Am I missing something? Because from the little about this I know, if the government wants whatever Wired may or may not have, there's a handy legal device called a subpoena. Wired isn't required by any law to publish any information about anything, and the government can obtain that evidence if it so desires. It just seems like a lot of jumping to conclusions just because some journalist says "No Comment." Sure, not publishing means something may be hidden, but it's not like they're out of line by withholding information from your curious eyes. Condemn them all you want based on your conspiracy theories, but don't condemn them for exercising their rights as free press, citizens, etc. in deciding what they will or will not publish.

As much as I agree with the sentiment, these companies are also publicly traded and have obligations to shareholders in. They're just playing smart by choosing the lowest cost areas to place offices. Yes, it would be nice if they'd all just sit and pay increased taxes, but if there's ever a good place to open shop, you can be sure they'll all jump ship without a second thought. So it then becomes a question: does the economic impact of the company in the area mean more than the taxes? Often times, it does...

I agree, don't embed these things. If they're separate, they can power multiple devices, thus bringing the overall cost down (needs less power gen devices per consumption devices). For example, the merry-go-round power generators that I heard about some people installing a couple years ago is a brilliant idea that can power quite a bit for cheap.

While the engine is running though? Show me someplace that gets 260F for that high end. It's talking engine temperature, which will likely stop working at low enough temperatures regardless of cpu when things actually do freeze...And when the engine is working, will keep warm enough to run properly anyway.

Yeah, I fully agree with you here. I don't buy DLC's except on the games that I enjoyed the most. In those cases, I want more, and the DLC provides. In other games I don't enjoy or play as much? Never bought a DLC. Just no interest. Been there, done that. DLC gives the gamer the choice of that extra content, and not, as you indicated, being a blocker in the production cycle.

Please do one of the following:

1. 1) Name a AAA title that has released on-disk content as a DLC after release that has negatively impacted the game without purchasing the DLC. If content wasn't missed, how can you say the game "incomplete?"
2. 2) Name an overpriced DLC you were required to purchase in order to enjoy a game. If it's too expensive, don't buy. If it's worth it to you, buy it.
3. 3) Again, name a DLC that is a remake of other content that was required to purchase to enjoy the game. Same thing as above.

Now, if games start having their primary content locked unless you pay for additional DLCs, sure, there's a huge problem. But these other problems? Stop whining. Games are a product with really, really big teams that work long hours to get a game in your hands. Game devs want nothing more than to deliver bigger, better games to you, and DLCs allow them to jumpstart additional content easily, and to respond to market demand efficiently. In addition, game devs can deliver content that was not entirely ready at ship, which would otherwise be cut. Everybody wins with DLCs...unless you demand all that work for free or want less game content overall. You're getting more options in choosing how much you pay for your game content...In any other industry but gaming, consumers would be rejoicing. (And no, it's not some scheme to milk out more money than in the past...There is just literally more work going into making modern games than there was even just a couple years ago, and the trend keeps going up. DLC allows some of the breadth of that content--like, say, additional, optional maps--to be in the game without breaking the bank, period.)

Well, so far we've found a lot of very large gas giants, so I'm not sure on the accuracy of that 1.5% figure...Admittedly, most of the ones we've found are larger than Jupiter, but if there's 25% earth-size, well...seems like a pretty big probability gap between the 2 extremes, no? But yes, I think the point is valid that just having an earth-size planet doesn't make it habitable. There's MANY factors contributing to it, such as other planets in system, moons, star age&type, debris in system, etc. I don't think we know enough about the odds yet of these other factors to really figure out good odds of finding human-favorable planets.

Luckily, we've only got a 144 more years until Commander Shepard is born. He/she will take care of that pesky Reaper problem, so we all we gotta do now is work on settling Mars so we can find those advanced technological ruins there...

The "proof" leaves a lot to be desired, but there ARE proofs that involve limits that do work much better. In that sense, in both the real and abstract world, yes, 0.999...=1. And no, there's never a 0.000...09 left over because then the number wouldn't be infinite in the first place. There's no "end" or "left over" to an infinite number. :)

Other reply has the right point here. 1/3 is a problem only because of base 10. If you switch bases, it's not so bad. 1/3 is bad, sure, but you're going to get a loss of precision anyway on an infinite sequence, so it's expected. It's the fact that, in base 2 with limited precision, 0.1 (as in the finite, rational 1/10), can NOT be accurately represented. It's gotcha thing that'll nail people all the time

Yes, you CAN multiply 0.3333.... by 3 and get 0.99999.... Your little O(1), which is a sequence of 3s, also gets multiplied by 3, which is also a sequence of 9s...Go to infinite sequence math, it'll become clearer. And you can multiple 0.3333... by 3 and get 1. (That one's easy to see, 0.333... = 1/3).

An infinite sequence multiplied by a number is still an infinite sequence. If you lost digits (or if you gained digits!) it would, by definition, not be infinite to begin with. Your logic is coincidently taking only a finite number of digits from infinite sequence, whereas the article retains the infinite sequence, as it should.

It's entirely possible to subtract an irrational number (like say, an infinite series of digits after a decimal?). If it weren't so, the number PI wouldn't be so useful... For instance, 9.99999.... ad infinitum minus 0.9999... ad infinitum does equal 9. There's no lopping going off. Just a subtraction of an irrational number by another irrational number that happens to equal a rational number. For instance, PI - (PI - 3) = 3. Yes, that's 2 irrational numbers (PI-3 being one of them) equaling a rational number.

I don't see any fallacy as its simple and correct algebra, but I do agree that the limit proof is a much better one, since it gets to the heart of WHY rather than a manipulation which leaves people thinking they've been duped.

You're making infinity into finite by saying that you can't "pull an extra 9 off the right side of infinity." By definition, there IS no "right side" of the number. It's infinite. You could multiply an 0.9999... by 10 and INFINITE number of times and it would still have an infinite number of 9s after the decimal and NO zeros whatsoever.