It's been a few days but tbh I feel I should reply to you - you'll probably never see it, unfortunately.

Actually, I chose the AC to reply to because he was the first comment on the submission that came up on screen, and as both a physicist and a 'fag', his post was relevant. I have no problem with religious people who keep their opinions where they belong - themselves, rather than policy, schools, health etc. I do not believe in religion as defined by any current religion, but I am open to the idea of something more (I never once said I was atheist). Yes, a 'nature' could be aware, but not how we as a species define conscious, surely? As I said, I find it ridiculous to think that one day, 'nature' decided to create a disease purely to screw any particular people. That is extreme arrogance to believe that our importance is high enough to justify such a move.

But yes, blah blah, I can't prove beyond any uncertainty that the universe isn't conscious. Happy? But don't pretend it changes the argument. Prove to me it is. Then I'll concede it might have made up a disease. I think it's fair that at this stage, the burden of proof is on you rather than me.

You 'know people like me' do you? From one post of a mere 6 lines or so? Professor pop-psychologist has me all figured out. In real life, away from the keyboard, I'm a wuss, who sits at home every day. Oh, no, wait. I'm in fact a university graduate at a master level in Physics and studying for a PhD, a former Irish Intervarsity champion in karate, a board member of a LGBT rights charity in Belfast as well as a volunteer.

Few minutes of pleasure? Was it good for you, too?

I love how you decided to keep this comment anonymous. 'It's as if' you are scared to actually back up your opinion. Seriously, in the 'playground' version of being a fag, you are the biggest one I've seen.

Gravity - 'It's as if nature doesn't think' humans should fly, but we do (planes).

Fun fact - nature isn't CONSCIOUS. It doesn't really give a crap what you think or do. Nature didn't wake up one day and think 'hey, I think I hate queers today!'. Unless you're religious, then of course why I even waste my breath is beyond me.

Jeez - and here I thought Slashdot to be a haven from this sort of nonsense. Seriously, you and your fellow 'Anonymous Coward's should have your human license revoked.

95% is utter trash of a number. It's just not realistic - do the maths and work out how many people that implies pirated the game...

Meanwhile, services such as OnLive, Steam etc continue to rake in subscribers by offering DRM mechanisms that are inoffensive, and by locking you out of their servers if you are cracked. If you can't even be bothered, Ubisoft, to try to think of an alternative, then take your poor quality game and put it onto an Xbox or PS3. All you do is shrink your market - I mean:

Not releasing a game on PC = Zero sales on PC
Releasing a game on PC and having even 95% piracy = Greater than zero sales on PC

I mean sure, there's a chance that the existence of a free or paid PC version might reduce your console sales a little, but not much. The experience of pirating PC games is generally pretty terrible - one most people avoid after trying a few desperate cracks and them failing or requiring too much effort to get going. Laziness will win, every time.

How about common sense?

I don't suggest it's perfect and doesn't have its own flaws, but at least, when I install an Android app, I get told its permissions and therefore it's my own dumb fault if I let in an app that calls China 5 times a minute.

I'm waiting on a vendor coming up with a firewall program for your phone - think ZoneAlarm, where you are prompted to allow or block when apps request 'outside access'. If only I could, I would do it myself and make... probably pennies :(

The idea of HTML5 and presumably Javascript replacing C, C++, Python, Perl, LUA, BASIC and all the other languages used to code games is ambitious. As is the idea that I will be content with my browser middle-manning all the code - have you seen how slow Firefox and Chrome can be rendering things, even on excellent hardware? Additionally, since many PC games are (unfortunately) console ports, will this mean that my console will just be an oversized browser? Doubtful.

Yes, maybe with time and a huge paradigm shift, this could happen. But frankly, people keep saying that the era of hard-media (discs, carts) games is ending, yet I still see shops like Game, GameStop, etc making a profit. This smacks to me of that. Whilst some MMOs could use this model (mostly crappy free-to-play in-game purchase models) I don't see the guys at Crytek making this swap anytime soon. Maybe in time for HTML8...

Bethesda lawyers doing what they are paid to do - attempt to enforce even trivial violations so that they can show they care for when an ACTUAL infringer comes along.

Copyright is broken.

In all seriousness, I think the future holds great promise for artificial limbs. At the same time we advance robotics for use in construction, industry, and service jobs, this tech translates directly back to "poor boy crippled in car accident by drunk driver can now walk". And that is a good future.

On a lighter note, nice to know that when the AI takes over and the robots march on us, it'll be good to have a few who are 'armed' (hehe) like Will Smith in I, Robot that can save us all :P

Based on you and your mates from round the corner, or what? What mystical tree did you pluck this fact from?

You WERE making a spurious claim ;)

Anyways:

"As for my opinion, what really matters in a discussion like this is how widespread it is. It doesn't take much observation to conclude that people tend to see the iPhone and iOS as outclassing Android. Even nerds don't generally try to claim otherwise. They tend to (reluctantly) cede this point and instead harp on about Android being "open" and how Apple is somehow going to find themselves repeating the Mac vs PC scenario (an assertion with extremely tenuous support)."

I'd love to know which nerds you talk to, perhaps we can see your sample data. Whilst the whole Mac vs PC argument is a silly one, you come across like a fanboy, simply because you make statements of iOS superiority with no backup in fact - that's what's getting a slightly hostile reception in this discussion. Sure, it's an opinion, and so your opinion can be as ungrounded in fact and reality as you want, but don't expect people to agree with it on that basis.

"And it's especially ironic given that Apple's supposedly inferior model has them being the most successful player in at least three different markets, using the exact opposite model to what you think is the best one."

I'd love to hear what these AT LEAST three markets are that Apple are apparently leading. Leading implies to me having the most market share - and the only one they have currently is tablets and possibly MP3 players, though I couldn't find any recent figures to verify this. They DON'T have the lead on smartphones, nor on PCs, or TV. I'm pretty sure that is the sum total of Apple's markets. Have I missed some?

Having recently left RIM (BlackBerry Storm 2) for an Android (Galaxy S 2) I'm 100% happier. The Storm 2 had great potential, but was marred by RIM not innovating with apps and core functionality - it didn't even get an upgrade to BB OS6 despite being only 8 months old. That, I could have lived with, but the worst was they'd been saying all along that it WOULD. Suddenly, nope, it didn't. The advantage of RIM was always in email, and it still does email very well, but not so much better than iPhones and Androids anymore. BBM is equally being made redundant by things like PingChat. Its variety of market apps is poor and ridiculously expensive for mediocre apps. Finally, even when their phone is JUST onto the market, its already so far behind the curve. Processors, displays, memory... they all suck, making the phone a slow, unattractive smartphone for this day and age.

I can't wait for the Max Injunction!