I wanted to agree with that workout for your brain comment but in a different context: A few years ago I was participating in "National Novel Writing Month". Normally I don't try to be creative at all (successfully utilizing Linux in a lengthy project not withstanding) but for the 30 days of November I wrote for four hours a day creatively for the whole month (the goal is 50k words in 30 days. I finished in about 27). About two weeks in I started having some really weird/messed up dreams.

I was thinking about this recently and it occurred to me that if my leg or arm muscles have a burning sensation after a work out at the gym or running seven miles it makes just as much sense for the equivalent to happen to this grossly under-utilized region of my brain. Exercising of this "muscle" that doesn't normally get any exercise should result in some equivalent sensation as a result. I mean it makes sense.

This story also made me wonder about this affect int he context of a good, stimulating TV show like the little-known Damages. I've always thought of it as pretty much as close to a "visual novel" as you'll ever see. It wouldn't surprise me if the same study was done to somebody who just watched a season of Damages straight through with no ads showed the same sort of brain activity as those that just finished a book.

Sounds like a Portlandia Skit.

I believe you can disable the mic/video camera thing. And even if for some strange reason you can't disable it with a physical switch and/or software option...you can always do what I do and hook the console/tv/etc up to a power strip (or UPS whatever) and power it all off when it's not in use. Saves on power bills too.

Not to be a downer but I bought a PS3 along with some games and media remote around mid-2012. I was planning to use it for blu-rays and playing netflix but it hasn't turned out that well. It came with Uncharted 3 and I bought a combo pack of 1 and 2. I was going to play the three of them in order to really get the full effect but I never finished the first one. Once I realized I could do comcast on demand as well as netflix on the 360 I bought one of those. Since then the PS3 has been collecting dust.

Right after purchase I did start a thread in my favorite discussion forum with something to the effect of "I bought a PS3 now what?". Ended up with 10+ pages of discussion around what could be done with the thing. Turns out not a lot. I was amazon trying to figure out what games would be good to get for it but all the top 10s I saw were mostly HD remakes of PS2 games.

Maybe I didn't give enough of a chance. And I really wish that comcast thing had come to it so I didn't need a 360 (less than a year old and the [new] 360 is already freezing up on me...haven't even used it for games even once!).

I would at least like to get The Last of Us though I doubt even if it lived up to the hype it would rationalize the cost of the console. At least if I wanted to play a blu-ray some day I'll be able to...

I will say it found and played all themedia on my WHS instantly with no issues.

Well I hadn't really intended to go all philosophical with it. I was just trying to say I don't get the appeal of owning the latest hot game on the day it's released. I know people well into their thirties who still pre-order all the latest games and stand in line at the game stop to get it day one. That's what I don't get. The point of that. Maybe the mutli-player of the various Call of Duties etc drops over time so you have to get it day one to have the most fun via the largest pool of other players. Also with playing with friends. That's the only reason I can think of.

Personally I don't mind waiting anywhere between two months and 3 years to get a game. The bugs and glitches have to be worked out anyway. Could have said the same for skyrim (I remember the PS3 version at launch wouldn't even play at all). In 18 months will anyone remember the initial problems plaguing the BF4 launch? Will anyone care? Will it be any less fun knowing the there were launch difficulties?

I realized i'm talking to the "the source becomes the documentation" (yes, that was an actual slashdot comment) crowd here but it seems like if you wanted to play a computer game enough you bought it at launch for the benefit of having fun and it's really this much time and effort at some point you have to see some diminishing returns on this. I mean more time and effort trying get it and get it to work than it's worth. Keeping in mind I've only purchased one game pre-launch in the past ten years (Skyrim) so maybe I just "don't get it" but seriously... screw EA and their stupid game roll out schedule/DRM. Play something else. The new Rise of the Triad looks cool...
Seems clear EA doesn't really want your money...

I'm not sure which part you're referring to. To be more specific I live in Placerville. It's up hi-way 50 about 40 miles (I only say that because we're sometimes confused with grass valley, of which I cannot speak). Ten more miles up the freeway in Camino there's fast cable internet as well. And that's some pretty non-existent population density right there. No idea how it ended up this area has such great HD TV/fast internet. It's not a rich/upper class area either. In fact if not for el dorado hills el dorado county would be one of the lower average income counties in the state...

If you're referring to multitude of broadband provides sacramento seems to have I'm not sure why that is exactly. I know there cable, dsl, line-of-site microwave, the previously mentioned fiber and at one point there was very limited availability on some kind of 4G for the home service which I don't know if it still exists or not. As I said i don't know why this multitude of choices happened to sprout up in sacramento and not in other cities/regions. Of course in most areas of sacramento as far as I know it's really just the the DSL/Cable choices and I assume as every place else the cable co has dominance in market share anyway. But at least if you're not happy with the service you have some legitimate threats when expressing dissatisfaction.

I would like to agree with this. I live a relatively small town about 40 miles outside of Sacramento, California. Very low population density. For some reason cable internet runs around 35Mbps consistently and we have a ton of cable channels all in HD (internet only comes to around $50/month.). I have no idea how it's possible to maintain all that infrastructure given the miles of cabling to subscriber ratio. I mean granted the alternative is DSL that's less that 5Mpbs...or dial-up...but it still seems some how ridiculous this town has what it has given the population (and for TV there's always satellite). I would also mention the internet does not ever go down and when it does it's usually back up pretty quickly (we have the occasional big snow or wind storm knocking out lines). I believe there are places in silicon valley with few options.

I'm not trying to defend the local cable monopoly I'm just saying it seems affordable and in some places it is in fact delivered reliably/affordably/at acceptable speeds.

And may I add in my experience there seems to be absolutely zero demand for gigabit speeds. I'm a power user and I barely utilze the whole 35Mpbs. I think until there's a demand for even 10Mbps+ speeds the speed is most likely not going to change (and if people are moving to 3G/4G networks on tablets/phones anyway there's the demand for fiber-in-the-ground will be that much lower. Presumably.).

As a side note their are about 5 different ways to get broadband in Sacramento, at least of them being fiber.

Not that i know where heathen was coming from specifically or anything but technically he didn't mention an open/closed/any form of specific driver, just that the installer didn't like his card for some reason. Could have an X thing or some unrelated issue that just made it seem as though the card was the culprit. And for the record, regardless of real reason, installer crashing is a valid reason for abandoning an install of something imho...

I don't know if I qualify as a cord cutter: cable internet is cheaper if you get it bundled with TV service where I am so I got the bare minimum tv service with internet. My cable box (can't get TV without their box) hasn't even been connected is nearly a year (set it up in case visitors were insistent). I calculated out the tv portion to be about $10 / month.

I use my xbox for comcast video on demand service which thanks to a recent update now provides an HD option. So to me comcast on demand is just another streaming service for the the channels I pay for (boradcast+cspan) as well as the channels I don't (almost all the basic cable ones like BBCA and comedy central) as well as HD quality which I also didn't sign up for/pay for.

So I guess I'm the one really being subsidized.

Uhh compromised? Not one single republican voted for it. Who compromised and who were they compromising with? That doesn't make sense. 100% of one party passed the the bill but it was a "compromise". Wow. You're too smart for me.

Also, Democrats were elected to a super majority, and now Republicans have the house. But they weren't voted in. Doesn't count unless it was for a Democrat I guess.

This is the reason I'm kind of interested in this: I have I think ~180 steam games, very few of which run on linux natively. Hypothetically I could take my really low end laptop I bought in 2010 for $300, connect it to my TV via HDMI and play all that whole library of games (with valves new super-special gamepad) via the stream-over-network feature. Based on the promo materials/FAQs I've read I've been lead to believe this is an achievable scenario. So silent low end laptop in gaming room, noisy high end gaming PC is different room. Sounds good to me...?

If I bought a PS4 or Xbone I would have to start over buying new games/rebuild the frineds list (I assume). With SteamOS, again making assumptions, I've got my whole existing library that won't be obsoleted witch each iteration. Does that answer the question?

Here are some links/more info:
http://store.steampowered.com/livingroom/SteamController/
http://store.steampowered.com/livingroom/SteamOS
http://store.steampowered.com/livingroom/SteamMachines/