Standard generic versions tend not to have 9 buttons. There was a time when Kensington had 5-button mice for $20, but they are hard to find these days.

I'd actually prefer more "non-gaming" models to have more buttons, but for some reason only "gamers" must want programmable buttons.

Yet you felt the need to comment anyway. Bravo. And anonymously, too. What makes fretting of the specifics of a mouse different than golf clubs, tennis rackets or the like other than the fact that video games are less socially desirable? It is obvious that in most cases the person worrying over the miscellaneous details isn't a pro and thus it doesn't really matter - but worrying over details can be fun in its own right.

I have one of the weighted mice, I bought it for more buttons (which have utility outside of games, too - one to go to the next browser tab, one to go back, forward/back browsing buttons, buttons for expose, etc). I just maxed out the weights and found that I do like a heavier mouse - it makes finer movements easier.

It is about to give up the ghost and the current logitech replacement has lost one button, so I'm not sure I'll go that route.

You are confusing what the game developers and marketers have said with what the community has said.

The only time I have ever heard the term "wow-killer" or anything like it was from a gamer that was consumed with the fervor of a new game - zeal of the converted.

What I -have- seen is developers/marketing pointing out one or two specific facets of WoW that their game does better or differently. Not the same thing.

One of these students called their teacher a pedophile, the other called a teacher bipolar. If tossing around a statement like that isn't criminal when it isn't warranted, then I'm not sure what libel and slander are.

They deserve the full might of the disciplinary hammer in this case.

I suppose in the real world they take credit for other people's work too, so that's all right then.

Even when you take this approach, students will try to cheat. I've done it, been there, googled the ridiculous sentences, and taken the tour of honor court.

Yes, you can minimize opportunities to cheat with cleverer tests and/or assignments, but until education is seen as something other than merely a stepping stone to a job "outsourcing thought" will continue to increase.

Perhaps, but these days you can find someone to craft you a paper to your specifications for not much money, even if the paper specs involved application or analysis (That is, thinking about knowledge rather than merely regurgitating it).

in my experience the ones with better memories are the ones that care about the subject being studied in the first place. I see no problem with letting them have "the advantage"

as a social scientist, I can tell you that social studies are not degrees "to get a job".

less worrying?

I take it you haven't taught undergrads recently - the number that try to cheat (and a related problem, don't know the difference between a cited source and a plagiarized one) is staggeringly high.

I suppose if one views it as a rather obvious result of the McDonald-ized higher education system it is less surprising, but no less awful. I'll agree that we don't need a new term here, but the way Internet access enables students to buy papers from multiple paper-writing sources with only a credit card is different than things us to be 20 or 30 years ago.

Presumably, you aren't an 11 year old autistic child.

As someone who generates academic material, I think this is a flawed position.

Academic publishing takes time, often a *lot* of time, depending on discipline. History journals and those in the social sciences are generally quite slow-moving. Wikipedia can be there to catalog things that would never see academic publication, and never will if they aren't cataloged *now*.

Wikipedia is for groundswell. Wikipedia should not let the perfect be the enemy of the good. No one in their right mind would cite wikipedia anyway. Well, no one but an undergrad.

Sucking as hard as possible with sophomoric humor and mediocre rehashed music? A solid B- sci fi show, sure, but really not that great.

Just because there aren't a lot of A level sci fi shows doesn't mean we should worship a mediocre one.

For what it is (a mobile game, best played on something like an ipad), it is pretty good. The description screamed "action game" and it delivered.

At $2.99 I doubt it is intended to stand as a landmark title.

I had fun playing it - I'd expect to pay more for something better, really.

Leads one to believe that the general assumption is that mobile devices won't become more powerful and efficient. I don't think that is the case - rather, they'll continue to get more powerful until they hit the "good enough" plateau that desktops have been in for the last several years (and have been in before).

It is very likely that when such a convergence happens you'll get as pretty a game on a big screen as you're used to, just driven by essentially mobile hardware.

How is this prediction much different than one that claims most computers will be mobile in the near future? Leaving aside whether or not you would be ok with that - the slashdot reader is hardly the most common consumer of computer products.