Virtually any game can be played in offline mode provided that 1) it has been launched with an active Internet application and 2) your Steam client is updated.

The login prompt should not appear for games that cannot be played offline--instead, you should receive the message "This Game Cannot Be Started in Offline Mode." What it sounds like is happening to you is that Steam is not running before you start a game. The option to launch Steam in offline mode only appears after login has failed.

Of course, if they didn't release ~20 Final Fantasy spinoffs a year, things might be different...

I remember reading a Slashdot comment last year suggesting that even placing something as small as a Google Ad on the frontpage would be enough to generate the year's worth of revenue. Because Wikipedia is so popular, might it not be sustainable to introduce ads with a free opt-out? Nobody who doesn't want to see ads is exposed to them, and those that don't opt out, whatever minority they are, could sustain the site.

I can't recall ever seeing more than 5 icons on a single article, so I would assume that this is a limit to slashdot's story posting system.

Your point is very valid--the article discusses browsers in general. Perhaps we should have an icon that applies to browsers in general or ignore browser icons altogether for articles such as this?

Except for the fact that a VAC ban only prevents you from playing on VAC-enabled servers in Valve games.

...an article that acknowledges that causation != correlation? This is a first.

For me personally, learning advanced mathematics (calculus and beyond) has changed my thinking process from a purely creative, English-oriented one to an objective, analytical outlook. The true understanding of how mathematical principals work--what a derivative is and not merely how to calculate it--has shown me the power of mathematical, logical analysis. As an English major, I came to a point where I was not sure whether or not I wanted to continue taking math courses (as I will need almost no math beyond arithmetic in my life), but I came to the conclusion that the mindset mathematics gives me rather than the quantitative abilities it provides is what matters in my education, and I therefore encourage anybody to continue studying math well past the point in which the skills become irrelevant.

Ergonomic Model Ms exist, but are incredibly hard to find. You may want to ask around, though. An old workplace of mine had one sitting around in the storage.

But we are talking about a 9th grade course, not a college course or a senior-level IT program. These students have not yet begun to specialize their educations according to the career they wish to pursue, and, indeed, most will likely change their idea of a dream job by the time they leave college.

Most college students purchase a computer before their freshman year and intend it to last throughout their entire four year program. That means they are still at home, still largely unphased by the costs of college, and living far more dependently on their parents' income than they will on campus.

The process merely creates a template which is then used to create the cells. Therefore, only enough fly eyes to create the template (theoretically one) are required to build an entire line of solar cells.

The cameras I have seen take photos of your license plate, not your vehicle. Therefore, they can uniquely identify your vehicle. Additionally, the higher-budget cameras have a second camera several yards past the intersection that attempts to photograph the driver.

And how many iPhone/Android buyers bought their phones to transmit vocalized conversation? Considering the fact that the apps and the multi-functionality of the devices are their selling points, I'd say that for the purposes these phones are bought for, they become quite quickly obsolete.

As a member of the gaming community, I have come across a large number of discussions concerning DLC, and the vast majority of gamers I've seen online have been very vocal against this idea. The community as a whole doesn't care what the price of the game is--in this case, a game that would normally retail for $60 could be sold for $30 with DLC making up the other $30--they simply will not support a game that feels unfinished.

Ultimately, the gaming community feels (unrealistically) that video game publishers are trying to milk them for all the money they are worth and that DLC that feels like it should have been included on the disc (or that was included on the disc and then unlocked via purchase) is one of the greatest sins conceivable.

Personally, I think that the gaming community is largely built of alarmists and that these changes wouldn't seriously hamper gaming at all (especially if the retail price was lowered), but the community as a whole simply will not stand for this, and any attempts to roll this out in the near future will fail.