Of all the myths they've 'busted', this is the one I most wanted to see revisited.

Survival kits have signal mirrors with a sighting mechanism and no moving parts that allows the user to shine the sun's reflection directly onto the target (even a distant moving airplane). A mechanism Archimedes could have fashioned onto a shield for instance.

The Mythbusters claim the myth was 'busted' not because enough heat couldn't be generated, but because an individual soldier would be unable to distinguish his particular 'reflected spot', and therefore be unable to focus it onto the target. A simple sighting mechanism like those found on signal mirrors solves this problem, allowing an entire group to focus on one point simultaneously.

I have this exact same problem. I'm 35 years old, and I've been playing Arcade/Console/PC games since the age of 12.

Over the last 3 weeks I've been scouring the web for reviews, spanning back as far as the mid 80's for gems I may have missed. More and more I'm convinced that I've played every game worth playing.

My favorite games throughout my life so far have been:

(the times when I discovered or played them, not necessarily when published)
Age 12-15: The Bard's Tale, Wasteland, Ultima, Pirates!, Might and Magic 2, Dungeon Master, Gold Box AD&D, Castlevania, The Legend of Zelda, Metroid, Punch Out, Super Metroid
Age 16-24: Dune 2, Warcraft, Warcraft II, Tie Fighter, Mechwarrior Vengeance, Counterstrike, TFC, Diablo, Everquest
Age 24-30: Diablo II, Nethack, Moria, Angband, Zangband, Civilization 3, Baldur's Gate II, Age of Empires II, Shadowrun (Sega Genesis), Half-Life, Daggerfall, Fallout 1&2, Far Cry, X-COM UFO Defense, Battlefield 1942, WoW
Age 30-35: Master of Magic, Master of Orion 1&2, KOTOR, GTA Vice City, Jedi Knight Academy, Pirates 2, System Shock 2, Deus Ex, Thief Gold, Fallout 3, Might and Magic VI&VII, Wizardy 8, Titan Quest, Torchlight, Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines, Borderlands, Mount and Blade Warband

There are hundreds of other titles & sequels I've tried which I don't consider worth listing, I'm sure I forgot a few that are.

But I feel like I've seen it all, and that innovation in computer gaming has stopped.

I'd like to believe I'm wrong, and I'm sure there are some great indie titles I would enjoy (Mount and Blade Warband was a wonderful surprise), but it's taking me more time to find a game worth playing than to actually play the game. I don't remember that being a problem before.

I quite ME2 as soon as I learned that squad ammo powers didn't stack, which was the basis upon which I was designing my entire team.

Players shouldn't have to 'google ahead' to 'future proof' their game, the powers description should have clearly spelled out what you can and can't do with them.

Their interface screw-up ruined 15+ hours of game time I had invested over two weeks, so I quit and haven't looked back...or forward to another Bioware game for that matter.

I'm glad to see the results of this poll, Slashdot is still home to real scientists and engineers.

If only we could be as collectively realistic about the limits of modern science and engineering with respect to space travel.

I really do hate this, 90% of politicians are lawyers.

They are an unchecked self-appointing cancer.

They need to fix enchanting, it was fun but poorly balanced. You could find level 0 items, give them 50 enchants for the price of 3 on a unique, and then blaze through the entire game.

Also, the possibility of having your item randomly destroyed while enchanting needs to go. One of my favorite items broke while enchanting it, I was so pissed I googled a cheat mod to fix this 'feature', but the mod was overpowered in other ways so I lost interest and stopped playing.

Overall I really liked TL, I just hope TL2's unique and set items are more powerful than uber enchanted low-level blues.

In an interview in the 2006 documentary Who Killed the Electric Car?, Ovshinsky stated that in the early 1990s, the auto industry created the US Auto Battery Consortium (USABC) to stifle the development of electric vehicle technology by preventing the dissemination of knowledge about Ovshinky's battery-related patents to the public through the California Air Resources Board (CARB).[3]

According to Ovshinsky, the auto industry falsely suggested that NiMH technology was not yet ready for widespread use in road cars.[4] Members of the USABC, including General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler, threatened to take legal action against Ovshinsky if he continued to promote NiMH's potential for use in BEVs, and if he continued to lend test batteries to Solectria, a start-up electric vehicle maker that was not part of the USABC. The Big Three car companies argued that his behavior violated their exclusive rights to the battery technology, because they had matched a federal government grant given to Ovonics to develop NiMH technology. Critics argue that the Big Three were more interested in convincing CARB members that electric vehicles were not technologically and commercially viable.[3]

In 1994, General Motors acquired a controlling interest in Ovonics's battery development and manufacture, including patents controlling the manufacture of large NiMH batteries. The original intent of the equity alliance was to develop NiMH batteries for GM's EV1 BEV. Sales of GM-Ovonics batteries were later taken over by GM manager and critic of CARB John Williams, leading Ovshinsky to wonder whether his decision to sell to GM had been naive.[3] The EV1 program was shut down by GM before the new NiMH battery could be commercialized, despite field tests that indicated the Ovonics battery extended the EV1's range to over 150 miles.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent_encumbrance_of_large_automotive_NiMH_batteries

The 'average' household uses something around 700-1400 kwh a month.
The 'average' electronic vehicle gets about 5 miles to the kwh, and the average vehicle is driven around 10-15k miles a year.
Don't forget that the average household is 2 cars today.

So, you're looking at probably around a 22% increase in electricity usage if people go to EVs. You just can't reduce energy usage that much via other means, especially when you also have 5% growth in population/households on top of it.

1) Upgrade the power grid (Thankyou Obama)
2) Embrace nuclear (Thankyou Obama)
3) Fund Battery and EV R&D (Thankyou Obama)
4) ...
5) All of the issues you listed are addressed (Thankyou Obama)

This is perfectly within our means, provided big oil and auto makers are unsuccessful at stonewalling these initiatives (which they are desperately trying to do through their mostly Republican congress critters). The auto-industry relies on planned obsolesence, which is much more difficult to hide using simple electric engines that can last for decades.

If Eisenhower could get an interstate system built, there is no reason we can't do this.

From another thead on this topic:

The prequels, and especially the replacement of the original trilogy with the "re-mastered" Lucas-edited crap are great examples of how destructive exclusive IP can be to creative works.

"The ultimate single-minded, self-centered creature is a cancer cell."

That is what George Lucas became to his own films. After a great piece of artwork has become culturally accepted, it should be cast in stone, and be preserved as it is.

The franchise is dead. Lucas killed it. Not worth the emotional investment to lament or analyze.

Move on, people.

Not quite that simple.

I want the Original Theatrical Release of Episodes IV, V, and VI in stores, along with a promise from Lucas and his estate that these films will always remain untouched and available alongside any 're-mastered' versions.

I haven't seen it, but I'm glad someone devoted the time to do this.

The prequels, and especially the replacement of the original trilogy with the "re-mastered" Lucas-edited crap are great examples of how destructive exclusive IP can be to creative works.

"The ultimate single-minded, self-centered creature is a cancer cell."

That is what George Lucas became to his own films. After a great piece of artwork has become culturally accepted, it should be cast in stone, and be preserved as it is.

A new study by a team from Rutgers and Columbia has discovered that poorer children are more likely to be given powerful antipsychotic drugs. According to the NY Times (login required), 'children covered by Medicaid are given powerful antipsychotic medicines at a rate four times higher than children whose parents have private insurance. And the Medicaid children are more likely to receive the drugs for less severe conditions than their middle-class counterparts.' It raises the question: 'Do too many children from poor families receive powerful psychiatric drugs not because they actually need them -- but because it is deemed the most efficient and cost-effective way to control problems that may be handled much differently for middle-class children?' Two possible explanations are offered: 'insurance reimbursements, as Medicaid often pays much less for counseling and therapy than private insurers do', and because of 'the challenges that families in poverty may have in consistently attending counseling or therapy sessions, even when such help is available'. The study is due to be published next year in the journal Health Affairs.

Non of the above.

These people are beta-testing the atypical antipsychotics.

Poor people can't litigate. It makes the drug companies look good by 'helping the poor', and gives them lots of people to test their new drugs on. /I've taken these medications //as a class, after 6 months only 30% of people prescribed atypical antipsychotics can remain on them, because the side-effects are so unbearable.

I agree with most of your points.

I just find it strange that a company with such a huge revenue stream needs 12 years to crank out a sequel to their most successful single player fantasy title.

I mean, that's like 20 years in old-media time (books, films, etc). Most film sequels...even the really great ones with attention to detail and care for quality like you mention (Aliens for instance)...take 2-6 years tops. The original star wars trilogy was spaced by about 3 years per sequel. 1 year for the LoTR series. I can see building a new game engine taking time, 2-3 years, but 12?

Diablo I 1996
Diablo II 2000
Diablo III 2012?

It doesn't add up. Maybe you're right about WoW. Perhaps it grew so fast and unexpectedly they couldn't afford to assign talent to other projects until now.

The PC didn't die as a gaming platform, but it's barely hanging on life support these days and the only thing keeping it going is the MMORPG market. Sad.

I worry about this too.

Blizzard keeps pushing back the release dates for Diablo III and Starcraft II. Those titles would really revitalize PC gaming. Blizzard has the resources to bang them out...but they're stalling for some reason.

Maybe some of it is the economy...maybe they're waiting for the market to open up. They're also addressing the piracy problem by forcing players to use Battle.net to play those games...something which involves more infrastructure work on their end...and bandwidth is as expensive as ever.

Then there's another issue.

When you look at the demographics, the majority of potential Diablo III and Starcraft II gamers are already playing WoW. Nobody is going to pay for 2 subscription games at once...Blizzard knows this, so that isn't an option for them. I know plenty of people who would cancel their WoW accounts for 3-6 months to play D3 alone. Blizzard may be worried about shooting themselves in the foot. It hardly serves them to release new games when it causes their customers to cancel their WoW subs. We've seen how stifling WoW's success has been to the MMORPG market, ironically WoW may be stifling Blizzard too.

It seems they have a lot of non-technical problems with very few obvious solutions. It's a bummer.

I'm browsing with SeaMonkey 1.1.17 right now, I prefer they way it handles tabs over firefox.

Hope they didn't change that!