EA has a large enough business in *console* games that a little hissyfit over DRM in PC titles won't be noticed... especially given that there are new console hardware launches upcoming for which they'll sell a shitload of games for, and which will save their chief executive asshole's job.

how they're going to wriggle their way out of that one

oh, that's easy..... all the bugs in the AIs are because of a client-server interaction bug preventing the proper calculations from being run on the "servers".

the only cap system that is fair and prevents outrageous overage charges is throttled-but-free usage over the cap. e.g. pay $30 for 100 gigs at 15 mbit, over 100 gigs in a month then speed falls to 1/10th that... want more full-speed gigs this month? call or login and order extra gigs for $7.50 per 25 gigs. extra gigs rollover, monthly quota does not. simple and fair.. provided it is marketed in plain english and limits are as obvious in marketing materials as the price or 'full' speed.

and it will be called..

wait for it...

WINDOWS RETRO

there is absolutely NO NEED for simcity 5 to have been purposefully designed to require publisher operated servers to run other than to implement a harsh DRM scheme.

we played sc2000 on a 33mhz cyrix slc (essentially a 386sx that spoke i486).. sc3000 on a 133mhz pentium (non mmx version and original win95 no fat32).. and sc4 on a 550mhz k6-2 (2000, later xp).. the slowest bit of any of those games on any of those systems? the fucking cd-check drm for sc3000 and sc4.

things have sped up just a tad since then... not just raw cpu power but also the pc's subsystems (ram, hdd, graphics, etc).

even with neighboring city (region) math thrown in, i think a simple 2005-07 dual core desktop (e.g. comparable to pentium e5200 or first-gen dual core athlon, which is on the box as the 'minimum') with just 1 gig of ram available to the game (i.e. as little as 2 gig total, also on the box as the 'minimum') would be more than enough to handle all of the math for sc5, AND host multiplayer besides.

if the cpu requirements are so great that EA thinks server-based calculations are the only way to go... what kind of horsepower do they have on those servers if they do what even an old pentium e5200 can't do on their own? holy shit. they didn't charge nearly enough for the game if they're dedicating entire xeon server cores and gigs of ram to each player.. OM-FUCKING-G.

i guess the server actually plays the game and the the dual to quad core processor required or recommended by EA on the box is solely to run the fucking DRM

TFA refers to a pilot project by fairfax county schools. their project would not have failed miserably if they implemented it properly: with offline-capable ereaders preloaded with the proper texts and materials.. but instead, they opted for content and a system that required internet access (presumably due to drm at the publisher's insistance) to use, which limited access to those with sufficient internet access at home AND limited _where_ students could read and study their texts. a preloaded offline ereader would have eliminated those major issues with a conversion to digital texts. if fairfax county school board had listened to complaints and concerns expressed prior to them choosing this defective system, and not gotten memorized by slick salesmen, their system _could have been_ a model for public schools nationwide - instead they just fucked up big time.

they couldn't at least hit 1280x720 for 720p video? what the hell........

Advertising can be done without tracking and cookies.

the site doing the advertising could also simply *host their own friggin ads* instead of using third parties.. which have a history of getting compromised and serving/linking to malware... if sites hosted their own ads, they could do all the tracking and click-accounting they want -- but only on their own site, which is the way it should be. the ad networks can suck it.

is there a point to ghostery if you're already running abp with easylist/easyprivacy and noscript? (other than the writeups about the tracking companies, which i could care less about -- trackers all get blocked here without exception)

hacks against the email accounts.. and then other sites these accounts are used on..

in the courtroom challenging first sale rights, click/shrink wrap licenses, etc. perhaps also format/device shifting, drm and circumvention of it to preserve customer rights... heck, even privacy and user tracking could be a part of it (that is one reason why the push to online-everything.. it's easier to track and report)

but the case will drag on for so long, that most of the readers here will be so old and arthritic they won't be able to play video games anymore anyway other than things like freecell.

when the supreme court does finally hand down a ruling, though, it _will_ be monumental (for the better, or the worse) and completely change how not only video games are sold, but also other software, digital goods (software, music, movies, books, etc) that are fast replacing physical ones, and the used/lending/rental markets for all of those (including ordinary public libraries and person-to-person lending).

at Amazon so I don't have to pay sales tax

you, and people like you, ARE the problem.

yes, you don't have to pay "sales tax" on online purchases made from out of state merchants... but you DO have to pay a USE TAX. afaik, every state with a sales tax on local purchases also has a corresponding use tax to collect the equivalent amount in use tax on untaxed (or under-taxed) out of state purchases.

use tax may be difficult for states to enforce because there are no reporting requirements (one of the things amazon and other online merchants fought against) -- states don't know how much is owed to them, and by whom; but that does not make paying use tax a voluntary thing. if you and others like you would have paid your use tax on out of state purchases, this would be a non-issue.

use tax is typically either a line item on state income tax returns, a separate single-page form submitted at the end of the year, or if you yourself are required to collect sales tax on your own sales (e.g. businesses), it may be on your sales tax reporting form.

amazon grew to be the size it is by exploiting the fact that people like you are greedy enough to ignore their local sales and use tax laws. now that amazon is so big, and has such a large percentage of the online shopping market, they believe that even if the tax playing field were leveled, they'd still be able to beat local retailers and chain stores... which is why they are finally supporting online sales tax collection.

You forgot the one that more people are lacking than any other....

10) Common Sense

one of the definitions is.....

impressive by reason of age

how many other single versions of a web browser have had as long a supported lifespan as ie6?

12 years 7 months and 15 days between rtm (24 aug 2001) and xp eol (8 apr 2014).

as much as you and i, and pretty much everybody else, may dislike ie6, that IS impressive.

by tying an office installation to a microsoft account/email address, microsoft is essentially introducing the one-time serial code that has infested the gaming market... the next version will likely *require* this office-online account link... at least in 2013, it is currently optional.