Configuring packages individually isn't actually as big a deal as it first seems. The defaults for most packages often do fine, and you tweak them to your liking if absolutely necessary. Thing is, I realise now I spend a lot of time tweaking things to my liking regardless of the OS - even if it's out-of-the-box and tweaking is supposedly unnecessary. Arch just allows you the extra freedom to tweak so much more, and you actually learn about the software as you do it. Bug reports - a backbone for these kinds of projects - benefit hugely from a userbase that is often capable of providing far more insight into an issue than your average Windows/Mac/Ubuntu user.

It took me a few months to get my first Arch installation perfect, with lots of looking stuff up in the wiki. The second time there were a few things that I couldn't remember, but it took around a week in all. Now, I can install it exactly as I like it in about 15 minutes. However, I can't speak for others but the time I spent learning the system pays off when things break - I can actually get them fixed. When things break in Ubuntu (for example) I can waste hours searching for people with the same issue and trying to work out at which layer the bug occurs (exactly the reason I stopped using Windows previously).

can I has root?

Since when were environmentalists in charge?

It's not new. The patent was filed in September 2006.

Yeah, that rampant inconsistency of theirs can't have anything to do with their use of theocracy as a disguise for tyrannical rule by a megalomaniac elite. No siree, they just haven't thought about God long enough. Eventually they'll realise their error and come over our place for beer and hamburgers.

Who was honestly hoping the videogame in question might be one we'd heard of? I was hoping the real news item would be about blowing open an intelligence body manipulating game developers covertly. Not so. This is their site:

http://www.kumawar.com/

"Kuma War is a series of playable recreations of real events in the War on Terror. Nearly 100 playable missions bring our soldiers' heroic stories to life, and you can get them all right now, for free. Stop watching the news and get in the game!"

Free games that are openly biased towards the US campaign, all the while encouraging you to not watch the news. CIA-funded? Wait, REALLY?! Gasp.

Eye-for-an-eye justice for WB may be funny, but doesn't it also validate their own approach to piracy? I'd like to see WB fight and win this battle to highlight the absurdity of the wider war they're involved in, but by taking a sword to the armpit instead they can suggest the anti-piracy policing they seek to enforce affects and serves all people equally, and is an unfortunate omission in our society's moral fabric.

Maybe people would upgrade if they rolled the new services out where people don't already have decent internet connections. All these new networks are being laid in major cities, where services are already pretty reasonable anyway (they get Facebook at a reasonable speed and price). I live in the darkest bowels of the British countryside and would KILL for ADSL over 1Mbps, let alone bloody fibre optic. Not even my local city has fibre optic, nor the city after that. The nearest available is almost 40 miles away.

Nope, Steam works out-of-the-box for me on the system described above (besides a few annoying quirks that don't affect functionality).

I got this working on Wine only an hour after it arrived in the post, using v1.3.32 on x86_64 Arch Linux. Additionally you'll need to install vcrun2008 via winetricks, and set it to use d3dx9_27 as a native library. After that it a very reasonable speed on ultra-high settings using an Intel i7 2600k and a 570GTX Nvidia card. Overjoyed to see the new game has a bright future with Wine, just like its predecessor. :D I've submitted it to the app database on WineHQ too, hopefully it'll be approved shortly.

Wait a second, what? You've just highlighted the precise problem amongst the science-supporting camp; just because empirical evidence is reliable, doesn't mean that its supporters and their chosen arguments are too. My post was intended to shed light on a subject I feel is hindering science's progress with the argument, and you effectively accuse me of being some kind of religious saboteur. I'm not a religious fundamentalist, and if you can't differentiate between constructive criticism and psychological warfare you need to pull your head out of your ass.

No. In this case, that expression is very much true. Coyne is an obnoxious oaf, and by no means an exception to your rule. He is one of the growing number of secularist zealots that are incapable of arguing coherently or intelligently. Their infatuation with the dismissal of religion as a concept is perpetuated in a lack of education or understanding of their opponents' arguments - leading to the hugely ironic situation in which they have much more in common with religious fundamentalists (bible-bashers) than the academics they accuse of the same. Consider again your blind support for anyone spouting the appropriate buzzwords, or you'll be just another tool in Coyne and his ilk's clueless endeavour to found a belief system upon science.