I played King's Quest 8 and what I believe was the remake of KQ1. While 8 at least entertained me, I never beat 1 because of the ridiculous random objects you had to find and have 5 hours later in the game. I remember a situation where you have to have a boot for some reason, and that boot is in a very specific screen in the middle of the desert. You can't just walk around exploring the desert because you'll get thirsty (after like 3 screens... seriously), so it's almost as if you're just supposed to KNOW where it is. You use that boot like an hour later when you're trapped in a cellar... and if you don't have the boot, you die.

Some may call it "hardcore" adventure gaming... I just call it bad design. You should never be able to get a game into an unbeatable state... especially when you don't know you're in that state until you've sunk more than a few hours into the game.

Space Quest and QfG were great though! Dragon fire was kinda lame, but I really enjoyed the rest of the series and the actually GOOD implementation of rolling a character over from a previous game.

I'm a bit confused as to how you've upgraded your HDs without reinstalling? Unless you're ghosting your computer (which seems dumb and much slower to me than just reformatting), or literally keeping the old HD in and copying all the files onto another one? I have absolutely no idea why you would CHOOSE to never reformat, given the definite speed increases...

Regardless, you're the exception, not the rule. I've seen computers less than 2 years old take 5 minutes to get to the point where you can open a browser, and the users had never installed more than Office. Similarly, I've had people who've had their computer for years and years and it still runs great. These things are somewhat of a mystery... (though bad hardware or malware are probably to blame).

However, I have to mention the fact that the advantages to reformatting outnumber any inconveniences of reinstalling programs (unless you've been careless and lost a CD key, in which case you can either locate it within the program before you reformat or find a way to crack it).

Reformatting for me usually takes about 40 minutes, and then reinstalling everything might take an hour or so (depending on what I'm reinstalling). I have a working computer that's running faster without all of the crap that was on it previously, and it's so incredibly easier to do than manually finding all of the stuff left behind by uninstalled programs, malware, viruses, etc. Plus I have the piece of mind KNOWING about everything that's on my computer, not to mention tons of free space!

Bottom line is that people SHOULD be reformatting if they're upgrading their computer. A fresh install runs MUCH more smoothly than an OS laid on top of another OS. Whether or not upgrading works for some people is moot... reformatting will ALWAYS be faster.

A note - DotA isn't made by Blizzard... but is a Warcraft 3 map/mod made by players.

I always thought of art as something that expresses the human experience. While a large bulk of that IS emotion, I don't know if I'd go as far as to say that emotion is the entirety of human experience.

I also don't think that everybody's idea of art is identical. In this way, a person could create something that he himself doesn't consider art, yet another person does. Why should intention be a barrier to what can be considered art?

I remember a Simpons episode where Homer, trying to assemble a fancy grill, ends up completely destroying it in his frustration. A random person sees this and believes it to be art. While in some way you could see this as the Simpsons making fun of art, it also could be considered art because it's almost a concentrated expression of frustration.

You have a very narrow-minded view of games. Games are only about 2 things? Problem solving or competition? Really?

Have you ever played a sandbox game? I don't think that me driving around in GTA aimlessly is either problem solving or competition. The bottom line is that games are supposed to be FUN. And as you yourself admitted, a person's sense of fun is subjective. If people find that they have fun "playing" some sort of weird autopilot version of a game, then I have no problme with it.

Just because Apple has a patent on it, it doesn't mean that other phones won't have it. They may have to pay royalties, but most things on cell phones are patented.

They're not going to be "punished to death for their arrogance," if their phone didn't have it then they're in the same situation as everybody right now, and probably most of the people with phones. This is an extra feature... if people want it, they can buy phones with it.

I don't think see most people using this as an "emergency" such as a life-threatening situation. I see people using this as an "emergency" as in they're wasted and their phone is dead and they need to call for somebody to pick them up, or the "emergency" of being bored with a dead phone.

Maybe for the average person who doesn't know how to use the internet, but honestly if you want to get into indie music, go to Pitchfork. Yes, it's always great to "make your own opinion" instead of reading record reviews, but honestly the stuff they review has all been very good music (IMO).

Aside from that, there are TONS of ways to find new music - Pandora, Last.fm, Tastekid (and other find-similar-music sites), and just plain ol' Wikipedia has led me to some great finds.

And I only partially agree that "popular" music was better in the past. Yes, you've got some really good stuff, but there's also a heap of really bad, really repetitive tunes... just like today. People have a very skewed view of the "past music," and it's mostly nostalgia (once again, IMHO).

Everyone always brings this up when we talk about the music industry.

Give me a break. If you're listening solely to the radio, yes, you're going to be disappointed (and even disgusted) at what's there. But if you actually spend a bit of time looking, you can find some really great artists. Music is always going to be alive... just because the nostalgia you feel makes you just a teensy bit unopen to newer, different stuff doesn't mean the music is bad.

There are a ton of indie bands who write really good, smart, catchy music. I tend to like things that are a bit more experimental (TV on the Radio, Menomena, Modest Mouse, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah), but if that's not your cup of tea you can always try Andrew Bird, MGMT, Cut Copy, anything that Danger Mouse is involved in, The National, Elbow, Fleet Foxes... the list goes on.

Some of the popular music may be crap (though don't make the mistake of allowing that to be your representation of different genres like rap), but if you look even for a bit you can find some good stuff.

Look at his crotch in panel 3. Incredible fidelity.

I might add that there seems to be at least some support that violent video games increase "aggression."

Please note that aggression is a hard thing to define and measure, and that lab settings have used... somewhat odd methods to do so. For example, one study had participants either play a violent video game or a non-violent video game, and then were given the opportunity to add whatever amount of hot sauce to another person's food (who wasn't in the room right then) that they wanted to. They DID find that those in the violent game category put more hot sauce in the food... but is that really aggression?

It seems obvious that video games don't cause violence... and that is the myth to go after. However, some validresearch has pointed towards increased aggression. Once you get there though, do you ban something that merely increases aggression slightly?

Wow, you've just spit out about every argument for piracy that's been said on Slashdot into one post! Impressive.

Maybe some people do, but I doubt that The Pirate Bay is the place to go to find new music. People hear a song on a show, or maybe see a youtube clip, or maybe use tastekid or Pandora, THEN they go download the stuff they want. I wouldn't even consider pawing through the "genre" section on TPB and picking some random band... I have much more specific tastes.

There are plenty of other ways of advertising that don't give away the actual album for free, yet are still free for the band. I'm not actually arguing against piracy, but just the notion that sending money directly to the band members is somehow more "right" than buying the CD.

If a band WANTS to put up their stuff on TPB for free... that's great, and will certainly increase their popularity. But saying that pirates are the biggest reason some bands are popular doesn't seem correct. If you look at some of the bigger indie bands that have gained popularity via the internet (See Arctic Monkeys or Clap Your Hands Say Yeah), it was through blogs, myspace pages, and REVIEWS (the Pitchfork review for CYHSY certainly propelled them to new heights).

While the following fact doesn't justify the high prices, giving money "directly to the band" does skip paying people who worked on other aspects of the music (promoting, recording, etc.). It seems to be a trend on /. to ignore that fact, and to assume that money goes to only the RIAA and a teensy part to the artist... which really isn't true. Some bands wouldn't be known at all if it weren't for these other people.

Vintage - referring to something from the past of high quality.

This makes me think of this

There's something about games where people expect to be entertained... no matter the price. It's incredible what people are willing to throw money away on, but games (and sometimes other media) tend to have strange, insanely high expectations.

Shouldn't people expect the same amount of satisfaction out of a 99 cent cheeseburger as they would get out of a 99 cent game? This is definitely a weird phenomenon.

While true in this case, consider the cases where the RIAA is just plain suing someone. Hundreds of thousands of dollars, even with the "making available" argument, is ridiculous.