Indeed. "Winny the Pooh" has foe'd me, presumably over that statement. There's no arguing that there is an effective way and an ineffective way to do DRM, and Steam is, regardless of how you feel about it, effective.

I doubt Gabe Newell is familiar with hunger strikes.

The simplest way to explain Steam is that it is DRM done right. If you pirate the game, you get the game for free. But, you lose auto updates, chat client, steam trading, access to servers with anti-cheat features, etc.

It deters piracy by adding value to legally purchased games.

This is more like Dell releasing computers with ReactOS installed. Microsoft would likely have a problem with this.

if you're in IT and consulting full time

He's not.

You are thinking of an LLP. An LLC can be an individual. LLC/Ps can also be treated as flow-through for tax purposes, which allows the owners' income to be taxed as personal income only, rather than corporate income, then personal income.

I agree 100%. Ustream should be liable for all medical bills incurred because of the blocking, as well as punitive damages, which usually means treble damages. Once the criminal suits are settled, the civil suits for wrongful death, injury, and emotional distress will start to roll in.

Just like a spiked trap in a doorway.

Also, your mailman opens your door?

Content created by the US Government or its agencies is automatically public domain. I see no need to thank NASA for following US law, though feel free to thank them for landing on the moon. (Note, the US Government and its agencies are not prohibited from holding copyright on content: the copyright to any content created by contractors is generally assigned to the contracting entity. The government is no exception, though realistically should be. Also, though you have the right to use the source code to any government-created software, the government has no obligation to provide you with that source code.)

I came here to say this. A history polymath is like someone who loves his wife so much that he's a polygamist to her.

Is anyone seriously this flaky? If you decided not to buy because of this, you were likely to change your mind later when you saw am ugly cursor or renamed mspaint or some other nonsense.

I don't think you should be assuming the controls in place in "electric power trading" are indicative of those in the financial sector at large. (For those who may not know, he's talking about Enron). Besides, there are a limited number of counterparties, it's just not possible to diversify all of the risk away.

What the hell is this, a poem?

A LOT of financial institutions did exactly that, but not the nine that were told they had no choice.

The issue is not companies that fucked up, it's companies that had large exposure to counterparties that fucked up. A large amount of the bailout money was used as collateral to shore up the banks' creditworthiness. I'm not saying it was a good solution, and without knowing for sure which banks, and how many banks would have turned down the bailout money, it's hard to even form an opinion about it. It's generally believed that Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, and State Street would have turned down the money if they could have. In fact, Goldman Sachs subsequently sought additional capital from Warren Buffet just to prove to investors that GS was a good investment (Although they offered Buffet terms that were far beyond what any other investor could have gotten). The link below references internal documents relating to this, can't be bothered to find the original documents.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30750868/ns/business-stocks_and_economy/t/documents-paulson-forced-banks-bailout/#.UCr7RcWQNqA

Wtf, how is everyone paying the same tax rate "real capitalism"? Tax fairness is a completely normative component of economics. And besides, a "flat tax" that everyone pays the same rate is NOT fair in any way. I would be completely screwed if I had to give up half of my income. Warren Buffet? Not so much.