astronauts are pretty healthy - it wouldn't really hasten your demise, going to mars, so by that rationale staying on earth is tantamount to offing yourself. my question is how would NASA/ESA coordinate prayer times, and how exact would the calculation of which direction Mecca lies toward so that the Muslim Martian Explorers could satisfy prayer reqs? I'm sure they could come up with a reclining/inclining sled...

So militarizing and converting the responsibilities of a responsible code-breaking organization into investigative police work? No. You need oversight in the form of an agency that does not also have within its capability the power to also act in a justice or military capacity on the information it collects.

Green lighting? Actually something like purposely misplaced spot lighting that screws up a picture taken because of the white imbalance, or low-amplitude LED bar/spot lighting. I'm looking at the picture, going "well if the rides are during the day light is going to get in the window so my idea is stupid," -- but aside from bombarding occupants with radiation the lighting could be well misplaced in a cabin that's highly reflective and makes all the pictures streaked and ugly -- very discouraging.

So basically, shut down Steam completely then run a simple console (e.g., Windows) "1. ipconfig /release all, 2. ipconfig /flushdns, 3. ipconfig /renew"; Not to condone cheating, but this is something that can clog your system if it's having to be constantly checked.

If Steam can access the internet, and be running (to put it plainly) with permissions to install, then it runs as Admin on your stuff -- good luck setting up rules to not have to manually shut down if cheating is something you want to do.

Although, have you seen so-called "cheat" sites? They basically list achievements/trophies for games, because these cheats aren't coded in like they used to be in old consoles. It used to be something fun, I don't know what's happened to the judgement of it.

At the risk of saying too much, is privacy even an issue, really? I was filling out a form today for some website, and it struck me that so many services online have access to our personal information, and copy the same sort of security questions. When you're filling out a form for a new site, would you choose the same security questions and answers if they appear? And, since there are so few "common" security questions, would that be a clue to which question/answer combo you would pick on, for example, a banking site -- given its relative importance to a marginal or third party site (like one for shopping that has your CC info but doesn't hold your actual money). It seems like the more you want to do online, everybody is going to end up with your information. Not really a big deal when you give it some thought. Less stress on you since they won't have to fight eachother over your info, they'll all have a piece, and likely leave you alone. It's like devaluation of the currency of privacy, I guess?

But I digress. Doesn't seem like Valve's changes are that big of a deal - if the old days of button combos are dead, and walkthroughs are plentiful -- then the only cheats that are really out there are console or specific technology hacks that circumvent fair gameplay in a more massively multiplayer world of gaming. To go even further on the privacy bit, why not demand they share it with other parties and see what happens. It would relax controls on gaming companies and you may even get better offers, freeing up the market.

Anyway...

I don't mind, just (lol at You had mail, btw) getting something funky when I click http://rss.slashdot.org/Slashd... which is what I was going to stress anyway, is that rss or very simplified lightweight text-only html is still available/easily found. =)

It could be privacy related, ensuring people don't have their entire lives downloaded if their account is compromised? I would assume -- or hope, rather -- they're moving toward something more functional, like the ability to search all of your posts instead of having them locked in an endless scroll or dynamic menu format.

That's what I'd really like to see them incorporate into this 'graph search' that I still don't have access to, is the ability to at least view all of my posts in some clever format, e.g. by association, or the type of post it was (if I shared a link with video vs a normal link of x type).

It could also just be the hassle of people doing it too frequently, wasting server time on zipping up large directories and using up bandwidth(?). Facebook tends to want to have people use their service the Facebook way, whatever that is.

Right around the point where they brought the Marines on board, Alien(s) stopped being a horror movie (with the minor exception of the bit with the young girl hiding in the air ducts) and turned into an action film. What was once horror transformed even more when the Predators were introduced into the mix, and it's now 100% non-scary kick-ass action (if you like that sort of thing). True horror is not just suspenseful music and things that jump out and startle you once in a while.