Heh, I'm with you on this. My inner 22-year-old nerd that discovered Slashdot all those years ago died a little today.

Good thing I already had a booze-fest scheduled tonight with my running buddies, all of them definitely non-nerds so no Slashdot war stories.

I couldn't agree more - most of my online life has been spent on Slashdot and after this bit of news I feel a little lost.

Oh well, change is the only constant so we might as well push forward into the brave new world that's Slashdot with CmdrTaco.

Start with the 11th Doctor.

It's a sort-of fresh start and while it does reference the past Doctors, if you're interested in knowing more - look up the episode on Wikipedia and I'm sure a bigger nerd will have linked to the past episode.

The biggest things that came back from past episodes were the Steven Moffat episodes from the previous seasons - those might be worth viewing just to catch up and also to see how good Doctor Who can be if in the hands of a good writer.

Previous Steven Moffat stories:
Series 1:
1.9 "The Empty Child"
1.10 "The Doctor Dances"

Series 2:
2.4 "The Girl in the Fireplace"

Series 3:
3.10 "Blink"

Series 4:
4.9 "Silence in the Library"
4.10 "Forest of the Dead"

Just listing those episodes reminds me of a lot of the stuff introduced in them that are referenced in later episodes.

I don't know if it's true or not but my definitely non-gamer wife that only 3 years ago started driving drives like a mad-woman in town while I, a driver for the past 15 years and avid gamer, drive cautiously and actively avoid conflict. When we hit highways, we trade personalities - I drive fast and furious, respecting as many laws as I dare, while my wife turns into 25kph-old-man-with-blinkers-on.

I tell her that I don't trust other drivers in town, I feel like they can swerve at any time and cut me off - like they do in oh-so-many games. On highways I feel more at ease so I cut loose and step on it.

It's uncanny that you just described my past 3 months of gaming and the submitter described my feelings of late.

After finishing Mass Effect 2 (which I recommend, along with Dragon Age) I spent a while with Minecraft until I started to feel sick playing it, the game is awesome but the cramped spaces or heights and constant sense of fear had me feeling woozy so I had to step away and I turned back to Mount & Blade and Mount & Blade: Warbands. The vanilla game isn't all that hot but the mods, oh boy, the mods are worth it even if a few are buggy. I personally like Prophecy of Pendor (M&B) and Brytenwalda (M&B:Warbands) - both change the game significantly for the better but they're not easy and, while the AI is still dumb as a rock, the battles are still a lot of fun.

Currently I prefer games that I can play at my own pace - an hour a day - but still have a sense of accomplishment. I'm still not a fan of casual games but I can find fun in them but I still like the idea of building characters or worlds except not in MMORPG's, I tried that once as a way to kill an hour a day and lost 14 months of my life.

I too loved Dragon Age: Origins.

The whole world seemed so alive and the break of a few RPG paradigms (No Clerics, dwarfs with US accents, elves with spanish... I FUCKIN' LOVED THAT!) brought back that feeling I had as a teen playing RPGs - I really could lose myself in that world.

At any rate, I'll anxiously wait for it and I'll buy it like a good Bioware fanboy should and I'll love it.

I only hope they make a proper PC version for the game like they did for Dragon Age: Origins. I can't even begin to describe how much I hate Mass Effect 2's PC-as-a-second-thought interface. Mind you, the game is awesome, the scope is epic, the story is fantastic, the sound and visuals are breathtaking and the characters are all "real" but the console-like controls drive me nuts.

I wonder how long it'll take until someone posts the xkcd comic that seems obligatory everyone makes a comment from Idiocracy.

Just this...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1BUH9eXy18

China is giving the world the middle finger and not giving a shit about the repercussions.

Face it, corporations are hungry for dollars and one of the only markets left for them is China and the whole Google thing proved that it doesn't matter what China does, the corporations are going to fall in line and obediently do what China wants of them. Of all the companies affected by the breech only Google has spoken out - the rest are quiet and will remain so in fear of losing precious Chinese business.

China has seen that it has nothing to fear from the corporate world - the ones that give them money. They'll do whatever they want now - taking down sites and silencing opposition will only be met with silence and their homeland population is so docile that they'll never revolt so why the fuck should they care.

It's been a long, long time since banter was so much fun. In fact, the last time banter was so good was on another Bioware game - Baldur's Gate.

I love mixing and matching the characters and trying to spark their comments just to listen in to their chats and comments.