I live rural and CenturyLink has a complete monopoly in this area.

I had dialup through CenturyLink until 2006, because every time I asked them about their DSL service I received the same bull about being in an extended service area and how the performance to my address would degrade. Shortly before it became impossible to get a tech to your address any more (they ship replacement hardware by UPS, etc.), I talked to the guy that was maintaining our lines (the same guy who responded to every service call here for years) and he agreed to fib a little on our account to place us inside what he told us was a 4-mile radius of the nearest DSL switch for availability. CenturyLink gave us 512 kbit ADSL (which is currently $75/month), and the rates coming through are greater than what they're supposed to be (approximately 72 kilobytes per second down and 40 up). So much for "degraded service".

Now for the last two years, I've been getting the exact same speech about being in an extended area and would suffer degraded service if they would throttle me to any higher available package. The connection is rock-freakin-solid and the only time I've ever had an internet outage was when the power was out, but they continue to refuse to take my damn money for some reason.

I'm with you on this. There is very little overlap for what is called the "hardcore" market and what is called the "casual" market . The former isn't going to transform into the latter and play Black Ops 2 with an omnidirectional treadmill, and not to mention this will significantly reduce the amount of time per person being invested into these games because you're simply going to be worn the hell out after a match or two. This is not what the developers want.

From a practical angle, I don't want to run around like this before or after a shift at work, I want to veg out on the sofa in my boxer shorts and move, at most, my arm from the elbow down to reach into the bag of Doritos leaning against my thigh. I also didn't notice any strafing, jumping, or crouching going on, so yet again these gimmicky input devices prove that the keyboard+mouse/controller is still the superior input mechanism. You can see the red team running circles around this guy the entire time.

The problem becomes that regardless of how this works out, EA isn't accountable. If you boycott the game and don't buy it, EA assumes this is entirely the fault of the game or developer. If you do buy it, EA thinks you're apathetic or complacent about whatever silly DRM they've employed and will continue using and/or cooking up crappy new anti-consumer methods. Unfortunately, the better scenario is buying the game. You have to support titles and developers you like, despite the evil publishing facility they've decided to use or have been stuck with.

At the same time, I'm glad to see these stories about server issues caused by shitty DRM. I hope it continues to draw attention to how all of their paying customers are being treated like thieves.

Daylight savings is an anachronistic practice. The world runs 24/7 these days, why does it matter where the daylight is shifted within our time system?

Somehow I don't find it surprising that the same site has reported from 'reliable sources' that both the 'PS4' and '720' will take issue with used games. Are we attempting a self-fulfilling prophecy here? There seems to be a lot of excitement to proudly proclaim "I fucking called it!" if either one of these consoles employs a CD key or account-lock game ownership mechanic.

Furthermore, what is their problem with backwards compatibility? There were two big things that prevented me from buying a PS3; the price tag for the longest time, and its removal of PS2 backward compatibility. Certainly it can't be difficult to copy-paste the old code from the PS1/PS2/PS3 and launch the proper interpreter depending on disc era?

The country has three concurrent wars for oil going on, and to fund it they probably spend more than NASA's entire yearly budget in a few months. Add to the mission goals the intent to research and build a giant continent-vaporizing laser, or allude to the presence of crude oil on Mars, and watch your funding skyrocket.

In all seriousness though, there does seem to be a significant lack of interest in the sciences whenever there isn't a clear end result of return on investment. It's no big secret that the almighty dollar makes the world turn.

The issue with goto is that it is a supremely useful language construct that resides on the far end of Caveat Valley. Egregious use by those who are inexperienced far outnumbers proper use by those who employ it correctly, because it is somehow more attractive than the construct they really need, which is generally break.

Goto and other program 101 are at such a basic level that those who generally require education on its proper deployment are too inexperienced to comprehend an example that displays its proper use. Instructors just take the fire and brimstone approach and declare goto is a sin just to simplify the process. It's a victim of character assassination.