Oh look, government workers aren't magically less corrupt than everyone else..

You're missing the point. Obviously there are configurations that won't work, but then it should just fail. Failure to run on one machine/OS should not prevent you from playing on another machine/OS.

Yes, you should just stay quiet like a good victim. It's not like Blizzard has ever made this mistake before.

Playing a game in a weird configuration has several acceptable outcomes:

* The game doesn't work
* The game refuses to start (although this would be stupid)
* The creator of the game publically states that they will ban anyone who attempts to use the configuration in question (something which Blizzard has never done, despite the claims of people who don't understand what "support" means).

What the trolls/fanboys are claiming is that this is acceptable:

* Stopping people from ever playing the game they paid for again, for using a configuration which has always worked (and which the creators of the game have *never* even suggested is not allowed, only unsupported).

No, but you should be pissed if you attempt to play it on your BeOS machine and your account is permanently banned (ie: you can't play it on any machine).

It also says:

* 1024x768 minimum resolution
* 1 GB RAM (XP), 1.5 GB (Vista/7)

Should I be permanently banned if I try to run the game on a machine with less than a gig of memory, or if I accidentally use a low screen resolution? Or would it make more sense to inform me that the game isn't supported on that configuration and I should upgrade my machine?

There's a difference between "not supported" and "not allowed". What I'm saying is that if Blizzard didn't want people to use Linux, then they could just clearly say that, and that banning people is pretty much the worst way to handle that situation.

By your argument, they could ban people for attempting to play the game on a machine that's too slow or doesn't have enough memory (it's unsupported!).

So Blizzard could:

1. Pop up a message when Linux users try to log in informing them that Linux is now completely blocked because one of the largest game companies in the world can't be bothered with some minor software.
2. Offer a refund to Linux users and apologize for wasting their time (remember, "no one plays games on Linux", so this shouldn't shouldn't cost them anything).

But you think it's better for their business to take option 3..

3. Ban legitimate users of your game and refuse to refund their money, making sure they never play anything of yours in the future.

I have the same experience with meetings -- people meet, talk about something important, then it never gets documented. This is a separate problem though -- you need to consciously try to document things.

I've found that what works for me is to write READMEs or other documentation as requested, but save it in a standard place, then attach it to the email. The person who asked the question gets the answer they wanted, and the next person can find it again if I get hit by a bus.

If your boss can't leave you alone and let you work, then you have more serious problems than too many meetings.

* Check email when you're bored or on a schedule
* If you find that IM is distracting you, either don't sign in or leave notifications off. Log in whenever someone notifies you by email that they need to talk in real-time.

This way you still have interruptions (like meetings would cause), but they're much smaller.

A bug tracker + email is better.

Bug tracker + email

Email

Email + Instant messenger

Benefits:

1. Fast responses in general (don't have to wait for the meeting)
2. People can respond when they have time (doesn't disrupt work)
3. Doesn't take any time if you have nothing to say (no pointless meetings)

Still better than PHP?

Hopefully something with better quality that supports hardware decoding and doesn't require me to install HAL.

It's hard to imagine a case where we lose support for HTML5. Besides the whole "supported by several completely different vendors" thing, there's also the fact that it's just minor extensions to a platform that everyone already has. Being worried about HTML5 not lasting is like worrying that email won't last -- maybe one day we'll have something better, but it's going to be a *long* time before we can't get email.

iOS seems to have HTML5 local storage available, Facebook just chooses not to use it.