I remember going to the computer lab at my friends' University and spending a Sunday morning trying to figure out how to get multiplayer working, because that was the only place we had access to networked computers. Turned the admins had put an irritating security setup in place so that if you made any changes to the hard drive, the OS re-imaged on reboot. We knew nothing about networking, but knew we needed some kind of drivers installed, and so there were many reboots trying to work this all out. In the end we got it, but couldn't get all four of us in a game for some reason, but played 2v2 for a solid two hours before we got caught and kicked out. Kids these days have it easy!

Uh.. Overwatch is only $40, at least on PC. There's a fancy version with extra skins and stuff for other Blizzard games, which is $60. No idea what console versions will cost, though.

Yeah, they do. I think it's kind of like keeping a rhythm. Like if you slow down, it's hard to speed back up when you need it? Unsure. My old man fingers can barely play HotS, and that's controlling one character.

Yeah, I don't think this is valid. As a former academic, I did a ton of public speaking. From the hardest of hardcore at very specialized conferences, to teaching graduate and undergraduate students, as well as some public outreach at a journalism conference, and in University promotional videos. There may be certain fields where the antisocial can get by, but the truly successful scientists have to be ruthlessly good communicators.

The barrier to more direct public outreach is that there's absolutely no clear reward for it. Your funding is decided by your scientific peers. MAYBE you can make the argument that a well-educated public would advocate for more research funding that could benefit you someday, but then you may as well be talking to the politicians who more-than-not ignore what the public wants anyway. To get tenure, you have to work 80+ hours a week as it is writing grants and papers, teaching, doing "service" to your University, all on top of doing quality research. And if you do get tenure, well, you've built up this big infrastructure that now requires more funding to sustain itself, so you keep on writing those grants and papers, and you do your teaching, and now you're probably heading that University committee you've been on, and you're mentoring a few post-docs and a few more grad students, and there a few more undergrads who want to do some research over the summer....

You live in a world where you know what a zombie is. In every fictional zombie universe, nobody knows about zombies. They don't know the rules. For the first few days, the infection is like a flu or rabies, and nobody is mercilessly going to put down their wife and kids after getting bit by a stranger. Try to imagine a zombie infection where nobody knew the rules. We'd catch on quick, but would we get there before mass communication could get every up to speed? That would be the trick to model.

I just don't understand that logical leap. How is the FCC controlling "every bit that flows across the country"? They're saying ISPs can't exert control over which bits. How does that mean the government de facto gets that control? Seriously. I don't get it at all.

Because gas and water are matter that gets consumed. Physical things that need to be transported. Electricity has to be generated and the charge differential is consumed. Transmitting a lot or a little data uses nothing, except maybe minuscule amounts of extra electricity once the infrastructure exists. Metering data usage is a transparent cash grab.

If you're at the stage where you have a life-threatening multi-drug resistant infection, you're probably in a hospital gurney and that miracle antibiotic will be delivered by IV in a tightly controlled dosing regimen.

Not sure if you want a real response, or just want to be smug... but that's just willful ignorance.

Up until CG got good, superhero comic books were pretty much the only feasible way to enjoy action/adventure/scifi visual storytelling with an unlimited budget. Even now, comic stories are consistently more experimental and creative than they can be when millions (or even billions) of movie and TV dollars are at stake.

I don't think anybody is pretending that superhero stories are high art, or anything much more than a fun time. But nowadays, with web publishing really leveling the playing field, if you can't find a comic story of nearly any genre that you consider "good" or "high art" you're just not trying and/or have some prejudice against combining pictures and words.

Indeed. I don't love Comcast - they are robbers who have tried to screw me so many gd times during a recent move across country, and if any other broadband in our area was any better we'd have dumped them. But, that said, this is an awfully nice perk of being their customer. Currently I'm working on Boston while my family lives in CA. We have xfinity at the house in CA (I bought my own modem for $60 and had a really good router. Renting a modem is just dumb), and I get Wifi in Boston off of my neighbors. It's a bit wonky in that for some reason my desktop can't log in, but if I USB-tether my phone or tablet to the desktop it works. (Any ideas on why that would be?). I can walk through any residential neighborhood in the city and I've got wifi.

You can get all worked up about vague security issues or extremely minor power usage, but really, this is a pretty nice and useful feature if you're their customer.

Have a look at the Corsair mechanical keyboards. They have a bank of programmable keys down the left side. Great for game or programming macros.

Lots of cases. And after using SwiftKey for a while, I'll never go back to typing on a phone if I can help it.

Flirting with people you have employment power over IS SEXUAL HARASSMENT. It's kind of the definition.

No it isn't.

More PUBLISHED experiments, though, please. Let's know what they're doing, and what the outcomes are.