This is a silly strategy. Buses and trains are also in motion. Do you think we should restrict cell phone by passengers on these vehicles as well?

I think this is exactly the point. RethinkDB seems to want the most productive individual they can get. By going after someone who does dedicate him/her self to coding outside of work, they will more likely find somebody willing to go the extra mile outside of work hours. The slight of "well-adjusted people" appears intentional to me.

The attorney fees become built into the ticket price. I know what music festival I'm not going to this summer!

In fact, some got their start at Blizzard after making a name for themselves with what would be considered excessive EverQuest play: Furor & Tigole

If putting lots of hours into an MMO makes you happy, why not keep playing? Maybe you'll become a game designer some day.

While there were certainly droughts and other organic factors that affected output, the main reason for lack of grain in the 1930s was Stalin's forceful drive to convert the USSR from a primarily agricultural economy to an industrial one. Through collectivization, grain was gathered from the peasantry and traded abroad for heavy industry. This led to an industrial boom in the cities, at the immense cost of mass starvation in the countryside. Ukraine was a notable victim of this process.

The other week I was behind a person at a stop sign at a T-intersection. The person in front of me seemed asleep in the center of the lane. After a gentle honk on my end, she slowly crawled forward, turned left, and stopped in the center of the perpendicular lane.

As I passed, I noticed she had a 'Hang up and Drive' bumper sticker plastered to the back of her car and was talking on the phone. Some people seriously can't even pull over correctly.

>Many of the bots are not simple. They are quite sophisticated, and allow not just harvesting, but questing, rep grinding etc.

Out of curiosity, has light ever been shed on how these bots are implemented? Has the source ever been released? It would be interesting to learn how the bot-creators developed this level of sophistication.

Indeed, this may have more to do with an increase in adoption of Windows 7 than other factors.
I prefer Google for straight up search, but Bing is nice for some specialty searches, e.g. hotels with price comparisons.

ceiling Tynt Insight is watching you mast... wait what?

>taxing online ads to help fund cyber-enforcement isn't such a bad idea.

Why is it a good idea to put the burden of supporting a failing industry on an adjacent successful one?
Even if we assume the money will pass through the bureaucracy to the artists and record companies, will it really help them improve their business model in a productive way?
I would bet that it would only embolden them to pursue further tactics against adjacent industries, until they too are no longer profitable.

> learn how to make a damn good cup of tea or coffee.

Don't be discouraged by this opinion. There are definitely internships out there where you do real work.

I took a 3-month internship for a larger corporation for similar pay a couple of years ago. Using PHP, I worked on some relatively small-scale web-based projects for internal use. The stress level was low and I made some good friends. I haven't used PHP on any serious level since, but what I learned about web programming has definitely come in handy in my two jobs after that one. On top of that I put a little bit of money in my pocket. It beat sitting on my ass and playing video games all summer.

Interesting points, but I think you downplay the role of role of playing time in the 'hardcore' mentality.
The challenge in raid content is getting the entire raid force to work cohesively together as a group. In a 'hardcore'-leaning game, this cohesion needs to be very tight for the group to succeed. In a casual-leaning game, a more rag-tag group of players is often able to succeed.
Hardcore groups of players rely on their members to consistently show up for raid times and to pay attention during raids. Both of these points correspond to play-time - hardcore players are both more likely to be playing on a given night and less likely to need to AFK at a critical time.