Comment: Re:Start here (Score 4, Insightful) 974
As I recall, it was required nation-wide during the late 70s. Then Reagan happened.
Comment: Re:Blu-ray player? (Score 1) 780
Surely this is a typo -- I could have sworn that MS pledged never to put that into one of their consoles.
That was before HD-DVD died.
Comment: Re:DLC is more lucrative (Score 1) 74
funny
steam is the gateway drm...
Mass Effect 2 isn't on Steam any more because Valve wasn't happy about DLC for it only being sold by EA through an in-game store.
To clarify: It's not that it had an in-game store they disagreed with, only that users couldn't pay for it from their Steam wallets.
Comment: Re:Maybe I can Start loving Windows again (Score 1) 491
I'm sorry, after 15 years of Microsoft, instead of another forced upgrade
Fun fact: Windows XP has been around for 12 of those 15 years and is still supported until April next year.
Comment: Re:Wow... (Score 2) 491
Poorly written version detection is why Windows 7 self-identifies as 6.1
Turns out that 6.0 (and 7.0) fail the old
if (majorVer >= 5 && minorVer >= 1)
idiocy that places were using to check if you were running XP instead of Win2K.
Comment: Re:multiple social providers on the desktop (Score 1) 246
I don't have any social features in my firefox. What?
The Firefox release notes say you're wrong.
Comment: Re:What a joke (Score 2, Funny) 232
I've considered making a game where in the background it operated a bitcoin mining operation for myself like a zombie botnet. I'm sure the idea isn't original at all.
If you'd read the article, you'd have noticed that ESEA beat you to that idea.
Comment: Re:Before the iPad 2, there was the iPad 1 (Score 1) 232
How many new games are still compatible with the original iPad?
all of them
Comment: Re:I'll say the same thing I've been saying (Score 1) 232
Either I'm really good at tuning out the ads or you're just really bad at it. While my preferred gaming platform is PC, I still use my PS3 and 360 and don't feel they're overburdened with ads any more than Steam or the likes. If anything it seems worse on PC.
Steam's ads only appear when you visit the Store page or exit a game for the first time after starting Steam. The exit game ads can be disabled in Steam's settings. Incidentally, these ads are limited to new games, recently updated games, and sale items.
PS3's ads are little scrolling text messages in the upper-right corner of the system's main menu.Incidentally, these ads are limited to new games, recently updated games, sale items, and PSPlus price reductions.
The Xbox 360's ads are a set of 6 or so ads taking up 3/4 of the screen area after you turn the system on. And this is the same for every single tab in the UI with the exception of the Bing search tab. Incidentally, these ads are for new games, new DLC, Xbox Live Gold, and the other 3 are for whomever is paying Microsoft the most money today.
So yeah, the 360 has a lot more advertising on it and irritating advertising at that.
Comment: Re:Exciting development for MariaDB (Score 1) 215
Erm, you're talking about the people who sold the open source MySQL to Sun for $1BN... They know there's money in open source databases....
The face that they sold it then turned around and started a direct competitor using its own source code could potentially land them in hot water.
Comment: Re:Even with HAL (Score 1) 312
Pepper Flash may not be working due to an issue with the 11.6 Flash releases. At least Flash 11.6 has problems with Amazon video on Windows, I just assume it's a multi-platform problem.
Comment: Re:Let us give thanks.... (Score 1) 332
The people at AMD who did this, an unquestionably biggest AMD's achievement to date, they should be rehired and given executive positions.
Their second biggest was outdoing Intel with the first Athlon chips. As I recall, AMD had the performance advantage over Intel for several years starting in 1999, possibly even until Intel released the Core 2 in 2006.
Comment: Re:Laughable (Score 1) 135
You mean, like this window?
That's from the current Java release trying to load Oracle's Java detection applet. And before you ask, I'm required to have Java installed for work because one of our apps relies on an applet.
Comment: Re:Always the goal (Score 4, Informative) 135
The Java Dev site has an installer without stupid addon crap.
Comment: Re:Last link is broken (Score 1) 222
They are both politicians. Do they really have different opinions or do they just say that they do?
Just asking, I'm not familiar with U.S. politics but I assume that the "representatives" are pretty much like everywhere else.
It makes a difference as to who can vote him out of office.
For instance, it's people where I live rather than people in Alabama.
Granted, I've already been voting against him...