You know, I'm fairly sure thats not what those bugs say.

Mark says they won't fix the issue that you can't move the panel to the other side or bottom of the screen. Honestly it's down to you whether you feel this is a good or a bad thing.

The multiple monitor bug is something entirely different whereby X is putting the panel on a specific (possibly wrong) monitor due to underlying code issues. Mark has NOT said they won't fix this, in fact he's not weighed in on it. Again, YMMV on whether you believe they're doing enough about it.

But really, he hasn't said they won't fix the second bug, which is the one you're referring to, and conflating with the first bug.

"I have to use a treadmill to power my pc, you insensitive clod"

Not so sure about that, I think they're more untested. What is interesting is there's a part in UK consumer law, that would take an act of parliment to change, that basically says "You cannot sign away your statutory consumer rights. Not now, not ever. No rule or contract, however phrased, trumps your basic rights as a consumer."

it's even an essential part of most T&C's in the UK "Your statutory rights are not affected."

Lets put it this way. The movie was Very Loosely based on the novel.

What was also interesting about the IRA thing was just how much funding from various irish interest groups in the US basically dried up after 9/11, as people in said interest groups suddenly had it brought home to them just what the money that was "supporting the cause" was going towards. To be blunt about it, the message that "Terrorism is not big and clever, it's unpleasant and nastyt" was beaten into the US in the worst possible fashion. The fact that all those new laws about funding terror and so forth also covered the relevant groups only helped hasten that drying up. All of a sudden, passing the hat round in the bar to "help our boys win the struggle" was not only in exceedingly poor taste, it was also on the list of things they'd stick you in Guantanamo for.

That said, in terms of the anniversary, I have only one thing to say, as spoken by those two wise prophets, Bill S. Preston, Esquire, and Ted "Theodore" Logan. Words, that if you strip out the comic hyperbole, make a huge amount of sense.

"Be excellent to each other."

To be fair, back in the day, Infogrames were a popular (in europe) software house who did some very good 8-bit games. I saw the takeover as more of a rebranding exercise than anything else.

It's not just you who thinks Blackout is awful. Charlie Stross thinks so too:

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=528863866&sk=wall

In fact, there's a LOT of criticism coming out of fandom in general about this years winner.

"The alternative was arguably even worse -- stories that were more interactive and interesting, yet full of people who wanted to RP every breath they took, with no actual game involved. You want to actually kill a monster? You want to gain a level?! Powergamer! Ban him!"

Sounds suspiciously like the roleplaying servers that people set up for NWN. The ones that think that in order to have proper rp and immersion, you need glacially slow levelling and miniscual amounts of magic.

PTerry already does a huge amount for Alzheimers projects. He doesn't expect the fix to come in before it's too late for him, and so he's making his plans and raising a stink about the issues while he still can.

As for "he should look at these examples," he's already keeping abreast of everything that's going on in this field. In fact, right at the beginning of all this, he asked all the n-thousand people who would write to him going "have you tried X, Y or Z" option to please not do so, unless they were a neurosurgeon or brain expert, to keep the clutter down and the signal-to-noise ratio up.

Amusingly, a disproportionate number of top-flight experts in these areas are fans. He effectively has a whole bunch of experts who keep him aware of the state of play.

Put simply, he's doing everything he can in his position, including laying the ground work in the event it's not quick enough.

The real question is, when will it have video conferencing/voip (no more will you have to get up and answer the phone when you're on the throne) and be able to run Tmost current multiplayer games (for people who are just too hardcore for loo breaks)