It's the new LEGO. Hundreds of blocks that you can assemble any way that you want with no instructions.

Acid Rain was moderated with a cap and trade, not avoided. Anyone with a swimming pool in the northeast will tell you they have to correct the ph of their pool every time it rains.

My son runs GW2 on opensuse 12.1. He has a phenom 9100 processor and a geforce 220 graphics card. He uses the latest wine and Nvidia's proprietary driver. He says a few large scenes "lag a little bit" but it doesn't stop him from playing every day. YMMV

As soon as they hack them to enable playing call of duty all learning will stop.;

We're just smarter than you.

I use a decentralized social networking tool called email

It lets me send out a message -- with pictures and all!-- to a bunch of friends. And they can all see it and comment on it and share it with other friends. Pretty cool, huh?

Still consuming 140-150 watts at peak load vs intel's ~90. Good to see the graphics numbers coming up though.

The reason I highlight power is that the integrated graphics power could be a huge advantage in a low-end laptop. As long as it doesn't kill battery life.

I mean... really? My impression is that all modern distos are pretty much a snap to install and maintain.

Buggs Bunny proved this years ago.

"You keep out of this. He doesn't have to shoot you now!"

Could someone explain why the eastern district of Texas is friendlier than the rest of the country to these kinds of suits? Are jurors dumber there? Is is more difficult to mount a defense there?

Why don't authors, or publishers, just sell the ebooks directly to consumers? Why even bother going through distributors for something with essentially 0 distribution cost?

Like all of them?

Here's A Dance with Dragons, the first book that came to my mind, from Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Dance-Dragons-Song-Fire-Book/dp/0553801473

The ebook is $14.99, but you can find the hardcover in the amazon marketplace new from $14.36, and the paperback is just $9.99

This will certainly wreck Apple's 30% profit margin ecosystem. The whole publishing ecosystem I'm less certain about.

But honestly, what is attractive about windows 8? I admit, I have never used it. But to me it looks god-awful. Just terrible. A completely disorganized mish-mash of ugly tiles. I look at it and can't see how it's supposed to work.

The reviews RAVE about it, but it still looks terrible to me, and none of the reviewers have ever managed to explain what exactly is so good about it.

Can somebody take a stab at telling me just what the appeal is?

Why exactly are we talking about uranium instead of thorium again?