It does seem pointless to me to use a computer to create a proof, except when using it to quickly calculate the known and already proven equations.

Of course, that's coming from a guy who continually messes up a number or sequence here or there.

Hey! This is the slashdot comment section. We don't need anything factual around here!

I agree. Have you ever met the "Teenager"?

Actually, I just started playing Zelda again a few days ago (www.virtualnes.com). I found it to be VERY easy. Sure, you may die a lot, especially at the beginning of the game. Making it through Ganon's maze was difficult. But the grind for coins was not difficult and the map is a grid of boxes. Now, compare that to games of the time, such as Prince of Persia, nethack. Your character dies in the game, your character dies for good and you start over.

I'll give you that the secrets in the game were difficult to find. But that was likely either memory limitation for graphic resources or a marketing ploy to sell more Nintendo Power magazines or the walkthrough magazine guide. It is amazing how much I remember where all of the secrets are now. Although, I do get the secrets from second run through messed up with the first run through. (You beat Ganon, play through again with secrets in different locations.)

What do you mean? They LOVE this stuff. We'd have 3 new versions of all 6 Star Wars movies: One in 48 fps DVD, 48 fps HD BluRay, and 48fps 3D BluRay. Just imagine all the new sales!

Meh. Can't you enjoy all 6 for their existent value, rather than smugly putting the others down or pompously elevating your preferred tastes?

Seeing their civil engineering in practice, I think I come away with why their software engineering is the way it is.

Agreed. When Microsoft can figure out an easy way to handle spanning single windows across multiple monitors, then I wouldn't mind a single application window space. But, for now, I am very pleased I can move my tools to one monitor (and any reference sources) while I work on my main image on another monitor.

Hmm, if I can figure out how to compile the thing for a modern x86, I'd take that darn 60 minute time limit off... or at least increase it to 90 minutes and finally finish the darn game. Twice I got to the second to last level, once looking at the doorway, when time ran out.

Even when I was 14 years old, back in the 80's, I knew that Apple's closed system was no good. Yes, at the time, they had better hardware, software, and such, but it wasn't easily upgradeable, not without spending twice more for a part than what you could put in an IBM compatible. And, look what happened, Wintel machines won. More and better innovation came from the hardware manufacturers that had to compete with each other for user's dollars.

Only software suffered because Microsoft had that locked up. Here Apple won the day for a long time because they did have the more creative designers. Now that we have competition in the OS field, we are starting to see better ideas flourish and rise to the top. We are starting to see better designed software interfaces that allow the user to feel at ease with their computing device.