What's Myspace?

The "facsimile" will start to reach the end of it's life as people find less practical use for it. This technology will replaced with what is known as "electronic mail" (or "e-mail" in technical circles) which is basically a form of mail, but electronic. The emergence of "mobile telephony" will start to rise as well - allowing people to communicate in real time in voice while out and about.

If "free for 10 days" was enough of a taster to hook in millions of players, then logically "free until level 20" will do even more of the same.

I'd heard these type of claims before, I'd love for it to be true, but I find it VERY hard to believe.

Gameplay/playability is always more important than graphics. It has ALWAYS been the playability of a game that's made the big hits. The graphics are just an extra bonus. In fact most of the games that have a short playtime are the ones with the exceptionally great graphics. It's playability > graphics. With FPS's, the older ones were just as fun if not more fun than the most cutting edge ones. It's nice to have photorealistic graphics, but I know for a fact that CoD is no more fun for me than Unreal Tournament, and I've put way more hours into UT. Think about all the big epic hits over time, Sierra Quest series, Monkey Island, Zelda, Mario Bros, Sonic, Street Fighter 2, WoW etc, in almost all cases there are alternatives with better graphics but the gameplay/playability just aren't as good which is why they fell behind.

I always chuckle when I hear of people disabling JavaScript in this day and age. Reminds me of a guy from an old job who used to disable images in his broswer, saying they were unnecessary bloat that weren't important and shouldn't be a part of the web.

I make the serious assertion that the people who've been raging about JavaScript in this thread (mostly 'Anonymous Coward') actually don't know JavaScript well enough to understand how powerful it can really be. It's style of inheritance (not classical class based) is unusual to get used to, but actually very powerful. I can honestly say I only know a few developers who I'd consider 'experts' in JavaScript. The high majority of web developers do not have a thorough understanding of it.

Yes, a LOT of web programmers highly overestimate their SQL skill. I've worked at a couple of companies who place a lot of importance on it. At my last workplace, if an interviewee couldn't make sense of (for example) a 50 line T-SQL query with, 5 inner joins, 5 left joins, a sub query, some case statements, grouping, ordering and a COALESCE() function here or there, they wouldn't even be considered. Almost all web programmers are able to "interact with a standard relational database" at a basic level. But they're completely unskilled at the more advanced stuff. I've seen this time and time again at work, and on irc & forums - even people who are very smart/efficient with their language of choice, can be really poor with SQL, and they don't even know it. The reason they don't know it is because you can "get by" with minimal sql knowledge, by writing inefficient round-about, bad code to deal with the data and achieve the same end result (but just with far uglier, less efficient code)

It's probably not such a bad idea really. Microsoft are seen as boring, stagnant, and not making any particularly exciting moves in terms of new ideas & new products. Second Life is terrible these days, boring, clunky, ugly and crap, but the fundamental idea is pretty incredible - if Microsoft could take what's there and build upon it/somethow breath some life into it, I reckon it could have some serious potential, a second life if you will. It'll be spare change for MS, so not such a bad gamble IMO.

No, 'acting like a know-it-all' is that all-too-common, elitist, egotistical, whiney, snide attitude that many nerds tend to exhibit. A nerd who is able to communicate in a socially acceptable and 'normal' manner is a lot more valuable than an awkward whiney stubborn tryhard who always has to be heard. Sometimes less is more, and it's better to just keep your mouth shut. I completely agree with the original point - the MOST important thing is not to act like a know-it-all. Show some common sense. Don't act like you're better than others. Be humble. People like an easy going person more than an uptight weirdo. Wait until you settle in and get to know the system and people before you start suggesting improvements. My work has fired the last 2 developers that exhibited that know-it-all type of personality, and I was glad to see them go. In one of the cases I laughed until my throat hurt.

I completely agree that we should vote accordingly, and I will. (I've been a labor/left voter my entire life. This will be the first time they'll lose my vote) But a couple of things: 1. The mandatory internet censorship filter will be put in place before the next election 2. I highly doubt the oposition party (in our two party system) would 'oppose' the legislation anyway. (if they can get the current gov to put it in place and take the flak, I'm sure they'll be more than happy to 'inherit' this drastic arm of control.. and scot free!!) To me, this is just SUCH an important issue, and such a dramatic and dangerous 'precedent' that we need to thwart it in any way possible, and I think that international pressure might be the last possible remaining solution. As I said before, ALL the tech experts, providers, and even international governments are saying 'WTF?' but there's obviously some other agenda behind it. This is censorship of the worst kind, and once it's in place, it's too late.. Once the framework is put in place, it opens up the avenue for god-knows-what abuse in the future. We need to do whatever it takes! I've written my letters & emails to both Conroy and my local member of gov, but to be honest I'm not too confident we can stop it. People are just too complacent, and also just too dumb/uninformed. I'm concerned that people are just going about their daily lives, then in a few weeks this will be in place, and that's the end of it. Internet censorship is in place, and once it's in it will NEVER be removed.

I really hope that the US put a lot of pressure on our Australian government to try and prevent this draconian Mandatory Internet Censorship. If it goes ahead in Australia, it will pave the way for many more developed Western countries. This is a serious attack on our freedom. There's not much left we can do at the moment - the internet community is kicking up a fuss, most polls & votes are >94% AGAINST the censorship, the US gov, google, local telcos, ISP's and all the technical experts are advising AGAINST it, but ignorant Senator Conroy and the government keep pushing ahead to censor the internet. If it goes ahead it will be bad news for everyone. The more people that support us on this VERY important issue, the better. Slashdot + its community probably have the potential to help make a difference. Please USA, and the entire international online community, show your support on this in any way you can!

I completely agree. It always makes me laugh when (usually particularly uninteresting) people make this big deal of protecting their privacy, thinking that anybody actually cares. PEOPLE - YOU'RE NOT THAT INTERESTING. At the end of the day, you're going to die. If you choose to never publish any information about yourself in the public realm - fantastic, your legacy will be lost forever, and your name will be forgotten - but I'm sure you'll feel some sort of sense of achievement that you've 'defied the powers that be'. Those who aren't as paranoid and who do publish information on the internet will have their names (and possibly related information) 'etched in stone' for the rest of time (or until the LHC destroys the universe). Take your pick. I'm choosing to participate in the internet.

Umm. Wouldn't they have some technology that recreated the exact situation of the unmanned plane on the ground? Ie a pilot in a full simulator on the ground, who DOES see the plane when he 'turns his head'. Wouldn't be that hard given their level of technology.

Firstly, Andre Resende's version looks far more clear & easily identifiable to the eye. The currently useed one looks like complete garbage. what is it? pushing the 'g' over to the side looks terrible - who made that decision? What the hell were they on? To be honest it looks like some balls. Secondly, what's with the square with 4 colours overuse everywhere? Microsoft Windows, AVG, Code::Blocks, Codecharge, Google, IBM, Sony, Panasonic, Toyota all look EXACTLY the same. Anyone who disagrees is entirely wrong.