The first time an ISP told me I couldn't use my own equipment, I would drop them in about 5 seconds.

Doesn't matter. It was nominated because it broke down barriers and opened up MMO's to the mainstream. All MMO's prior to WOW were niche and pretty much only played by nerds and hardcore gamers. WOW shattered that, opened them up to mainstream, and had a 10-year run. While I don't agree with what WOW has become in the latest expansion (it's a terrible game now), you can't deny the influence it's had on the market and it had a very successful run (that is now ending, but that's also beside the point).

WOW wasn't included because it was the first, or even close. It was included because it broke MMO's into the mainstream and had a 10-year run. Prior to WOW, MMO's were an extremely niche thing, that only nerds and hardcore gamers ever played. While I don't agree with what WOW has become in the last expansion (in fact, I will go so far as to say it's a terrible game now), you can't deny that it broke down barriers and opened up MMO's to people who had never even considered playing them before.

That's what I would say too. I make $42k/year right now (although I am single with no children), and after 1.5 years of that I have enough saved to be able to go without work for a year if it's necessary.

Thankfully I don't buy or use prebuilt PC's. And I will not use a motherboard that doesn't allow turning off secure boot.

65nm isn't "competitive". It's 10 years old. It might compete with the original Athlon 64. Certainly not with anything modern.

Except they didn't use transparent aluminum in the bird of prey. They used ordinary 6-inch thick plexiglass. The plexiglass was given to them in return for the molecular formula for transparent aluminum. The guy that Scotty gave the formula to said it would take *years* to make use of it. It was a long term investment.

Except for gaming. Gaming is really the only thing that needs a computer newer than 7 years old now.

Right now, I download my TV shows/movies from Pirate Bay or wherever, and then I get the DVD's when they are released. I can easily play DVD's without using any proprietary software, and I can also rip/re-encode them to any format I want (for things like watching movies on my phone at work). The physical media has value to me because of how useful it is (and the fact that I don't have to keep terabytes of videos around). I don't care about Blu-ray, or 1080p...most DVD's look fine to me on my 1080p monitor (considering I am usually less than a foot away). I don't own a TV. The only DVD's that look "fuzzy" are old TV shows, and it's not the DVD format that's making them fuzzy, but rather the fact that they are old shows that weren't recorded at a particularly high quality. If they make it so the physical media no longer has that value to me...then I will simply stop buying it and download everything. I'm not paying money for LESS convenience. If there is going to be less convenience, I will simply put that money into lots of extra hard drive space instead.

Honestly, I'm still happy with DVD's. And I see zero point to higher resolutions than 1080p at this time. Especially since I'm less than a foot away from my monitor when using it. I don't own a TV, if I watch something it'll be either on that computer or on my laptop (which is 1368x768). And DVD is more than good enough for my needs. Does 1080p video look better? Yes. Does it look better enough to make it worth dealing with all of the DRM (I won't use proprietary software to play movies)? No, not at all. Honestly, the only DVD's I have that look "fuzzy" at 1080p are old TV shows...and the DVD is basically the same quality as the masters they had since they weren't recorded at high resolution.

http://en.memory-alpha.org/wik... "I've been told that I've already been charged, indicted, convicted, and sentenced. What would I need with a lawyer?" "Well, Mr. O'Brien, if it sounds immodest of me I apologize, but the role of public conservator is key to the productive functioning of our courts. I'm here to help you concede the wisdom of the state."

It's broken but it's intentional. The people in charge want things the way they are, that's how plutocracies roll.

What's this obsession with giving great apes more legal rights, but not other animals. Why not cats, or dolphins?

Some antivirus utilities are better than others, but even the best of the best are only around 60% effective at detecting threats. That said, in a corporate environment having one of the better ones is a good idea and certainly better than nothing. But I've noticed a lot of companies buying TERRIBLE antivirus "solutions" that not only never detect anything, but are horribly expensive. CA Etrust and Trend Micro OfficeScan are the worst I've seen in this category (ie, in the 7 years I've worked for companies that use one of those 2, I've never once seen either one successfully detect or remove anything). Actually I take that back, I DID see Etrust flag *itself* as a virus once and remove itself. That was rather amusing. On another note, I was on a gaming forum (where you'd think people would be a little bit more tech savvy than the average person), and someone was arguing on the tech support forums, saying they couldn't possibly have a virus because "they pay for virus protection".

I honestly don't see anything wrong with euthanizing people, if they have a terminal/incurable illness and are in pain to the point where living at all is misery to them. People in these situations often *want* to die, but the law won't let the doctors do it for them, and a lot of them end up doing it themselves.