Item ID is a 2 byte value in the game. So every item: 2 bytes + 2 Bytes for enchantment + 3 x 2 bytes for gems + 1 byte for reforge... let's say 2. 12 bytes per item total. Player's can have about 100 bag slots and 200 bank slots for a total of 300. so 300x12 = 3600 bytes/toon. 50 toons max... 180KBytes per account.

But yes. I agree. Let a player's storage hold more... even if 1 player takes up 1 Megabyte of storage then you can fit 1 million players on a single terabyte hard drive. If blizzard's hard up I'll personally provide them with the three modern drives they need to provide players with essentially unlimited storage.

Scale instances to the gear level. There is too much content already. I've been playing for three years and haven't seen half the raids. From WotLK I have completed Naxx and NONE of the other raids. My guild was too small to tackle content regularly. My guildies were great, helpful people who were excellent people. What? "find another guild" you say? Are you seriously indicating that something that is a *game* should motivate and encourage affiliation based on performance and not on friendship? I'd be happy to go back and spend time in older raids if they were challenging. Put together a group, figure out the average iLevel and then scale the damage and healing for the instances. Bam. All content becomes fresh.

Allow raid compositions of more/less than 10/25 players (and scale the instance). "One raid member can't make it tonight?" you're fucked. "Oh, you have one too many" Too bad, benched.

Allow players to create instances and content. If it is about providing enough challenging content to keep players interested (and it should be... I can't take another random Zul) then Blizzard needs to get over its love of canon/lore and simply release tools that allow players to create their own instances. Yeah, the story lines won't remain consistent but so what. Limit what can drop in the player instances and have a system for obtaining Blizzards approval. Then you would have more content, faster than any player could keep up with.

Get rid of the dependence on guild membership to tackle content. World of Warcraft is clearly designed by individuals with a juvenile high school mentality. guilds are just popularity cliques.You want to raid? You must have a guild to be successful in end-game content (which EVERYONE pays for but few people get to see in a timely fashion). If your guild falls apart, or is great people but too small, or you can't make the 80% attendance requirement, or your employment schedule shifts and takes you out of your scheduled night... you're screwed. no raiding for you unless you find a new guild. Make changes that de-emphsize guild membership as a requirement for experiencing game content. Provide power to the individual to choose content.

Forget about the damn chinese/gold/gear farmers. Drop the whole idea of raid locks. This is put in to prevent people from farming content and becoming geared "too quickly", whatever that means. SO FUCKING WHAT? I don't care if somebody else is getting a free ride. How does their success diminish my ability to play? Why punish me so that I can't honestly grind gear at my pace? If they're geared but they can't play I'll just avoid them. There's no rational reason concerning game play for lockouts. Yes. it prevents guilds/groups from farming gear for new players. But So what? Again another punishment for honest players. It could also be implemented better. Progression can be controlled through iLevel limits for instance entrances and also through content dependencies instead.

World of Walkcraft. Get rid of the damn corpse runs. No reason for them. At the very least when you die just cause the respawn at the instance entrance. Waiting/walking is not "fun". Nobody loves those zones were the graeyards are super far away. That run back really lets you relax and get in touch with yourself. Helps you contemplate your mistake and improve too.

Remove all the penalties for dying. Yes. I get the durability penalty. that makes sense as providing a major, reliable and continuous gold sink to maintain the stability of the economies. But rez sickness is stupid. more stupid is the "oh, you died again quickly? PENALTY BOX!" The disappointment of dying is enough of a punishment. Dying frequently is its own punishment. The time lost to rebuff, wait for mana, instant boss/mob reset is enough. Waiting for 2 minutes after Bloodlord Mandokir kills you is just stupid.

Random Raid Finder. Yes. I know this is coming but it's coming wrong. It will only allow grouping for lower level raids and not the current tier. Why? Stupid. Just another limit enforcing guild membership as a mandatory aspect of the game.

Real ID invites for raids. Why can't I invite my real friend on another realm to my raid? Stupid. NO reason for this. Blizzard here's a tip: start making the game about *friends* instead of factions and gangs (sorry... guilds, got my g's confused).

[Side note: Uber-raiders suck it up. You are the minority of subscribers to the game. Yes, I know you like being elite and don't like the thought of casual players having the same trinkets as you. But the other 98% of us casual subscribers are paying the same price for the same access as you are. And our succeeding at that content does not in anyway change your experience (minus the elitist pride) or your ability to succeed at it.]

Rated PvP. I like PvP but I SUCK at it. And I have a hard time getting any better at it because when I drop into a BG I spend my time getting insta-gibbed. That's not a learning environment. Put me in with players of my own ability. If I get better push me out against better players. If you can rate player performance in ladders and such in Star Craft II I think you can do it for WoW players.

rated battlegrounds. right idea TERRIBLE implementation. If you can get another 9 friends together who are interested in rated battlegrounds at the same time great for you. For the other 98% of us... let us join a random group and obtain rating. This is related to the previous item; rate the individual players not the group as an atomic entity.

Make PvP less about crowd control. PvP is not fun when your deaths all come during a moment when you can't do anything because you're frozen/stunned/silenced.

Basically, rate players on average dps/hps/mitigation and iLevel. Don't restrict raid lockouts. Allow random grouping for anything. Allow players to restrict the ratings of other players they are grouped with (within reason). Provide incentives for grouping with lower ranking players.

I can see people not wanting to be restricted by ratings... Make rated realms. PvE, PvP, Roleplaying, Rated.

How the hell does wikipedia not represent a work of creative genius while the great wall of china does? Building a wall like that doesn't take any genius; just a tremendous ego, piles of rock and a ton of disposable slaves. It also doesn't contribute a damn thing to the advancement or future of mankind. But it's big and you can touch it and people are impressed by big stupid things that they can understand.

Don't you get it??? It's not the government deciding here... it's popular vote. The votes are being cast by a number of constituents... including those who understand the benefits of science and those who believe in the benefits of welfare and social programs. Understanding this are you really surprised that NSF loses here?

How about we look at this again but eliminate several typical graphing mistakes....

First, let's have all axes start at zero, not at, say, 33% of the range. This would immediately show that there is less disparity between average lifetime then the presenter attempts to make you perceive.

second let's have a non-logarithm axes for a typical unit that is thought of as linear... money.

Third, if we are going to compare wealth then we should be comparing amount of money held vs what it can buy, not just raw money per person. Sure people in the Congo have far less dollars per person than Japan. But a loaf of bread and the supplies they want to buy are far, far cheaper. In other words, it is possible for a smaller amount of currency from economy A to buy more goods and services in economy B. You need to account for this in determining "wealth". You can't just exchange currency rates to determine who is better off.

Lastly, You also have to dollar adjust for inflation even for specific countries over time. A typical mid-range american car in 2010 costs around US$25000; in 1977... US$5000. So, yes we might have more dollars per person in the US today but you're going to need 5 times as many dollars as you had 33 years ago in order to just break even.

And, while we are at it. I would get rid of the enthusiastic and "compelling" presentation acting. This is always a sign of attempting to market more than is really there. It is science through how the presenter can make you "feel" and it leads to poor knee-jerk decisions.

Wait, hasn't emacs and unix's "man" pages been doing this forever? In emacs I can type ctrl-s and then a search term and all instances are highlighted. In man I can type /searchterm and all instances are highlighted.

And both of these existed LONG before 1999. How the hell did this get a patent?

you insensitive clod.

When the hell are security "professionals" going to wake up and realize that secure access to something requires three items: identification, authentication and authorization. You CANNOT store the authentication credential with the identification. It is 100% stupid to store the pin on the identification device. Authentication credentials and authorization decisions must be kept by, and made by, the service provider. The only item that should be left with the consumer is an identification badge.

For instance, a national "ID Card" is actually a good thing IF the only thing it has stored on it or about it is the owners identification, i.e. name and unique ID number. The ONLY thing the card should provide is a way to contact a national database/server which requires two things, the unique, public ID number from the card and a fingerprint (which is NOT stored or printed on the card in any way). The ONLY information the server should return is "Yes" or "No". But see... the fingerprint cannot be stored on the card in way for the same reason that the pin in the post should never be stored on the card. If somebody other than the legitimate owner comes into possession of the card then he possesses both the identification AND the authentication pieces of the puzzle and can do whatever the legitimate owner was authorized to do.

Security: it's simple. f*cking learn it.

Seriously, does anybody believe that jurors (possible the worst dregs of society) are capable of understanding the responsibilities of a judicial oath. Hell the judge should have awarded her extra credit for demonstrating the ability to use a computer for something other than a paperweight.

Please, for the love of facts and reason go look some up before blaming defense spending that brought citizens a multitude of technological innovations for their investment. Military spending (all of it) doesn't even make 54% of the budget. it's actually less than half of what you quoted for 2009. And MOST of that isn't to fund the two wars you speak of.

Though I will give you credit for correctly identifying the looming crisis that is the unfunded liabilities.

First: history has shown that Americans don't care for rail transportation. Otherwise Amtrak would actually make a profit. But instead Americans choose the efficiency of time, and take a plane, or the efficiency of their schedule and take their cars when and where they want.

Second, while high speed rail works well in Japan or Europe, do you have any idea how much bigger the United states? The single state of Alaska is bigger than all of Japan and Texas alone is over half its size. And if you haven't traveled across Texas or other large states such as Montana, Wyoming or Nebraska... THERE AIN'T NOTHING THERE. There's nothing worth while to stop a train at. So while Japan can count on the commerce and traffic from Osaka, Nagoya, Kyoto and Tokyo on a rail line... In the same distance in california from Los Angeles... Nothing. Maybe San Diego and almost to San Francisco. But quite frankly, there isn't enough inter-city commerce between these locations to support commuter rail service. This might work from Washington DC to New york city but even that's a stretch. The distances are so great it just makes it more valuable for the few who need to commute it to do so by air.

So yeah. 'nother super waste of tax payer dollars. You'd be better off just dividing the $8B and give 100,000 homeless people $80K each. But sure, we're $3 TRILLION in debt for just the last two years, why not go for broke... literally.

I am depressed that my generation is now officially called *THAT* generation.

Proof that women ARE actually smarter than men.

IT jobs suck. I've been a systems and network administrator. It really, really sucks. The job is an endless list of problems that everybody expects you to solve instantly. Nobody realizes that the number of pieces of technology that you mastered outnumbers their marketing/managing/accounting skills 10:1 and are more complex. You're viewed as nothing but a cost; nobody attributes any profit to you. They always think their technology ideas are better than yours. You get labeled as anti-social and unfriendly because you wind up living isolated at night fixing trouble calls that woke you up. "Oh, you know about computers... Can you take a look at mine?" is acceptable but "Oh, you know accounting... can you do my taxes for me this year?" is not.

So yeah. Women are proving they're smarter than men by avoiding all this anguish and lack of appreciation.

Easy. Stop carrying bulk mail. Raise envelope postal rates to $2 per message. I'll easily pay $50/year additional to not get junk bulk mail.

But basically... they're screwed. We shouldn't be sending anything that can fit in an envelope anymore. Send it as a PDF or email instead. Then you could simply restrict deliveries to individual recipients instead of long routes. Turn USPS into UPS.

Hmmm. China outstripping the US in terms of advancement? you don't say. How could a country unburdened with civil rights or workplace safety laws, unbound by global health treaties or other economic regulations, willing to consume energy at an unlimited place possible be outstripping a country paralyzed by an abundance of laws, regulation, politics and bureaucracy??

Face it were doomed. The president and congress have no desire to trim down all that crap. And yet, we keep voting their type into power. Face it, it is not the president that Bill Gates & Friends should be talking to about this problem... it's the American people that need this education.