Depressing. Sad that we even have to go to race and sex to make this story newsworthy. Sad that some DA did this just to puff up their felony count.

18 years ago the "works bomb" was our introduction to stoichiometry, came just after going over basic safety in the lab. Didn't do it in class, but several kids made them at home, one even blew up a mailbox and had to pay for the damages. Good thing that DA wasn't around at the time, bet they could have gotten two felonies out of a 16/17 year old.

And I've yet to get a Pizza Hut ad with audio over Steam.

Because Microsoft.

I'm always wrong on these things, but I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if some manager in the Xbox Live division knew this would make him look integral to the company's success (instead of fixing the numerous broken aspects of Live, probably built on another stack of thoughtless compromises). So he scratched one guy's back who scratched another guy's back and the hammer was pulled on the gun that MS always shoots itself in the foot with.

For all of the things they do right, this is a place where they can't. It is in their DNA. See all the years where you had to have a Gold subscription just to buy something on the market place or that you still need it for Netflix (Why MS? I have a Wii less than 2 ft away? Are you stupid?).

I didn't play it until a few years ago, maybe 2 or 3, but the game stood up (along with Thief and Thief 2, also games I didn't get to until long after their respective studios were closed/bought out). Looking Glass/Irrational, either by design or happy fluke, really did create a few classics.

Granted these games aren't for everyone. They aren't pretty (though the sound design is awesome) and they aren't action titles. They are slow moving examinations of tension in games.

"We need more testing in this field, particularly on that white wall over there."

Depends on how you want to split it and people were very split and very scared at the time. Back then you could ask the average person on the street if they favored going into Iraq and the frequent response would be something along the lines of: I want to support the troops. It wasn't overwhelming support, it was fear for our children and anger and sorrow for our dead.

It was also a very heady time. I remember walking into a bar prior to the run up and a KBR employee was handing out flutes of Dom and wearing a platinum grill (really weird thing to see on a middle aged white dude). Asked him what he really thought of it and he asked me why I hated Capitalism. Told him I had nothing against it, but invading Iraq just seemed like a poor decision, an unnecessary expenditure. Then he asked me why I hated the troops. GO TO 10. No real discussion, no real discourse, just: Why do you hate America? You don't? Well then shut up and get on the bus.

On top of all of that you had Ashcroft and Rumsfeld making these really weird statements during press conferences about "sedition" and "I can't say that subversive sources can't be classified as enemy combatants, you tell me". The right knew it was hard trolling, the left went nuts and we still occasionally hear about "Bush Derangement Syndrome".

And at the time some wondered why the middle wouldn't go past "I support the troops"?

Win8 is perfectly fine for what it was designed for. Unfortunately they broke Fitt's law when they released it for the desktop.

Not sure how many rocks I can throw at MS. The new hotness was in tablets and they needed a proper tablet OS. I can applaud them for getting that right, but they should have at least thought of allowing users to run a pure desktop mode on their new emachine desktop. That would have saved them a lot of embarrassment.

Thrift stores are the cheapest bet (think out-of-the-way Mom and Pop Christian Ministry type thrift stores, not Goodwill).

Stopped by one recently and asked if they had any old keyboards in the back. The employee pointed me outside to a shed behind the building. There was literally a pile of old IBM Model Ms laying behind the place, had been hit by rain several times. Took a garbage sack of them home, let them dry out and everything was fine (there was even an old IBM model 5150, but my wife wasn't about to let me add that to the PC graveyard in the office).

The annoying bit is that so many of them are AT instead of PS/2 (good luck even finding PS/2 ports on modern hardware, now it is just 4 USB ports in the back).

Gabe Newell's "wizard" comment struck me as the right thing to say. You can make cool stuff that does cool things and it doesn't require millions of dollars worth of equipment or special friends in high places or fame or whatever. Generally you just need time and effort and with the right idea you can do something pretty amazing.

Pics of offices with people playing rock music, ping pong and video games are, on the other hand, probably not a great idea.

For the last 20 something years I've written nice, respectful letters to my Rep and Jr. and Sr. Senators ranging from traffic lights to pending legislation. Most often the response comes 6 months after the letter is sent telling me that they will take it in into consideration if the legislation ever happens to come across their desk table again, but currently they voted against what I was for or for what I was against. Better luck next time.

If I don't get that response I get one that says that they respectfully disagreed and then they regurgitate their campaign promises hoping to receive my support in the future.

As crazy as it sounds, the only real luck I've had is with the tea party caucus types. Unless it has something to do with some weird, arbitrary, moral stance they exclusively say no to almost everything. At least I can count on them to never do anything.

Not sure if hard to use is still fair assessment. Back when it was purely a geek affair, but these days you don't even have to run a typical package manger. Just fire up Ubuntu Software Center, search and install. Just as you would on a smart phone. Easier than Windows at this point. Did that come 10 years too late, maybe, but the "Linux" of 10 years ago isn't the same as the one of today.

We already have that, it is call a mortgage payment.

Most of the time it doesn't matter, but in this case are a talking materials science. A 3D printed "clip" wouldn't last very long unless we've made some serious advancement in the materials used for 3D printing.

What about telling Manning that he was a minister?

No, but the ending was non-obvious.