Goddamnit, no mod points. Thankfully, based on what I'm reading, whatever real-world karma there is will work in your favor. Thank you, and have a wonderful holiday season.

So here I am talking about the various platforms and approaches that you can take, because things are more open and universal then they've ever been... And you've replied by telling me what major PC makers are/aren't doing, and what publishers want. So you're basically arguing that we're not free to create because that freedom hasn't been widely sanctioned, marketed and sold by the industry. Wow.

"So are people willing to connect gamepads to a PC and use a TV as a PC monitor yet?"
Yes. And some companies are pushing this as well. Check out what's going on with the SteamBox. Microsoft has had a XBox controller for PC for ages. Besides, it's not exactly rocket science to set up a game to accept commands from both controllers and keyboards. Leave it up to the player to decide how they want to play.

Are people willing to buy a $40 gamepad for a phone to play a $0.99 phone game yet?
Some people are using GestureWorks GamePlay for their Windows tablets. I have a $20 controller for my android tablet. You can also use a DualShock 3 on android. There's the Oculus rift community, Ouya, and more. Plus, bluetooth keyboards are common/available for mobile devices as well.

I also have touch on one of my PCs, was using it to play Shadowrun Returns. Want a second-screen experience? Explore nVidia Shield. With digital distribution and the rise of Linux as a user environment (Be it Android, SteamOS, or Linux on the desktop). There are tons of new, innovative, and open places to make games these days. Heck, even funding has new venues like Kickstarter, Indiegogo, and FundAnything.

To reach a wide audience, you used to have a publisher and a distribution deal. Now, you just need to get enough people interested in what it is you're creating. That's not easy, but it's a heck of a lot less random than hoping some corporation likes you, and is interested in giving you a deal worth having.

The fact that Bob was so focused (obsessed?) on this one platform is an issue. Also, the fat that Bob was acting less than stable, and treated the people he wanted to do business with poorly, didn't exactly help his cause.

The video game market has an incredible number of outlets, and always has. There are MANY ways to get games out that bypass those gatekeepers (Hi Minecraft!). Bob even "threatened" Nintendo with using some of those.

You know... I just can't get behind these media doomsday scenarios. Here's a few reasons why:

1) Unlimited media streaming has proven itself as a service. There's a reason why: In many cases it diversifies their revenue to help deal with the problem of...
2) If they asked me to pay for something every time I wanted to see it, I'd simply consume less (Much like how I've cut cable). It's not like I'm required to watch movies. Yes, they're nice, but they're not required for life/happiness/enjoyment.
3) There is enough competition (and will ALWAYS be enough competition) in the entertainment sector for someone (very often a kid with a dream) to provide something interesting at a reasonable price
4) Media has continued to move on, and now media can be basically eternal, and probably will be so long as there's value in that *thing*. Do I really need a used copy of a 50 year old game? Yes, it might be fun for an afternoon, but there will also be an additional 50 years' worth of games made by then. I'll find something to do. I don't need to have every game ever made available to me.

I live in Montgomery County, Maryland. We now have a 5 cent tax on bags. I had been a critic of this law... Until I saw it put into effect.

Very simply: Since the bags are taxed, the tax (like sales tax) must be paid by the customer. It cannot be absorbed by the retailer. While I agree about rapidly degrading bags, compostable bags, etc, the problem arises when not everybody plays by the rules.

Since the law was put into effect, the amount of waste bags has dropped dramatically. I work in another county, and the difference is significant. For example, if I stop by a 7-11 in Howard county to buy a Coke Zero, they immediately put it in a bag, whether I want one or not. In MoCo, I have to get like 5 things before I even think of a bag... And then the 5 cent tax really doesn't bother me. Milk, which already has a handle, is unbagged in MoCo, and DOUBLE bagged in HoCo.

The number of random bags sitting by the side of the road, or floating in the breeze, is visibly different between these counties. Even if we do go to bio-friendly everything, I'd still be OK with the tiny tax that helps reduce this waste.

This is near the top of a(quickly growing) list of reasons I no longer tolerate, and now simply hate, Oracle. Gee SourceForge, want to be bucketed with Oracle? Yeah... kind of thought not.

As far as I'm concerned third-party inclusion-ware might as well be called parasite-ware, and is a form of Malware that's just easier to remove. It's the same level as crapware that comes pre-installed on a laptop.

Stop providing services that I don't need.
Stop giving me software I don't want.
Stop getting in my way.

If I need something, I'll come find it. Promise.

Many companies are afraid I won't come to them. That's often because they provide inferior tools / services. Make better things that I actually need, and I'll give a damn (For a counter-example, see Atlassian and JetBrains).

If you're lucky.

Hemlock: It's 100% natural!

I believe you've just set the record for best one-word response in the history of Slashdot.

"portends an end to the incredibly fast reduction in storage costs over the last three decades."

Disagree, it's just taking a turn you're not looking at. Solid state has just really started to take off in the mainstream. As the years go on, it will continue to get faster, cheaper, and more reliable. In a couple short years, we've already broken the $1/gig barrier.

After that... Well, it's hard to tell. Many consumers are already running out of things to store on their computers. Heck, I'm in basically the same boat. Even corporations are getting comfortable "big data" setups for reasonable prices. I wonder how much longer until our storage systems get "big enough" for all but the most intense scientific and global data-mining applications...

Truth be told: Tools won't survive. They're notoriously fickle. That said, this is one place where good development practice can really help. Here are some of my guidelines:

Get off the bleeding edge. Let the youngsters and startups do the bleeding. Learn from them, and use cutting-edge tools after they've matured a bit and have widespread market adoption. Yes, I was late to the jQuery party. No, I don't feel bad about that, as I could have just as easily chosen a failed alternative and been left with something that's damn near impossible to maintain.

Quality separation of concerns is VITAL for survival. Keep your data store separate from your business logic, and for Knuth's sake, keep your UI the HELL away from everything else, since the UI is the most volatile bit.

Don't resist your platform: Working on the web? Learn JavaScript. Learn jQuery. Do not use things like SharpKit to turn one platform into another.

Use things for which the were initially intended, and ignore many of the add-on features. Use databases to store data, not as process engines. Use JavaScript / jQuery for user interface goodness, not your entire application logic.

APIs / web services / interfaces are your friend... Not just to use, but for you to enforce separation and flexibility.

And yet, in many armed robberies, nobody dies.

"even if they're ultimately convicted, the police do testify to the judge that you were cooperative, and the judge can take that into account and reduce your prison sentence. That is at least theoretically another legitimate reason to violate Professor Duane's "Don't Talk To Cops" rule, if you're 99% sure that the police will find enough evidence to convict you anyway, you can hope for leniency by cooperating."

No. No no no. A thousand times no. If the cops are talking to you about something that could involve a prison sentence, you SHUT THE HELL UP, and you only talk to your LAWYER. You're out of your depth, and the cops do this every day. The point is you have NO MECHANISM to be 99% sure the cops will find enough evidence, and fear of prosecution / hope for leniency are EXACTLY the tools and emotions police use to get confessions in an interview. Keep your mouth SHUT and talk to your lawyer to find out what's really going on, and what you should be doing.

This is NOT the same as a speeding ticket. If you end up with the worst possible punishment for the average speeding ticket, you'll be inconvenienced but otherwise just fine.

I was being a bit tongue-in-cheek (apparently that's viewed as more trolling than humorous here, but whatev).

I've been a developer, and I've been management... Most developers get paid as well as their immediate management, and very often better than the sales department. I actually left being a developer/manager to go back to being a developer. Pay raise, better work. Right now my day-to-day is PHP, Java, and C#, depending on the project.

ANY technology is prone to being obsolete before it reaches its full potential. If you jump on the bandwagon just because it's being released by company/group XYZ, you're crazy. Microsoft releases frameworks that don't last. Google kills apps. Blackberry does stupid stuff... It's all variations on a theme.

For every two or three poorly concieved things MS publishes, there is one that is actually really quite good and deserves attention. While C# and Java were once very similar, C# continued to grow as Java stagnated. Now Java's back in the game, but it's owned by Oracle, which scares the #$#( out of me. All that said, Visual Studio is still the best IDE out there.