Just curious, was assembly tank game Tank Wars or Scorched Earth?

Everyone swears by Scorched Earth - there's even a Scorched Earth 3D version now, but I always preferred Tank Wars.

I know I shouldn't feed the troll Woosh, etc... Ah, what the heck

Spoken like someone who never had the original one. Even while the thing was in it's heyday (late '80s), it had all kinds of issue starting. After about two-three years of heavy use, they would start with the flashing power light upon inserting a cart. Everyone always assumed it was the cart's fault, because if you took it out and blew on it or tried another one, it would work. Problem was with the female end inside the unit, the jaws would splay open after too many insertions.

That said, I'll give the parent a break — since I never owned a top loader, he may be right. My N64 still works (for now), but my SNES only starts its games about 1 in 10 times recently.

Historically, the list books you check out from a library have been protected. However, with the way the government is thinking about it, it is just metadata, since it isn't the books themselves. At this point, I'd honestly be surprised if they weren't mining that data also.

Remember:
Power Corrupts
Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely
Knowledge is Power

Therefore
Absolute Knowledge Corrupts Absolutely

What a terrible acronym! How are we supposed to say FCXX anyway?

So, I came up with a better one for them:
Federal User Credential Keyfob (for Your Online Utopia)

Dude, he was doing coke on top of his backup CDs - he doesn't sound like the sharpest tool in the shed.

I'm guessing this happened before Flash Gordon's time. Who knew that 40's pulp sci-fi was based on facts?

I have to disagree with you. Free-To-Play is the ultimate DRM. Your game only exists as long as that game cloud is running. As soon as it becomes unprofitable, they'll pull the plug in a heartbeat. Just like that, your game is gone.

From the publisher's point of view, this is the best possible solution. Turn everything into MMORPG, MMORTS, or MMOFPS and start raking in the dough. As soon as v2 comes out, pull the plug on v1. Or better yet, make expansion1 that makes those playing the vanilla version lose every time. I can see more powerful guns in FPS-type games (like the Double-Barrel shotgun in Doom2), more powerful units in RTS games (like Krogoth in Total Annihilation:Core Contingency), and Monty-Haul Loot Drops (TM) in MMORPGs (like Dust of Disappearance in Curse of the Azure Bonds - that stuff rocked!)

Point is - I can still play Curse of the Azure Bonds more than 20 years after it was made. Yes, I still have a floppy drive in my computer, and an emulator is required. The Free-To-Plays will probably last 5, perhaps 15 if they are a runaway success. Future generations may not have access to them. Now where did that Adventurer's Journal run off to, I need to read Entry 37.

Don't forget Nesticle_Love's fast running, arcade stomping big brother, Callus_Love. He loved those Capcom games, back in the day. We should also have some consideration for Callus' cousin, Retrocade_Love. She was easy on the eyes - too bad she stopped running when Windows became an eXPerience instead of a year. She's really let herself go.

Ah - a copy of Lost, I take it. I hope your ending was better than the writer's.

Actually, I think Unreal Tournament (UT99) had an online ranking system (based on a DB) somewhere in the 2000s. Any UT players out there that can confirm this? It was called something like ngWorldStats, but my memory could be wrong.

Not for $250,000, no. Might be worth a Netflix stream, though.

The day I need my phone number in a phone book to look is the day I hang it up.

As for the CC/waitress example - the law (and the CC industry) takes a dim view of waitresses that charge themselves a little something extra with your card.

Here, now. They actually intended those drives to be used in desktop computers. As such, they used a bearing oil that would degrade if it was used longer than 8 hrs a day, likely as a cost saving measure. That was their defense, at least. Shortly after that, they sold their drive division to Hitatchi.