Yes, tax payers cover the costs. And they are significant. New Jersey (where the superbowl isn't even happening) is spending something like $20m just to accommodate extra transportation for the super bowl. Nobody will give exact numbers, so they all just say that the revenue brought in from visitors during the super bowl should offset the cost to the taxpayers. I'm not sure how that works, since if *I* pay *my* taxes and *my* taxes cover the cost of the super bowl transportation, security, amenities, and so on and then some diner and hotel downtown rakes in money from the extra business... how that benefits me or compensates me as a tax-payer.

And the 100,000+ at the event will gladly accept it, because "better safe than sorry" and "you gotta give up a little freedom and convenience for security durp durp".

Even if that were true... all these resources to protect so many of the most disposable.

Oh, so Chive? Or Newsvine? Or Digg?

Admittedly, all the current news aggregators are shit, but I don't see anyone revolutionizing them in the near future and we don't need more mediocre ones in the meantime.

They don't want anyone to benefit from anything in their Bejeweled game.

Why? Because some overzealous pimple-faced minimum-wage snot might call the fucking FBI over it?

No, keep wearing them. And let the idiots keep involving the fucking FBI every time, until they give up with the bullshit nonsense.

What's funny is, I didn't realize until your post that it was "Apple". Every time I read the word "Apple", my brain interpreted it as "mobile".

Slashdot gives many users the option to opt-out of ads. I've had that for years. I guess it is based on history or comment history or karma or something.

I'm okay with this.

As it is, if I'm on mobile and go to a site where it pops up a giant ad trying to get me to install their app or subscribe to something, I don't even close the ad and continue on to the content. I just back away from the site and never go back there again. Hell, I don't even frequent sites that force me to use facebook or google to leave a comment.

The internet has some odd billion websites. The internet was delightful before there were 47 ads on every page. I'm okay self-imposing the same existence, again, if sites adblock-block.

Oh, and why do I find it necessary to adblock? I won't bother explaining my numerous issues with it. I'll just leave a number here that I looked at in adblock a few seconds ago. It says that it has blocked just over 498,000 ads. That's just on this one browser. On one machine. In 90 days. That doesn't count my other machines, laptops, ipad, or any other devices.

498,000 ads. That's 700 ads per hour, eight hours per day, every day, for 90 days. On top of all the real-world ads on television, on radio, in podcasts, in magazines, newspapers, billboards, sides of buildings. I can't do much about ads in those contexts, but they're also not being forced at me to the sum of 700 per fucking hour, like web ads, either.

But we'll be damned if we're going to let a little setback keep us from letting the state put its subjects to death, damn it!

2014 and we're still doing this. Even in the face of acknowledging that 15-20% of inmates are likely innocent and that many death row inmates have likely been innocent and that a lot of those actually executed have likely been innocent. No matter how barbaric one's attitude on "kill the guilty", nobody can defend a system that needlessly kills innocent people (yes, incarcerating an innocent person for life is shit, too, but at least if you don't execute inmates, you don't run the risks of murdering innocent men). To ignore all of this seems contrary to the entire fundamental construct of our society.

And in anticipation of the "oh yeah, sure innocent people have been put on death row" bullshit, here are 143 of them *proven* innocent and *exonerated* in just the last 40 years.: http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/innocence-list-those-freed-death-row

My guess is there are more cell phones sold each year than automobiles. OH NO, CARS ARE DYING!

I'm really tired of these sensationalist tech pundits pratting on about X is dying because Y is increasing.

Take a look at the board and tell me you think anyone finds them a real threat to anything.

The governments of the world have resolved the issue of upsetting their populations by spying on every aspect of their lives at all times by deciding to embrace *openly* spying on every aspect of their lives at all times.

You know, a nice brush fire now and then really helps the forest.

Nope. Hardware sales are projected to decline very slightly over a couple of years and then start to return. For a market that is constantly under the claim of "dying", they sure are selling an awful lot of $1,000 video cards and $300 CPUs and $300 chassis' and making whole businesses out of catering to even more niche markets like water cooling nuts.

Steam has 65,000,000 users. That is more than XBOX (but less than Playstation). That's not PC gamers. That's just *Steam* gamers.

Consoles are $300-$500. The lowest end gaming PC that you can get by with starts at that price. Further, games have largely been targeted at consoles and ported to PCs in such a way that they just don't really demand much of the PC hardware.

In other words, PC gaming is as big as it has ever been. Even if mobile and console platforms grow massively, that doesn't detract from PC gaming. You can do more than one platform. It's just that software necessitates the increase in hardware capacity and software just hasn't been making those demands for a long time, leaving PC gamers to make longer use of their PC hardware. That reflects in hardware sales. A reduction in hardware sales means just that - a reduction in hardware sales; not a reduction in people playing on their existing hardware.

Additionally, we've been told for years now that *console* gaming is dying and will soon be dead. And so will all handhelds that aren't a tablet or mobile phone. Of course, that is bullshit. Steam's user numbers, the popularity of PC-only games, and the 8,000,000 PS4 and XB1 consoles sold in the last two months is evidence that it is bullshit.

I am skeptical about the future of PC gaming, but not because of some perceived lack of interested gamers. The only thing that can harm PC gaming is if developers and publishers continue to treat PC gaming like a redheaded stepchild. If they continue to put out PC ports in a half-assed and often-broken fashion and months or years after the console versions of the same game. And if they continue to not exploit the power of the PC, but just port over console versions of games that look and play progressively worse over time as the console platform ages.

If PC gaming dies, it won't be for lack of interest. It'll be because it was sabotaged and undermined by the developers and publishers.

So . . . basically, Tux and FreeCiv. :P

No, game consoles and HTPCs are not as expensive as a high end gaming PC. I don't mind throwing $400 at a PS4 to stick in my home theater that does nothing but play games, because it does that one thing well and is only $400.

I'm not going to cram my current desktop rig into my home theater, because it's a powerful machine that is capable of doing far more than spitting out a movie or playing a Steam library. I'm not going to invest in a less powerful PC to dedicate to the home theater, because if I'm going to play a PC game, why would I play it on the lower power system when I have a much better one at my desk?

I am hoping for the best out of SteamOS and even these Steamboxes, but I am not quite understanding where the niche is they expect to truly capitalize from. A high end system is expensive and wasted dedicated to just gaming on your couch, but the opposite end of the spectrum isn't compelling when you can just play on your existing system at your desk for a far better experience.

It would seem to me the only real market is for people who don't already have a decent gaming system and are looking for a low-end low-cost replication of a low-end console experience, but with the PC. In which case, that's totally fine, but . . . seems pretty limiting...