Let's also add that when it's time to publish on a journal you really see the worst out of people, because they'll fight tooth and nail to get a name on that piece of (e-)paper. This adds to the stress with deadlines that shift continuously, and the long working times as you've already mentioned.

And that's not all. In some environments, having a mate, a family, a life outside the laboratory is seen as detrimental to productivity. I'm currently doing post-doc fellowships but I'm not sure how long I'll last.

Criticism on the KDE message boards is, for the most part, deleted by admins, so we have to go to other websites to vent and discuss why we don't like what the batty KDE devs are doing.

Interesting... I don't recall doing anything of the sort, nor anyone else of the administration/moderation staff. We only ask users to uphold the Code of Conduct. We don't delete messages if we disagree with them.

This is blatantly false. I'm one of the three KDE Community Forums administrators and we have never deleted messages just because we disagreed with them. In fact, we have even rarely locked threads. The only people that got reprimanded were the ones that violated the KDE Community Code of Conduct, which all forum members agree to uphold when they register.

Let's not spread disinformation here.

The graphics for the time (1987) were amazing.

Exactly, although it was 1989 and not 1987 (I even bought the "special edition" that came with a T-shirt). Aside from the audio, it was extremely famous for its 13 parallax level scrolling in the outworld areas (beaten only by the 15 levels of Wrath of the Demon - although it was much worse as a game).

So a dictatorship like Venezuela is fine (because it's a dictatorship) because it is against the US? Doesn't make a lot of sense to me (and I'm not living in the US nor a citizen of the US).

I don't want a code of conduct bullshit

As one of the KDE Forums administrators, I strongly disagree. A working code of conduct is what helped us keep a constructive and non-insulting discussion (there are heated debates still, but with no name calling).

nice, clear, well documented PyKDE4 API. I'm sure there has to be one somewhere

Well, there is just one developer doing PyKDE4, and the API is auto-generated from the C++ API docs. What's missing are examples and tutorials: everyone is welcome to contribute (I did my little part, but I don't have that much time).

IMHO, RPGs, are the most time consuming type of game you can play and serve primarily to feed the the player's obsessive-compulsive instincts for very little, if any, tangible benefit.

90% of the games I buy are RPGs. Not only because I like the genre, but also because they tend to last more than other genres. If I pay a lot of money to get a game, I expect it to last at least two weeks of 1-2hr sessions per day (and this is becomning increasingly rare with titles that last 8 hours or less...). If it's less, it's not worth it. And I don't care that much for the multiplayer aspect.

Unfortunately where you publish *does* matter, especially if you need funding like with large grants (EU grants, for example). And this is the issue of the "impact factor" that influences an opinion (that can be one of a reviewer) whether it's worth or not.

That said, it's been my experience that those who are "basically shut out" are almost invariably kooks with ideas that do not stand up to serious scrutiny or who think their ideas are better and/or more important than they actually are.

Yes and no, in my own experience. Indeed, "fancy" theories will probably get rejected outright. But if you want to publish in a high-profile journal (Nature*, Science*) then politics really make their appearance. Of course this doesn't mean that if you write total crap you'll get published: but that for two identical valuable contributions, politics may favor one with respect to another. At least, I've seen this recently more than once in life sciences. And politics suck, especially when they trump good science.

if all online games start to require such, it's really inconvenient.

FWIW, other MMOs have started to use this as well. Final Fantasy XI users can use a token like this (I do, in fact), and the same token will also be used for the upcoming Final Fantasy XIV. It's not mandatory, though.

In Italy les than 50% of the pepoles have an acces to the Internet

That's the effect of having a country-run monopoly for years. SIP, and later Telecom Italia (ex-monopolist for phone lines, for the foreign people reading) has still got the majority of copper wires around, and is not playing by the market rules.

The extreme of that fear, in turn, created a closed group that is essentially a clique of a selected elite that has none, or very little, accountability. I wonder why people here, even Italians, are tying this judgment with the government, since this so-called clique is all but in support of the current government. Not saying that people judgment is correct, but that fear caused the exact opposite. There is a dire need for some middle ground.

This is for US/UK people, to clarify things: the Corte di Cassazione (aka the Italian Supreme Court) is indeed the maximum level of interpretation of the law, but its decisions do *not* set precedents. They are mostly used as a guidance, but judges/prosecutors aren't forced to follow such an interpretation (i.e., there is some kind of discretionality).

It is worth to know here that the same court rejected an accusation on the grounds of copyright infringement because there was no profit involved.

And no, this has nothing to do with the government. The judicial system is definitely of different views with regards to the government.

The response is likely too much, but please don't forget that on Israeli grounds there have been a lot of terrorist attacks. You may disagree with the reasons that brought to this situation, but they are in a state of siege.