True enough. Also, doesn't Google frown on that sort of thing? Give it a little publicity and one of Google's engineers might just decide to get medieval on their portly rotund segments.

Heh.. did everyone have such high expectations of it then? We played AvP2 over our LAN quite a bit, for the simple fun of running over walls and dropping on unsuspecting marines. There was also an Survivor variant where you all start as marines and have to shoot each other, then after that you have to team up since everyone who dies becomes a (conistently respawning) alien. Sitting in the end of a box tunnel with aliens running towards you in dim lighting and ever-increasing numbers with the radar's beep-beep really sets an atmosphere. Longest survivor wins :P

But, indeed, the alien and pred single player campaigns were trash. It was only ever fun in multiplayer / online. I don't expect it to get an 8/1- rating or higher, 6/10 is fine by me as long as they don't screw it up. I know what I'm getting.

You know, that's a VERY strong point. I've been planning the same thing. We currently manage several server farms in Europe, so it would be ideal to live in N-Z and manage them remotely - work hours there are nighttime here, so server management doesn't bug users - but I'm not going to move down there if there's a chance some employee fucknut decides to download a few seasons of House and snowballs our internet connection. This is NOT a good idea for their economy.

Translation of the poll into actual english:

"Where do I live?"

Many people never leave the continent they live on, so the answer is hardly likely to be different. I know the polls are hardly scientific but this is just plain silly.

By all means, let's get writing, mailing, whatever. Set up a petition, a FB group and spam our MP's silly. I'm just a little vague on who to reach. Anyone with experience got some contact info for the various member states (EU, Canada, NZ, etc etc)?

My mom switched to Mac. Result: I only have to really do something semi-serious (i.e. more than 30 mins work) once every 2 years. My (mentally handicapped!) brother uses a Mac. Aside from an occasional correction of his mail settings via ARD Admin I'm hassle-free.

My brother and his g/f still use Windows. I just spent four f***ing days reinstalling Windows XP because Vista figured Autocad was either already installed, couldn't be installed, or shouldn't be installed. I told them it was the last time and I would only support them if they bought Macs. Microsoft is a group of clueless arrogant monopolists as far as I'm concerned. Apple is also arrogant but at least they make something decent. Vista scared me into fits and out of family tech support for life unless they pay me $ 75,- an hour. That got their attention, I can tell you. After some "but what will we do then?" comments of disbelief I explained my motivations to them and told them the truth: Windows is a bloated platform with no vision designed by a company that is run more by lawyers than by true genius and I've given up on them completely. Sorry if this is a bit rantish (I suppose it is a rant) but I really want to underline it for you in simple terms: M$ is your problem.

I think Apple has several ups over Windows:
- it's designed to be learned by playing with it
- it gets out of your way instead of in your face
- it has a much, much, much clearer structure; people can find the things / settings they need more easily, and with less actions. Try setting up a dual monitor and occasionally attaching e.g. a beamer. It only costs 1 or 2 clicks after the 5 whole clicks you need to configure it the first time around. Try doing that in Windows and you're at least 20 clicks farther, and of course something or other b0rks along the way every f***ing time
- supporting it remotely is pretty much hassle-free aside from opening a port here and there (or else you could use something like Teamviewer)
- if you ever DO need to reinstall, the migration assistant will keep your settings whole, and you can drag/drop the software from the old installation; it's MUCH easier than reinstalling everything from scratch.

If you're in doubt, download it and stuff it into a VM and play with it. See how long it takes you to get mail etc set up. Now don't get me wrong - no OS is perfect, and OSX has its idiosyncrasies like any other - but it has a lot less of them, and any issues are usually fairly well documented. Just stay away from newest releases until the 10.x.1 update is out, at the least, and you will do fine.

Heh. Nice. But the problem is as old as humanity itself: forbidding is one thing, preventing is quite another. I agree, jailtime is the only way to go for a recidivist like that. And he's just abusing international law and such: just because you go bust in one country doesn't mean you can't have $500m tucked away in another. Until treaties are formed which address these problems - and thankfully, tax havens have come under heavy fire of late - this type of crap is just going to continue.

What I don't get is why a joker like that - who is obviously intelligent - doesn't just find a legal way to get rich. It can't be that hard.

Why, is Google asking that because they're running out of addressable memory space again?

Julian May's Pliocene Exile series is absolutely brilliant as well (and entertaining). Near LOTR in its own way.

I don't follow that. What do the gorilla's - or other large species - have to do with it, except that there's likely to be more other creatures around for them to eat as the bug explosion reverbrates down the food chain?

Won't take that long. Since it's an alien invader, look at the control mechanisms at place in its homeland and go from there. You could probably even transplant a foreign bug's "eat that plant" gene(s) to a local bug to give that one the desire to nibble the foreign plant. Or maybe use a fungus, I don't know. Just ensure that whatever is added can be used by the rest of the food chain. Yes, it might cost millions, but then, so do 1000 people chopping plants up all day.

The trick is to get the current - probably very strong - strain mixed with weaker ones, so that for the short term at least, it's weakened enough that the bugs can get a grip. After that, evolution will indeed kick in and the best plant or bug will win. The trick is to give that first generation an extra boost.

I think they're barking up the wrong tree; controlling the weed seems like an expensive pasttime. Instead, I'd combat it genetically:
- start building up cultures of the weed, test the characteristics of different strains (go for ones that are more susceptible to infections, aphids, lower burn temperatures, less serrated edges, etc), breed these together, and create a weaker strain; distribute that across infested regions to weaken the weed.
- start building up cultures of creatures that can (potentially) see the weed as a source of dinner, breed these to make them more voracious, and ultimately spread them at the same time that the weakened next generation of the weed from step 1 takes hold. This should ensure a successful startup of the weed killer.

This way you can change it from a curse into a blessing for the bugs, and from there on for many sections of the food chain. Bugs are the plankton of the land. You might even be able to apply such evolutionary abuse to many different scenario's: bullfrogs in australia, or the heaping of plastic particles in the Pacific by breeding plankton, for example. An this way, you're following a perfectly natural course; you're just helping it along a little by speeding the implementation of a counterbalance.

Not really. Such projects should be gov-supported, only opener, although I guess with international teams all over the place now, that counts as progress in international terms. But going back to the moon just for the moon's sake, come on, we've got other fish to fry. One of the things that pisses me off is that there's no central organisation specifically aimed at hunting and tracking down incoming asteroids. There's still too many "oops, didn't see that one coming!" cases, and sooner or later the near-miss (who thought up that word - that should be near-hit!) will not miss. Also we need to start sending probes to neighboring systems asap, nevermind that it'll take decades if not longer. Earth is a Single Point of Failure for the human race.

Yup, I think I do, yesss preciousss. Filthy nasssty antiprivacccccy dataminersessss! OUR precioussss!