Thanks for everything!
No, you're right. In those cases, it probably really IS ball lightning. But some reported cases of ball lightning might actually be hallucinations, and not the real thing.
...this just delays it a bit.
But the Government has a clear mandate here, and now that SA has a new Attorney-General (one who is on record as being a proponent of harmonising game rating with film/tv/book ratings), I think this will actually happen. Might be another year or two (the legislative process is pretty slow) but it will happen.
The govt. does have a point though. If you have a consultation where one 'side' spams you up with 50,000 individual submissions, but the other 'side' consolidates their arguments into a few submissions, it is important not to let the former drown out the latter. It's not a vote - the Government will consider all the viewpoints and their own constitutional obligations re responsible government, and come to a reasoned conclusion. I'm still pretty confident that conclusion will be pro-R18+ rating for games though. It has pretty overwhelming support.
Unfortunately the future of PC gaming through traditional (dedicated server) means is in jeopardy as far as mainstream titles are concerned.
PC games used to have an online edge because even if a game was created across many platforms the PC game would have Modding capabilities as well as dedicated servers. This edge would continue as games would become timeless and online play would only be limited by community support rather than some douche behind a desk crunching numbers.
Unfortunately this differentiation has been eroded by the idea that simplification sells.
if every idea was protected forever, that would eventually create a legal minefield for anyone trying to publish something new. they'd have to go through ages of creations to check if anything remotely resembled their own, and it'll only grow as more people find gaps. eventually, you'll need someone specialized in finding these gaps to assist you while you create. is that your dream world? it isn't mine.
the shitty bit about this is that i own a "3G" ipod touch 8gb, which is nothing more then a 2G ipod with an exterior update to look like the actual 3Gs
So apple sells this as a new ipod touch, but it wont run their newest software.. i wonder if OS 4.0 means the death of the 2.5G 8gb ipod.
I'll survive though, considering ive gotten along without multitasking so far. I would have really liked it, but eh.. if i really want it i'll just have to pony up the dough for a new iPad nano...
not using it as a phone is my guess
my GF had her 3GS on plane-mode while on vacation (because of the excessive data-roaming charges), and suddenly battery-life is almost a week.. it basically becomes and ipod touch with a larger battery, and it survives on zero power
Read my post again. I am not disputing that Dell has more variety; that is a clear no brainer.
My point is that even though Dell has more variety, doesn't mean that Apple doesn't have any. The two do not correlate. Your original assertion was that because Apple has no sub-$1k gaming laptop that they had no variety. Well, you actually said "little actual variety" (direct quote), despite having demonstrably different product lines that are physically different from one another in pretty marked ways - some are laptops, one is the size of a few CDS, one is designed to be expandable, the other has a screen built in but is a desktop. They also sell phones and music players.
The fundamental raw product lines are reasonably similar to Dell - Inspiron/Latitude in laptops for example, with a large array of configurations of those base products (far more than with the MacBook and MacBook Pro configs, but still based on a small subset of designs).
As to whether "gaylordest" is a word, however, is perhaps a discussion for another time. Maybe it's a word in high school.
Again, since your level of discourse appears to only go so high that "gaylordest" is actually a word in your vocabulary, I will repeat that I am not saying that Apple has more variety than Dell, nor did I ever state or imply that in earlier posts.
The Tao is like a glob pattern: used but never used up. It is like the extern void: filled with infinite possibilities.