Or maybe convert all postings to monotype courier, so we're reminded that slashdot's still only a handsbreath above a BBS?

above?

The last BBS I used supported extended ascii just fine so accented e's and such were fully supported. :p

But if this was the case, then the buyers are to blame

If the buyer orders a perpetual motion machine then he's an idiot.

But any engineers and consultants taking money to work on the project are morally bankrup too.

in addition to leaking several hundred times more than was necessary to prove his point.

Until something meaningful changes it hasn't been enough.

I note none of these fanboys admitted that he leaked all of it to the Russians.

If Snowden revealed one thing, it was massive incompetence of the security itself at the NSA.

So bitch all you want about Snowden, but he wanted the public to know. Only an idiot thinks Snowden is the only one ever to have had the kind of access he had, and only a fool thinks that the Chinese and Russians couldn't have had equivalent sources of their own already.

Archives of the document were on Guardian public servers when the password was mysteriously "leaked."

I recall something like that being the case for the Manning data.

I do not recall this being the case for the Snowden data. Do you have links or evidence to back this up?

Wow, I quite the HL franchise halfway through Ep 2 it stank so badly. All subjective I guess.

I enjoyed HL2 but found it incredibly linear in a way that even, say, the original Doom wasn't. I haven't tried ep1/ep2 but do plan to at some point.

I still go back and play HL1 every couple of years, followed by OpFor and BlueShift. I think that was the peak of single player FPS gaming

Hmm. I really enjoyed Serious Sam 3 BFE which is pretty recent, albeit also a throwback to old school FPS. That you mentioned Quake 4 is surprising, I quite enjoyed that one too... but it wasn't generally well reviewed and I agree with some of the criticisms of it. Duke Forever also had its moments too if you like classic single player FPS, and even the strip club level, which i originally thought was beyond stupid... I've since gained a healthy appreciation for just how much of a parody that level is of similarly interruptive and pointless fetch-mission mechanics as-seen in other games -- that I now sincerely believe that the level's stupidity itself is deliberately intended as a commentary on the game mechanic itself.

To me, its a deceptively smart and cleverly crafted game wrapped in a veil of vulgarity and stupidity. Or maybe its just vulgar and stupid... but I don't think so.

The difference being the incredibly successful and well reviewed lego movie is backing the lego movie sets.

I'm not sure you can or should rely on kids not being interested in them the way perhaps the themes you mentioned. Both my kids want multiple Lego movie sets...

Play Pirates, it was fun in the original "boot up your XT with the floppy"

Yeah, that's the one I have a LOT of nostalgia for and why I expect to play it. :) I've read they've largely kept the original style of the game intact... right down to ship combat and the fencing. Looking forward to it.

that Defense Grid didn't make the list, I've put over 148 hours into it and would have expected most people that own the game to have done the same. It's the only game on Steam that I have every achievement for.

I've got 76 hours on that one, and steam says I've got 57 of 87 of the acheivements. Honestly. I'm impressed that you completed it to 100% some of the expansion pack stuff is pretty brutal.

I think the most interesting thing though about the defense grid stats is 'first blood' ... only 87% of the people steam registers as having played killed even a single alien. So that's 13% who started up the game, and then exited it without doing anything.

I've got a WHACK of steam games bought as part of bundles (humble bundles, steam bundles etc...)

I bought a steam halflife bundle at some point... I've played HalfLife 2 to completion, but have never played HL2 deathmatch, hl2 ep1, hl2 ep2, hl2 lost coast, hl deathmatch:source, hl blue shift, hl opposing force, hl source.

I bought an ID pack at some point. I've got 2 Hexens, Hexen2 and Heretic that I've never played, with 3 quakes, 3 quake 2s, and 2 quake 3s. So far I've only played Quake II.

I bought the Sid Meier humble bundle which came with Civ5 a bunch of its expansions, and Civ IV, and III ... I've played Civ V a bit so far... but have 8 separate entries for Civ IV in my steam library, along with Civ III that I haven't touched. Along with Pirates! and Railroads. I'll probably play Pirates! at some point... who knows about the rest.

I've got and Sam & Max set, that I'm part way through... so 3 titles I haven't touched out of 5.

I've got 5 episodes of Back to the Future that came with another humble bundle that was worth the price of entry to me for something else. I might try it at some point, who knows... its pretty low on my priority list though.

I wouldn't be surprised that others who are avid supporters of humble bundles have lots of games they've yet to try.

etc, etc, etc.

Only a fool would count on their saving being there in 25-30 years. The US is a ponzi scheme of welfare benefits and government debt.

That's why you'd use international diversification. And if that doesn't work, odds are you are going to have bigger problems than your savings being wiped out at retirement.

I'm not at all skeptical of your claim, but I'm curious: married? (dual income?) kids? own a house?

$40k to $50k today is a decent standard of living. 40 years from now? It'll be below the poverty line.

If you are retiring today 1Million is enough. If you are retiring 40 years from now and aim to have a million... you'll be deciding between a card board roof or cardboard food.

1 million dollars invested in a conservative bond fund will yield $40,000 a year, with no hit to principle. Most of America lives (comfortably) on that (or less) today. In addition to that, you will have social security.

And if you are of retirement age today, 1Million is enough. Now project that forward 30 or 40 years.

To put it into perspective, if you had 500k in 1980, that gave you the same purchasing power as 1 million does today.

So if you think 1 million today is enough to retire, and you plan to retire in 25 years, you actually need to aim for 2 million.

If you are just entering the work force (18 to 20), you are looking at working 40-50 years, and will need even more. close to 3 million.

After retirement age, you also receive social security payments

Only a fool would count on it being there in another 25-30 years. Its already seeing the force of the boomer generation hit it. If you've got a million+ in capital at retirement I wouldn't be surprised that your social security will be stripped to zilch. I can hear the politicians bleating now... "we're paying middle class millionaires social security...is that worth a tax increase?"

This. I expect to require 3 million to retire comfortably, and be able to live off the interest without drawing down the capital leaving the 3 million to the kids when I go. At this stage I'm skeptical I will make that 'stretch goal'.

I think I require 1 million at minimum to retire comfortably, and be able to live off the interest, drawing down the capital as I go, and have enough to make it to my death.

Both scenarios bar major health expenses like paying for live-in-care out-of-pocket.

I have not factored any likely inheritances from my own relatives either, as I do not expect to receive substantial money. (And frankly find it rather disheartening watching some of my peers live extravagant idiotic lives on the assumption -- in some cases, the correct assumption, that when their folks kick the can they'll be covered. -- but that's a separate issue)

And I'm maybe half way to retirement. Anyone just entering the work force now will need even more than that due to inflation.

There's almost no point in it being a lego toy, because you're just assembling a crude model of an x-wing, and the only thing you can make with the set is...an x-wing. Why not just...play with a model x-wing?

Seriously... watch the lego movie... or hell just look at some of the sets they've released based on the movie.

I think this one illustrates my point:

http://static.indigoimages.ca/...

Take a good look at it. The 'goblet' piece is a gun. The wagon wheels are the engine turbines, the turbine housings are those molded castle tower pieces. The half-barrel is the pilots seat. Torches reworked into a missile launcher. The working catapult?... well they kept that.

They took a medieval gate and cart and turned it into something akin to a pod-racer, as an official set.

The lego movie and movie sets simultaneously agrees with all your complaints ... and then proves your conclusion wrong.

Granted a single small lego set is usually only much good for a particular model or a variation on a theme. But after you've got 5 or 6 lego sets especially if they are from different themes you can build pretty much anything. Medieval space ships, sailing ships out of space lego, Giant transforming robots out of lego city vehicles.

Honestly there were a bit of a bad spot in the late 90s where the lego wasn't as good, but the current sets and over the last 5-10 years are an absolute joy.

I recommend any parent with kids becoming lego aged to start with a basic bulk bucket. I think there's a yellow bucket out right now 600 basic bricks for $40 bucks.

Then you throw in a star wars or batman set or two so the kid has a couple minifigures, droids (my son loves r2d2s), light sabers, etc. And then build out from there.

The new lego master builder academy sets are BRILLIANT too.

http://shop.lego.com/en-US/Mas...

The instruction books alone are nearly with the price of entry.