From developer's link:

and will be released for free (so we don't get stabbed by lawyers)

Being released for free doesn't mean much. Even completely free mods for other games, if they impinged on the intellectual property of another company have been taken down through the typical use of cease and desist letters.

Which means that

Original SMB levels and Lost levels will be included

is likely going to bite this guy in the ass, assuming he didn't get permission from Nintendo (which from a lack of mention on the site I doubt he has).

The reason this is news, at least for Slashdot, is that so many people here have spent years building Google up as a benevolent engineering company trying to make the world a better place

In other words, Slashdotters are no more wise than anyone else and just as gullible. The only organizations out there who have it in their charter to make the world a better place would be non-profits. Google are good at marketing that's for sure.

Let's say, for example, that GIMP has an extra awesome macro-recording/playback capability that makes Photoshop look like a toy in comparison. (I don't know if this is the case or not so please forgive my ignorance.)

I forgive your ignorance, but I feel compelled to respond here by saying that it's actually the other way around. Photoshop has an awesome recording/playback capability (called Actions). You just hit record, perform the steps you desire, hit stop and there you go.

With the GIMP the nearest equivalent are scripts, but you have to write them yourself using a pseudo-scripting language. There's no simple recording feature, and I wasn't going to sit and waste time learn how to code up a script for an equivalent workflow of what I was used to doing in Photoshop, because the scripting is actually very complicated, particularly if you can't find the commands to do what you want.

People have complained about this (from 2001! - https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=51937), but nothing has happened because as the last post in said thread says, "we simply don't have
enough developers."

I won't bug them about it, but I won't bother with GIMP anymore because it simply lacks easy of use and important functionality. Open source doesn't always work in practice.

For anyone concerned about tech support situations, the troubleshooting URL about:support will stay. Initially I was concerned about this as well, but it's not THAT serious.

I'll just end this rant by asking: 'How many of you have been bit by one of the aforementioned issues, and what is your take on the modern 'MBA' mentality that seems to be creeping it's way into the open source ecosystem?'

My take? It's been enough for me to completely abandon any further attempts to convert to Linux until they stop fucking with things. I'm sticking with Windows 7 for now because it's proven to me to me a mature, very solid and surprisingly stable platform to run all of my software (both proprietary and open-source, so I get the best of both worlds). I can also count on plenty of older software still working in Windows 7, as well as much of my ingrained habits still working in the new Windows alongside all the new functionality, as opposed to GNOME 3's method of forcing the user to relearn nearly everything about how to use an interface.

Funny you mentioned the Loki installers. They are definitely broken, and I'm not the only one who's had issues with this. Not to mention more modern games like Doom 3 and Quake 4 have issues with Pulseaudio, which results in a noticeable sound lag unless you find out (via Googling) how to use the pasuspender command. Or still popular games like Wolf:ET in which you'll have absolutely NO audio in modern versions of Ubuntu which have removed OSS entierly from their versions of the kernel, unless you either recompile the kernel or find an ALSA wrapper a kind Ubuntu forum member was able to write.

And yet... you don't get these problems with Windows 7. I know I don't enjoy the unnecessary stress/effort of getting things to work the way they should, so that's why I don't bother with Linux anymore. Believe me, I feel happier now too.

Woah. I though I was decent at OpFlash, but that's real determination to finish a FUBARed mission right there. I think the expansion you're talking about was Red Hammer, which was pretty good despite some bugs.

Who? Source(s)?

I'm not suggesting you're a liar (in fact I'm sure sure this crap happens to unfortunate people every now and then). But I'd bet money it's still statistically insignificant to the number of users who use social network services harmlessly and fruitfully.

On that note, if the authorities have a problem with someone, the information they used to profile said individual could come from anywhere, not such social networking services. Authorities can be dicks, yes, and staying hidden away from any social interaction on the net is a way to remain reasonably hidden, but we shouldn't bow down to such demands, particularly since we're doing nothing wrong.

But wait until you try and do something about the world. Maybe you'll run for political office. Or want to help out at child care center down the street. Wanted that teacher's license? Maybe someone will find out that people that google Cheerios, fucktards, and pantyhose are statistically proven to be terrorists and need to be rounded up and vilified. They'll look around for a while until that one row in one table in one database outs you. Then you're toast.

The fact you had to use hyperbole to make you point, in fact destroys your point. Act sensibly on the net and you'll be fine for the most part. These 'what if' scenarios are so statistically insignificant, particularly if you follow the sensible part I mentioned, that it's basically a barrier to being able to use technically in a useful and fun manner.

How can it be an obligatory reference when few people will have ever heard of Schlock Mercencary? An obligatory reference is something from Futurama, Simpsons, Star Trek, Star Wars, etc.

Please don't do this Anonymous. If you take Facebook down for even just one day, once people find out who's responsible, any remaining respect or sympathy the average non-geek person has with Anonymous will disappear down the drain.

Not to mention the fact that you have no right to lecture me about choice and then take it away from me. I don't use Facebook that much anymore, but I still have an account for the occasional linkups. I'm trading the limited info I provide on it for the benefits it provides me, and I'm conscious of that trade, hence I keep things civil and use appropriate privacy settings. Now fuck of Anon and stop playing games.

There is a reason why services such as Steam and Good Old Games are so popular - they allow you to buy games that retail stores don't stock anymore. Forget brick-and-mortar stores, it's all digital distribution nowadays. And for all their disadvantages, they do have the benefit of being able (in the case of Steam at least) to sell Doom 3 and even older games like X-COM.

Let me see...

Supported Platform

Microsoft Windows 7, Microsoft Windows Vista SP2 or Microsoft Windows XP SP3

No Linux? So what's the point about it being open-source then? Yes I know Windows has plenty of open-source software (lots of it pretty good too), but Microsoft has no trust in the FLOSS community left. This is hardly going to help if they can't even bother to make it officially support Mono (since it uses C#).

I don't even use Linux anymore and I don't see the point of using this instead of something established and mature like Arduino. Yet anyway.

Tony Stark is a fucking badass engineer, who's not only cool enough to develop his own armor to get himself out of trouble (IN A CAVE - WITH A BUNCH OF SCRAPS!), but is also rich as hell, loved by all and down with the ladies. What aspiring engineer wouldn't want to be Tony Stark?

It's not always a virtue to be ignorant of pop culture (and yes, blockbuster movies are part of that culture). You don't have to watch them of course, just as you don't have to listen to Lady Gaga or whatever. But it helps to have least have a cursory knowledge of what's out there for reasons of social interaction (i.e. gives you something to talk about).

Interesting. I disliked Oblivion and Fallout 3 mainly because they were open worlds and didn't have the tight narrative that a closed world game such as Half-Life 2 has. I suppose I might be in the minority (which is fine), but a tightly-scripted linear game to me is more interesting than an open world, or "hiking simulator" as Oblivion became to be known.

On the other hand I enjoyed S.T.A.L.K.E.R. - Shadow of Chernobyl significantly, which was kind of a hybrid between open and closed worlds. I think atmosphere also has a lot to do with it. Oblivion to me felt extremely generic and stale. Fallout 3... was better, but I didn't finish it. I dunno, it just didn't click with me. I think the NPCs needed better animation.