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Businesses

PC Sales Slump Over Economic Crisis 232

nandemoari writes "The damage isn't just limited to the United States. Shipments of PCs in Europe, the Mid-East, and Africa dipped to records posted around the turn of the century. It was even worse in Asia, which according to Gartner, posted its worst growth rate ever — just 1.8 per cent. Within the industry, desktops took the hardest hit, as was expected. Sales of non-portable computers were down about 16 per cent as consumers opted instead for the rising 'netbook' and similar hybrids. That fact alone is troubling for PC makers, given that $300-$500 netbooks offer a far lower profit margin than more expensive and more powerful laptops and desktops."

Comment New Thoughts About Steam / DRM (Score 1) 241

I've been thinking about it lately, because I like so many on this site... couldn't stand the thought of DRM... but I bought HL2 anyway, I bought Bioshock anyway... and I've come to this conclusion.

When I go play golf, I spend anywhere from $20 to $100 dollars for the round, depending on the course, or the season. I spend about $20 to $30 bucks in beer, and in turn, I get about 4 to 5 hours of entertainment.

With a good video game, I spend about $40 to $50, and I usually get about 16+ hours of entertainment out of it for a good single player game. With multi-player games, I get a good 300 to 500 hours of entertainment out of my $50 investment.

And in my thoughts about Steam and DRM in general, I realized all the complaints really don't apply to me, because I usually just play a game once, or play it till I get bored with it, then it goes on a bookshelf and never gets used again.

I have countless games on my bookshelf that I've played through once, and even a handful that I haven't even played at all. There's only a few that I've bothered to play a few times, or have dedicated 100's of hours to... such as

CS:S, Quake 1 2 3 and 4, a few Unreal Tournaments, a couple Battlefields and a few other games.

Anyway, my point of all this is, after giving some though to it, I really don't care if there is DRM in the game or not, seeing as how they all end up in a big pile on a bookshelf anyway.

Comment Re:Obvious.... (Score 1) 1563

I did my master's research on percieved and actual gender differences in infidelity in dating relationships. The bottom line--men cheat a little bit more often than women...but both men and women THINK that men cheat a LOT more than women.

I think your results have been tainted... Women are sneakier, more manipulative and are better liars, they get caught less. Further more, they trick men into thinking they are the ones that cheat more, thus both sides claiming it to be true.

Education

Why the Widening Gender Gap In Computer Science? 1563

ruheling writes "From yesterday's New York Times: ' What Has Driven Women Out of Computer Science?' In many US universities, over the past decade, there has been deliberate effort to integrate and encourage women and girls to get more involved in the 'hard' sciences, engineering, and math. However, instead of the proportion of women to men increasing, in Computer Science the opposite is actually true. Specifically, in 2001-2, only 28 percent of all undergraduate degrees in computer science went to women. Now many computer science departments report that women now make up less than 10 percent of the newest undergraduates. What's going on here, folks?"

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