I've never had a problem, but then I have been using Steam heavily only for the last few months.

What I can say is that Steam isn't DRM anymore. Yes, that's one function that they serve, but Google isn't search anymore either. Successful businesses build on what they start with and go far beyond it. Steam is doing just that (well, Valve).

Just being able to install games on every platform that they support, not just the one that I bought is a huge win, but add to that the universal access to saved games (in games that support it, of course) and the upcoming Linux-based console... they're no more a DRM company than any other gaming platform. They're a gaming service provider.

I never knew anyone who regularly made the distinction between "line printer" and "dot matrix printer" when talking about "line printer ASCII art". Sure, line printers were their own thing, but when used as an adjective, it was always synonymous with DMP. Now get off my lawn, or I'll rant about how ttys are actual teletype machines, and not just a damned serial port!

I just downloaded a 10.8GB beta version of the Rift expansion and then spent the evening watching Netflix. Where are these caps people talk about?

I think the modified version of the quote is from The Value of Nothing by Raj Patel. Specifically the "childish daydream" vs. "childish fantasy" wording...

A long time ago, I proposed a solution, but no one listens to me. My take is that there are three problems: 1) copyright term is so long that the intended benefit to the commons is rendered moot 2) different types of work (such as software and books) and even different works within a single medium have radically different periods over which they reap the rewards for their creators 3) copyright holders aren't artists and artists are largely screwed over by the copyright holders.

Any plan that solves for those three problems will bring a world of benefit.

Most lay-people don't understand that the requirements for new patents have changed. It used to be that patents had to be innovative. Not so, any longer. They now need to abuse the patent system in innovative ways. Also, you are required to cite prior art in the form of a haiku, making citing specific patent numbers quite difficult.

It's "slick vs. stick." It'll be what every kid wants for Christmas.

You just have to go through Lloyd's of Alternate-London...

If this is intended to make you feel good about making poor choices, then carry on.

However, I'll tell you now that most people under 30 are typically living in a dream world. "Poor health" is a concept to most such "youngsters." When I was that age I'd been ill and I'd been injured, and I thought I understood. But, now, with the mild aches and pains of age creeping up on me slowly, I realize how big that gun is that I'm looking down the barrel of. Poor health isn't about being hit by a taxi-cab at 9 and getting my skull fractured. It's not about getting walking pneumonia at 19 and having to walk a mile to the hospital for treatment. It's about being in pain (or even just discomfort) and knowing that you're going to feel that way for a very, very long time, if not the rest of your life.

Not that I'm that bad off. I have a few minor aches and pains that are the sign that my body has stopped being forgiving about trivial injury. But it does put some things in perspective.

Yeah, the "Respiration, sweating," etc. threw me off too. My guess, based on the rest of the article is that the requirement isn't that it sweat and breathe, but that it not produce more moisture or heat than a human under the same exertion. That would allow it to use equipment that was tested with humans such as weaponry, testing equipment for dangerous environments or bomb-defusing tools. For example, if it threw off lots of heat when walking, it might not be something you want to use for bomb disposal...

Still, it can't help that they're cheese-eating surrender monkeys.

Get over it. It's a Simpsons reference. I promise not to jump all over you when you claim you can create a time machine by sticking a fork in a toaster.

That's still misuse. You might be entirely justified in your actions, but it's other than the intended use. From the point of view of Chinese hackers (I'm suspicious of always attributing these attacks to the Chinese...) what they're doing is a patriotic act, but it's no less misuse.

You're missing the point. This was a tech demonstration, not an end-user finished product, you can see that in the end credits (VTFV replaces RTFA, I guess). Yes, the stitching is hackish, but that doesn't matter. The proof of concept is brilliant, and I could easily see this kind of thing taking off. Even without stitching, it gives you the ability to take pictures of the surrounding area from a reasonable height, anywhere. I could see this being really useful at concerts and events where you want a picture over the heads of the crowd. You could just stitch together the forward-facing three views to get a nice, standard-looking panorama without having to orient the device to "face" in that direction.

It's not something Slashdot invented. Google gives 2,450,000 hits on the terms "TSA smurf".

But let me say one thing that I'm sure some people will be unhappy with: bias doesn't matter in reporting.

I don't watch Fox News because their reporting sucks, not because they're biased. I don't watch most left-leaning shows for the same reason. Back in the day, before he decided that shock was better publicity than reporting, I watched Rush Limbaugh's TV show (yeah, I'm that old) because he occasionally did some excellent investigative journalism. It would have to be fact-checked, and you had to ignore the invective, but at its core were stories I wasn't seeing elsewhere, and which, on further investigation, proved to be valid and useful (sometimes leading me to conclusions that Rush would not have been pleased with).

So, bias doesn't matter. Is this story informative? Is it sensationalized beyond the point of having any value? Yes and close, but not quite is my take. The fact of the matter is that there's no evidence either way. The woman in question could have gone to an ER and requested a rape kit. There would be some evidence of the invasion. If she didn't, then she might well be lying, but that's not for us to decide. The important issue isn't the woman vs. the man, it's the fact that the TSA is in a position that elicits such concerns (and the rest is for a court to decide).

And if the market forced battery life to be a priority, then we'd get the same battery life we had on slower devices, but the big drains are high-contrast, high-resolution screens and fast processors; both of which continue to be the driving market forces.