It's like Deus Ex -- everytime someone mentions it, you have to go play it again. :)

Excuse me for a moment, I need to go do something...

Actually it's examples like this which make me worry for the future of gaming. I had an argument (online argument, yes I know) with someone who honestly didn't see the problem with always-online DRM, and who tried using the logic "I've never had the urge to play games from 10 years ago, who would?" as an argument for why always-online DRM isn't a bad idea.

I lost the argument mostly because he was a dick who, like a lot of games, is incapable of thinking long term about issues. Which is why I'm hoarding all the good games with suitable cracks while I can.

Seriously, I'm getting fucking tired of companies slagging off at each other, with either aggressive or passive aggressive comments made between various CEOs or VPs or whoever thinks they're important enough to get the spotlight for a few minutes.

Make good stuff that people want. If a competitor is doing something that's risks drawing attention away from your stuff, don't act like children. Just shut the fuck up and present something even better. If you feel you have to acknowledge the competition, do it with some old-fashioned class for goodness sake. This bickering gets old extremely fast.

I've tried LibreOffice 4.0.2.2 (basically the release candidate for the just-release 4.0.2, so it's as recent as you can get) with a .doc file (or possibly .docx file, can't remember the exact extension) that was emailed to her from her Scout group. It screwed up part of the title page and portions of the tables which actually affected the ability to understand the content, and not just some superficial mix-ups. I also tried it on her .docx assignment for her Masters - the spacing was all wrong, and even worse if I resaved the file in LibreOffice without making any modifications.

You simply cannot rely on LibreOffice in the real world when dealing with Office documents. ODFs are perfect of course, but absolutely no-one uses them so it's pointless. Everyone else around here uses Office without complaint, and I'm out of excuses for why we should change if LibreOffice has no advantages.

Likewise (in our organization). I'm just saying that there's always a way.

Even if Windows 8 has to be the target though, there are already a mountain of start menu replacements available to provide the one thing that people complain about most in Windows 8. I have no intention to move from Windows 7 any time soon, but if I HAD to move, I'd know how to and in the least painful way.

Yeah and? Windows 7 will be supported till 2020. That's 7 years you can keep using Microsoft's best OS ever until it becomes officially dead, and by that time either Windows 9 will have fixed the issues of Windows 8, or we'll just slap on a start menu replacement (basically the main issue people have with Win 8) and move on.

Honestly I think Slashdotters are just finding ways to become angry, as if that make their lives worth something. It's not worth the effort.

No, you're wrong. You can't use hyperbole ("broke everything completely") and expect to just be taken as truth.

Well for corporate/business users, not much. Windows XP Pro was the last version of Windows that didn't require activation. As for home users - everyone around me has moved to Windows 7/8 or OS X (not Linux, everyone who's tried it ends up going back to Windows in short order when they find out limited it is for mainstream desktop use) and so XP being unable to be activated is quite irrelevant.

You're wrong. For the last five years my wife is a happy CentOS user. And as non technical as you can get it.

CentOS is a fine workstation distro but a terrible desktop distro. IMHO of course.

Also, my wife is a happy Windows 7 user and although she may have acquired a few skills from what I've taught her, she's hardly a geek and somehow manages to do things just fine. PLUS she can use Office 2010 like everyone else and play the Sims 3. Try that using Linux!

Actually it's stuff like that (you know, the applications) that mean I'll never convert to Linux. I've given up - not going to force my wife, a teacher, to move to an inferior application (LibreOffice, which let's face it is the best of the free alternatives but sadly lacks in many areas) just because I have a hard-on for a fucking operating system.

Very good idea. I've been using the YYYYMMDD format and although it's close to the ISO, I have to admit that the hyphens definitely improve readability while retaining the ability to sort properly, so I think I'll change things now.

Well you clearly aren't supposed to be posting here. This is supposed to be a place for geeks and nerds (or so the slogan goes), but you're just a "user" if a thin client is all you need. Go away scum!

Note: I'm mocking of course (well, somewhat), but it doesn't sound like you have any real interest in computers anymore if you're actually satisfied by thin clients. Servers might be able to do some of the heavy work but there's value in having local resources in front of you as well, at least in my line of work. A geek wouldn't relish giving up all that for a dumb terminal, would they?

Obviously someone cares, otherwise Valve wouldn't be throwing resources at an apparently dead market. Oh, and I care. That's at least one person.

As for the Dell-Alienwar announcement, ArsTechnica covered it. They're ultimately a far better tech site than Slashdot is, but I think Slashdot has a better selection of commenters.

What, you forget Uwe Boll or something?

Fucking cowards

Any particular reason you had to be so dramatic? It's not necessary to make your point. It's fairly straightfoward really: the bad guys always win; it's a fact of life. They have more money and power than good, honest, moral people will ever have, The best you can do is hold them off as much as possible, but eventually, anything that can be locked down, will be. Anything that can be done to ensure people are kept dumb and mindless consumers, will happen. I know this, because it's happening to me too despite being aware of what I'm becoming.

It's very hard to fight against those that want to take away your freedoms, and with all the pressures and problems in normal adult life, most people don't have the luxury to fight all the damn time against such things.