100% of "very small" is still "very small"...

Spoken like a true physicist...

P.S. C doesn't encourage you to tinker with machine-specific stuff either.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/pdf/nature08121.pdf

(For those with access to Nature through school or work...)

I don't know about you guys, but I'd take joysticks ports and RS232 over Bluetooth any day. :)

Ahh, message got cutoff. (AJAX is overrated )
I was going to say that getting a BSc is definitely worthwhile (if you don't have one), and a MSc will definitely help you stand out when your resume lands on someone's desk. I'm having a hard time understanding how someone with a CS or Software Engineering degree could end up in your position though. (Maybe I'm ignorant...)

Now's a great time to do your MSc because you can weather the economic storm in academia and pray that the job market will be better when you're out. Heck, you might even get funding so it won't be as much of a financial burden.
...
But that said - What degree do you have that left you stuck on the frontlines of an IT helpdesk? If you don't have a BSc, speak now... (Formal education IS a go

Black holes in a Bathtub by E. Berti (2005):
www.iop.org/EJ/article/1742-6596/8/1/013/jpconf5_8_013.pdf

The argument basically goes that when you unplug your bathtub, there's a certain point at which waves generated past the "event horizon" near the hole never escape the hole. It's an interesting read, but I was under the impression that this is basically the same thing, albeit not an effect that arises from quantum field theory.

It's a strip mall, maybe. Google Streetview confirms... sorta:

http://maps.google.ca/maps?q=12932+SE+Kent+Kangley+Rd,+Kent,+King,+Washington+98030,+United+States&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&ie=UTF8&hl=en&cd=1&geocode=Fd6j0gIdQdm3-A&split=0&sll=49.891235,-97.15369&sspn=16.71875,56.536561&ll=47.35906,-122.168875&spn=0.001853,0.004308&t=h&z=18&layer=c&cbll=47.358907,-122.168986&panoid=8YOIhb1P6K1CO1wqcNlNKw&cbp=12,20.81,,0,12.85

It's about protecting your users, and protecting your project.

Take a large, reputable open source project like Audacity. If some scammer comes along and bundles their own version of Audacity with some spyware and tries to distribute it under the Audacity name, this is damaging to both users and the reputation of the software. Audacity's defense against people like this is their trademark. Nobody will confuse real "Audacity" with any ripoff, because nobody else can use the name.

This also protects the developers, who have worked hard to produce great software, and who deserve to have it recognized as something special on their resumes/CVs. Preserving the reputation (ie. name) of your software project helps ensure their contributions to the project aren't devalued.

Lastly, the Mozilla example in the article can easily be countered by the infamous OpenSSL/Debian fiasco, where a Debian packager incorrectly patched OpenSSL and created a vulnerability. This was certainly damaging for OpenSSL's reputation, even though it wasn't their fault. If Ubuntu decides to patch Firefox and introduces bugs, it's Firefox (NOT Ubuntu) who looks bad to users. IMO this is good justification for exercising ownership of your trademark.

I'll read the rest of your post in a sec, I forgot to feed my Mario 64... brb

... unless you believe all the hyperbole that comes out of Apple's marketing department.

The iPhone is a gaming platform as much as my Tamagotchi is a gaming platform (when compared to a DS). We're talking casual, short games vs. full blown DS games, there's no comparison here.

Nintendo's online game store is probably going to be a precursor to a full-blown AAA-title download store for them. They're not interested in making the DS into a PDA, they're interested in cutting out Walmart as a middle-man.

(You don't have to look very far to see how digital distribution is changing the gaming market. Eg. XBox Live Arcade, Steam, D2D, etc. Nintendo wants a piece of the sweet sweet pie that Valve cooked with Steam.)