Don't get me wrong here, I think Kim is a criminal and deserves to spend time behind bars.

He probably expects he will spend some more time in prison, and he's launching this service quickly while he still has his illicit capital from MegaUpload and before he has to go to prison for running it. While he's in prison, the new Mega service will become lucrative and he'll still be rich when he gets out of prison.

Seth

I'm not sure which 'first time around' you're referring to here... The pump-and-dump ponzi scheme he ran during the late nineties dot-com bubble or the MegaUpload website he ran in the later oughts? Both operations paid him handsomely, and he so far only did a short stint in jail on the stock fraud, but the case is pending against him on the MegaUpload website. He's got more money than OJ Simpson did when he hired his legal 'dream team', so there's a chance he might avoid prosecution for MegaUpload.

But if the guy is already a celebrity, isn't attention-whoring part of his job description?

In a related topic, it's been something of an industry rumor for the past six months that Dice has made a confidential offer to an ex-member of the band, Guns-n-Roses, to change his last name to "dot org".

This Paunch guy needs to watch his ass. There are larger, darker players who were using this exploit for their own purposes. Some of them invested heavily in developing it. By bringing it out into the open like this, Paunch has directly limited their use of this vulnerability. I would not be surprised if this is the last we hear of mr. Paunch. A cleanup team has likely been engaged and is working on tracking him down in the physical world as I type this...

Seth

Multiple monitors are connected to a computer. A single HDTV is connected to a console, and it's located in the living room. Very few families have multiple HDTVs installed next to one another in the living room.

Seth

This is a byproduct of them working on a console they intend to ship. It'll run linux, so this beta is a nice way for them to test a bunch of their architectural design without actually putting the hardware in thousands of people's living rooms.

As far as bug reporting goes, I doubt they'll prioritize stuff that's not relevant to their expected console architecture. Issues like, "Hey, I have dual monitors and steam blacks one out and it never comes back" are going to be pretty well ignored because the console is unlikely to support dual monitors. This is more about testing out scaling issues for the servers and verifying that updates are working as expected. A more exciting bug report for them would be along the lines of, "XYZ game released an update, but it requires my Steam client to by version 123, and I upgraded Steam to 123, but the game refuses to update."

Oh, and the other thing that's important about this Linux release is that it be valid for the developers to test their ports on prior to the console being finalized. Those limited-run developer hardware kits are way more expensive to issue than just giving studios a Linux install CD and some basic hardware requirements. This beta is probably about making sure the Steam client on Linux isn't too buggy for the devs to work with. This way, when the console is released there will be a healthy selection of titles available right away.

Seth

if Valve can get enough traction behind Linux gaming I can finally cut out Microsoft. It will take years for that to potentially happen but Steam on Linux it can only serve to help Linux in general.

Valve is openly discussing their forthcoming console. That sucker isn't going to include a Microsoft OS tax, so you better expect that Valve is going to set up strong incentives for developers to release on Linux. That's what their console is going to be built on top of.

Seth

And why there is never one of these normal individuals around to put a quick stop to the idiot?

I wouldn't say there is never one of these normal individuals around.... In this incident, there were three of them.

October 29, 1994: Francisco Martin Duran fired at least 29 shots with a semi-automatic rifle at the White House from a fence overlooking the north lawn, thinking that President Bill Clinton was among the men in dark suits standing on the lawn (Clinton was in the White House Residence watching a football game). Three tourists, Harry Rakosky, Ken Davis, and Robert Haines, tackled Duran before he could injure anyone. Duran was found to have a suicide note in his pocket and was sentenced to 40 years in prison.

If you had a gun, would you want to fight a guy with nothing to loose?

I know I'm just voicing what every logical reader is thinking while reading this rhetorical question....

If I am to fight a guy with nothing to loose (SIC), I would most certainly want to be holding a gun.

Seth

The Apple store developer fee of $99 is miniscule. That is the equivalent of what three developers earn in a few hours working on an application.

The $99 is a nice way to reduce fraudulent accounts from being created. It's also worth considering that Apple has to staff actual humans who review all the apps that get submitted. There is no charge for the developers who submit 200 apps in a month, but Apple has to screen them to try to block malware from getting into the app store. Where do you think the cost for that comes from?

Seth