Yeah I have been slightly annoyed by this too. It seemed like the most important thing for them was not to advance java as a language but to kill every occurence of the Sun name on every webpage, splashscreen and hidden property field as fast as possible. I wonder when they will start to rename the package structure of the API.

Huh? Vanilla Eclipse is very solid. It's the bazillion of plugins that the typical developer has installed. Sometimes you get one that is not up to par.

They were in fact (temporarily) disabled just yesterday

I don't think this is true. When I was younger I constantly traded PC Games with my friends. Heck I am still missing my Baldurs Gate 2 disc because I lent it to a friend. Also I think there is this store for the XBox where you can buy games online too and as far as I know its very succesfull too.
I bought many many games in steam because they were on a very tempting sale. My biggest problem with steam is that they make it impossible for me to gift away my games. Steam is at the very border of what kind of DRM I am willing to take. For example I did not buy any Ubisoft game I was interested in since they tacked on their batshit insane DRM and I never will. Steam is a succsess because out of all the digital download services it offers the most useful features and a good mix of games. GOG is great but they are not useful if you want the newest indie title everyone is taking about. Impulse is on the right track too. If they manage to diversify and lower their prices a bit I can see them becoming a serious copetitor to stem

While it would be nice to conclude that Linux / Mac users are just nice people I don't think this is the only possible conclusion. I suspect many Linux users are a bit older (as in old enough to have a job) which leads to them having some money. Whereas your average kid with no money will tiyically have acces to the Family Computer running Windows.

Ok you are right. I agree that digital distribution is killing the second hand market. On the other hand there have been sales in these online stores with prices so low that I guess one would be hard pressed to find their match in the second hand market.

By Test of Time I actually meant Call to Power. Got confused there for a second.

Correct me if I am wrong but I think steam lets you gift your games to other users so what is stoping you from doing that?

Civ IV was the best Civ I ever played (I played a bit of Civ 1 and a lot of Civ II and Test of Time (not from Sid I know)). Periodic Internet connectivity is required for download. After tha you could turn off your Internet connection and keep playing as long as you want. Of course no DRM at all would be better but compared to the alternative soulutions by ubisoft etc steam is vastly more consumer friendly.

I thought I was alone in almost falling out of my chair laughing. But then it dawned to me that some of the guys that decide to buy these things might actually be psyched by this music like the 12 year old boys that they mentally are.

Well to be fair you must aknowledge that trains are paked full and there often are no rental cars available anyomre. And if you wan't to go to some place really far away ground transportation is sub optimal if you could not plan for the additional traveling time up front. Relatives of mine wanted to go on a week long vacation in Egypt. They had to cancel that plan.

I don't think the UN has an active police mission in iraq. It never approved of the use of force in the first place.

Parent is absolutly spot on. Every time something like this happens there will be more angry men planing to hurt these guys that invaded their country sitting untouchable in their tanks and planes or even thousands of miles away controlling drones.
They can't hit them in conventional ways so they respond in the only way they can.
If the only tool you have is a hammer, you will see every problem as a nail. The army should get some new tools.

How the hell can it this be justified by the circumstances. The attitude alone was repulsing. The gunner hoped for the badly wounded guy to crawl near a weapon so he could open up on him. In any case the ease with witch they killed those people is deeply disturbing.

Also how could all four members of those gunships be ok with the decision shoot the van? Even if it was paked full of rpgs witch it was clearly not it would have been no immediate threat to the choppers. They had it in their sight the entire time and even stated that they were evacuating wounded.

Yes he deserves an award alright but it should be a f*** medal. What he did to report from a warzone took way more courage than sitting in an apache and hoping to find some guy that carries something that could pass as a weapon so you can push a button to blow him into pieces.