Just today in the Chicago Tribune there is an article about a new Microsoft "cloud computing" datacenter in the suburbs. It goes on and on about how great cloud computing is and how visionary Microsoft is for their work in this field (*snicker*). They briefly mention some other companies, I think one called "google" and yahoo or whatever, that are following in Microsoft's footsteps into this brave new world of internet-based applications.

Given that, I doubt MS planned the Danger/Sidekick fiasco in order to discredit cloud computing. In fact I found it very amusing to read about the new data center and then just under it another article about an MS data center losing all of it's user data.

The article and almost every poster is coming from a primitive 20th century reality-centric perspective that values activities in the physical world higher than activities in the "virtual" world. Every mention of video games or virtual worlds is dripping with value-judgment and inflated self importance. It's an ignorant type of Imperialism that fails to look at the bigger picture or to acknowledge the arbitrary nature of these value judgments.

Why is an interaction in the real world any more "valuable" than an interaction in a virtual world? There is no reason other than the value that the participant places on the action. The old methods of valuation - working to pay your way, exercising to maintain a fit body, finding a mate and procreating - have all been subsumed by technology and society. An individual never has to leave their chair to work, there is no need to "fight to live" or maintain a powerful physique, and procreation can be handle with zero contact between sperm-donor and egg-donor.

In five hundred years whatever type of human is alive at the time will look back at this age and the popular perspective on virtual worlds as just another type of cultural imperialism that has done nothing but hold back evolution and progress. While I do see the value in contact with other people and physical fitness, etc, it is evident to me that these types of interaction are only valuable to us as long as we as a culture value them; the inevitable march of technology and progress will soon enculturate humanity into a future of virtual worlds and holo-decks.

Why didn't you stop to think when you bought the vehicle that 11 MPG wasn't very good, and that you would be wasting a lot of money on gas for no reason?

This program is not "unfair" to you, it is unfair to all of the people who drive old junkers that get halfway decent gas mileage. You chose for some mysterious reason to purchase a gas guzzling vehicle for daily driving when you didn't need one, why should you be rewarded for that?

My '97 escort wagon gets around 23 mpg city and it is falling apart. Brakes going, shocks shot, tailpipe broken halfway under car. And I'm not about to pay to fix that tailpipe that spews pollution because the transmission is going as well! I'd gladly buy a new car (probably 30+mpg city) right now if I could get that cash for my junker.

But instead all of the people who bought unreasonably large vehicles are being rewarded because they are too ignorant and stupid to not only take care of themselves but also the environment in which they live.

Wow stop feeding this troll. LOOK AT HIS NAME. How can you not see this? I can't believe he got modded up, probably because there's some windows fanboys around, or just those idiots who believe every troll that jumps out and says "in MY experience!"

Firefox runs all its tabs in one process, whereas IE8 creates a new process for each one. So if you have one tab open in FF and one in IE, then IE might be smaller (FF is about 130mb and IE about 60). But each new "tab" (not really, it's a new process so may as well be a new window or instance of the program) in IE is another 30-60MB, but each new tab in FF adds a negligible amount of memory usage.

Open five tabs in each, tally up the usage from all the IE processes, and then compare.

Your argument is false because you are addressing the wrong issue. Sugar cane ethanol is an excellent solution; corn ethanol is not an ideal solution because it requires much more resources to produce it than sugar cane ethanol.

The only thing wrong with ethanol is that big corporate farms are subsidized to make corn ethanol. If the U.S. just allowed the importation of sugar cane ethanol from countries like Brazil, then it would be a great thing.

If you've spent any time in Brazil, you will see that ethanol is just fine for internal combustion engines. They've almost exclusively used ethanol for the last ten years. Now maybe there's an argument about "flex fuel" but that is just a transitional fuel type. Once we can import environmentally and economically friendly sugar cane ethanol it won't be a problem any more.

Good for them, hopefully they don't get caught.

Living on 6 million dollars for an entire life would be easy. Especially since they will probably have to go to a country with a weaker economy, like one in South America or Asia. Welcome to the rest of your life on a tropical beach, with anything you'd ever want to buy.

That's rich; someone from Australia, going to Canada, complaining about U.S. violations of privacy. Have you read a paper in your own country lately? Australia is about as bad as the UK, which probably monitors its citizens more closely than China.

I remember the heady days of 2002, when rumors were floating over the internets of the epic third chapter of MvC. There was even a screenshot photoshopped up of the new game.

It's a damn shame that some asshole company stepped in and bought the exclusive rights to Marvel video games, and then hasn't done shit good with it. It's quite obvious that a third installment of this game would be popular, if people are STILL playing the Dreamcast version, which has been ported to FOUR systems now.

I love it when you select your character and the guy says, "Just as I expected." A classic soundtrack for sure.

Don't you mean phishers?

They are not bankrupt, but what they are doing is shattering their core userbase into many different groups. This is not the same as 1st ed vs 2nd ed players, or the players (like me) who still play 2nd and 3e.

Hasbro/WotC completely dropped support for their OGL that they developed with 3rd edition, but many people still use that. There are many other new, creative RPGs that can easily give D&D a run for its money, and the old powerhouses like Palladium are still going strong.

It's funny that everything you mention about 4e is in the sense of a dumbing-down or simplifying. WotC has always been obsessed with that concept but it is just not in sync with reality. Gamers love complexity and they want a system that has rich options. Why do you think WotCs attempts to turn RPGs into a kids oversimplified boardgame always fail, and the system inevitable ends up becoming more and more complex?

As for the actual content, well WotC will never be able to top the greats of 2nd edition; that is when there was true creative talent in the AD&D universe, with settings like Planescape, Dark Sun and Spelljammer as well as the more "traditional" fantasy settings on Toril, Krynn and Greyhawk. WotC has just been living off those great masterminds and reprinting books of lists (feats, skills, equipment, classes, whatever), not creating anything of its own.

WotC killed it with 4e. These are the throws of a dying organization, just like RIAA/MPAA.

A lot of science fiction shows throughout the years played on fridays; didn't X-Files even air on Friday?

This stems from the fact that TV execs assume that science fiction fans are nerds with no life, and so Friday is the perfect time to play these shows.

I don't really care when the shows are on, I just download the torrent a couple days later. And, I'd never trust Fox not to cancel a good show; in fact, that goes for any tv (broadcast or cable) station. I've been burned too many times by their stupidity.

People who really care about what they are downloading - collectors and such - go to private sites. Many private sites are tailored to one kind of entertainment and they always have the highest quality, best documented torrents with a community of seeders that will even help a leecher out if all the other seeds have died out. This method is also a lot legally safer.

All of these private sites track ratios and ban users (by IP usually but maybe MAC) if a user exhibits unabashed greediness. So it is definitly in your best interest to seed.

I belong to a lot of private sites (anime, music, and porn ones) and I always keep a good ratio. That doesn't mean I always seed to even 1.0 though. A lot of times it's just not worth it; if there's hundreds or thousands of other seeders it is a waste of your resources. In those cases I just seed a less healthy torrent for longer.

For public sites I agree with you though. I use public sites for movies and tv shows, and I usually kill the torrent as soon as the DL is complete. Eventually I'll find a good private tracker for those and I will then seed 'em up.