qualified it with a statement "as long as a computer is better at the task" part. Things like social element and group work is going to be too difficult.

It's a silly point, as it's all down to implementation of the bot. The bot doesn't need to do more than just assist you to be a huge advantage.

One such bot that comes to mind is: tibiabot It only uses data accessible to a person, and only does actions a person could do. And it primarily sits on the background until needed. An example of its use is to automatically hit someone when they're on low health (before they have time to heal) or to automatically heal (with an optional rand(x,y)) delay on low health. Or you can use "combo" features where multiple people playing will all target the same person automatically etc. And even to automatically heal a friend, something that would normally go missed because a player is too focused on something else. It can make a beginner player far more effective player than an advanced player in battles. And is all done without extra data.

Not even close. As long as computers are better at tasks than humans, the issue remains.

i.e. Think about an aim-bot. A computer is going to be more accurate and faster than a person with the same data. And even if you do the whole streaming-game thing, bot likely will still exist, that process the stream and emulate user actions far quicker than a human could

And I doubt an impeller is the solution anyway, I was water skiing behind a jet ski and after falling in he did a loop right over the toe rope which got sucked into and jammed the impeller.

Why do you suppose these customers are using a credit card? All my credit cards directly debit my bank account (the full amount) at the end of the month, give me rewards for using it (from the merchant fees), give me interest free purchases (till the end of month), and it's more convenient than carrying around cash. And if at any stage I'm unhappy with it, I'm free to walk away.

And the points about lock-in, unpredictable billing, surcharges and captive market are all crap. Sounds just like more whining by someone who doesn't want to take responsibility for money they've agreed to borrow.

My experiences are:

• My old desktop. Pulse was unusable (I've since got rid of it, and haven't tried later versions of pulseaudio). The two killers were periodic whisper quiet sound and stupidly massive latency (and by stupid, I literally mean like ~4 seconds. I'd get an alert about a new IM message, and realize it's about the message that I opened a few seconds ago and have read, and since closed) I can't imagine trying to play games. Even just hitting the "Play" on a music player was annoying.
• Laptop. No complaints, worked like any other sound system.
• Current Desktop: Annoying, but bearable. When more than one application is playing, it plays to different physical headphone jack (my computer has 3). If I'm listening to some music, and open a video (flash or what not). I then have to unplug my headphones and put it in the different jack to get the sound for that. Each application is getting its own jack.

So yeah, it's nice that per-application volume adjustment works for you but I'd hate to think of how long people (including myself) have spent screwing around with pulse audio when freeBSD is still offering a better sound experience.

As a biker, I'm going to agree with the GP on this. I think there are a number of factors: a) On a bike you tend to stay much more alert and aware of other vehicles. b) The average skill of a biker is higher than a car driver. c) You're only 3 feet wide. It sure makes dodging easier.

I've been in a similar situation, I was going down the road at 40 miles/hour, and a car pulls out of a side street into my lane, stops. Leaving it completely blocked. The only thing I could do, was go into the oncoming lane to get around the car. Fortunately the oncoming lane had moved over just enough that I missed them. I miraculously made it through with only inches on either side. Had it been a car? I would've ploughed into the idiots driver side door (and probably killing her). Or maybe my reflexes would've caused me to try dodge the car, and have had a head-on collision.

Yes I'm aware these are just two datapoints, but perhaps you could quit with the jerk statements:

Just tried it. It only makes /their/ session private, but still shows your history to them.

I just launch Arora (a webkit browser that I never use) and let them go nuts

Ugh? I suppose if I connected the bottom of a tank, to the top of itself -- it'd explode (from infinite pressure?).

(What ever pressure you gain from going down, you'll lose by going back up (with your connecting tube)

I do not have NoScript, have javascript enabled and also am using FlashBlock. The only thing that gets blocked for me is the 3D model. Everything else is just javascript / html. FWIW I'm using Fedora 12 / Firefox 3.5