Cruel? Elevator to no where? Did none of you watch this all the way to the end? Its a story of persistence and overcoming obstacles, the hamster triumphs!

Its probably worth noting that about a year into the lifecycle of the 360, it WAS profitable on hardware sales. Manufacturing costs had dropped and for a while Microsoft was making about $70 on each console sold, almost unheard of in the console market. Since then they've released several new chipsets and set aside the $1billion to fix RROD problems, which has likely drained any profitability both past and future. That does, however, show that making the console could be profitable, and a third party doing it and adding value with other components in the box may do well. Its probably also worth pointing out that Sony has thus far lost more than $3.3billion in selling the PS3, selling it so far under production costs to remain competitive.

#3 - BCJ

I've often wondered the same thing. From what I've read, it seems people either have to send back their system once, or they send it back 5-15 times. The fact that there seems to be so few people who have owned them since release that have had to do 2-3 makes me wonder. I wonder if there's any correlation between pet owners and increased return rates. I also picture people with the 360s resting on carpet, back exhaust up against the wall, a DVD player balanced on top of it, and a cat curled up next to it.

I'm on my second console now, and its been running strong for almost 2 years, the first one died after 11 months. Current one is original chipset at that (Born on date of Nov-2005!)

#3 - That's what I'd thought to. In fact, I usually scoop that out when making eggs and throw it away rather than eat it because it somewhat disgusts me to eat it. Though I eat chicken. And eggs. Hmm.

The offensive nature of her remarks aside, I'd always been under the impression that Karma applied to individuals, though I'm no expert. But it seems a stretch to imply the earth punished millions of Chinese citizens because of the actions of their government, most often actions taken against those same citizens.

With that loose understanding of karma, she's probably a shoe-in for a guest role on My Name is Earl!

Zedza - along with what Sum.Zero said, they found lots of fake torrents up on their tracker from Media Defender. But also the entire thing started when they did notice that these torrents were there (a user on the forums pointed them out), and began closing them down. Then it seems MediaDefender's servers couldn't hit their fake torrents for tracking, freaked and launched into DoS mode.

#7 - Everyone in the future has been doing it for thousands of years without any problems, according to sci-fi shows all over!

Indeed. I'll take one right now, and I'd be willing to pay far more than $75 for it.

Doug117 #6 - Except its not merely a private arrangment between the couple and friends and family. Marriage has legal ramifications, such as taxes, custody of children, visitation and decision making in hospitals, sharing of employer benefits, etc.

Glad to see that Cali has ruled in such a way. However, they do have a consitutional ammendment up for vote in November that would define marriage as being between a man and a woman, hopefully that vote won't turn out poorly as it has in so many other states.

Rajio #4 - May want to file that under 'Only in America (Or the UK)' instead.

#4 - I can agree with you there. However, I often see the reverse happening, where religious folks will throw out some Einstein quote ("God does not play dice with the universe") to justify their arguments, not realizing Einstein's intent behind it or that he often used the word god in the deist sense rather than the theist sense. Having a nice quote like this to shut them up is handy.

The DRM is a sad thing to see in Mass Effect and Spore. If anyone had been wondering why BioWare fans were sad when EA aquired them, here's why!

Its funny, I took a look at a comment thread for a 'Sins of the Solar Empire' torrent, and nearly every commentor was saying something along the lines of 'Great game, it has no DRM either, so you should really support these guys and go buy it' and I'm betting a number of people did.

#6 - I can see that quote as confusing, the full article explains it a bit better. They were saying the link is the reverse of how media has been portraying it. Rather than kids that play violent video games becoming violent/aggresive, kids who are already naturally more violent/aggresive are more likely to be the kids who play violent video games.

They found a link between the two, but not evidence thats video games are the cause. It seems to me that they make a good point. Weren't kids always pretty aggresive and rude to each other?

The point about consequences is a good one too. Playing GTA4 you see that the crap you do usually doesn't work. You die, you get busted, you have to try over and over to get it right. Any reasonable person, and yes person here includes children and teens, could figure out that in real life this would be a stupid thing to do, you don't walk out of jail right after and jump back up in perfect health at the hospital.

I find them getting angry about drunk driving to be pretty funny. If anything, the drunk driving in the game shows how stupid it is to drink and drive. Its very hard to get anywhere in game driving drunk, you have very little control of the car and go slow, the cops are all over you the second they see you, so you're pretty likely to end up busted or dead, and you won't get where you're going as fast as calling a cab.

The comments under the linked article have a great one from a mother who says she's seen hardcore porn in game. Another lie, but she backs it up with the 'I've seen it myself!' defense.

I wonder how much they'd pay for a good review!

Mister N - 360 and PC servers don't cross for TF2. So having TF2 on 360 wouldn't do any good!

I'll be there tonight after work
sometime!

#55, Love that one! Tell them there may be health info on it and unless they get a HIPAA waiver signed they cannot search it. I work in health insurance too, so I'll certain be keeping that in mind.

Most excellent. I purchased TF2 from Xbox360 and loved it so much I bought it for the PC recently, I haven't tried Goldrush yet though, I'll have to stop by!

#4/5 - CrackOfTheBat

Maybe you haven't ever played the right games. I attribute much of my success in school (elementary through college) to problem solving skills I learned playing adventure games and education games in the 90s (Sierra and LucasArts products) There's certainly much less focus on both those genres these days, but they actually used to be the majority. I learned all my georgraphy from Where In The World is Carmen San Diego! And some of those game did actually teaching things like cooking and calculating interest.

#140 - Actually, there are! There's clearly a Prius clone car and the radio stations talking about hybrids often. Sorry, can't complain about that one! GTA 4 is green! Plus every pedestrian run over reduces their carbon foot print to zero.

#9 - I think thats pretty obvious. Didn't Signs show us that aliens and water don't mix? They go away on cloudy days to avoid the rain.

I missed this post yesterday (I was too busy playing GTA IV) so I'm pretty late to be responding to comment #1, but here goes!

In GTA III, an often cited reason for why the game was so horrible (See #1): "In the olden days, you could even run over the prostitute after she finished her work and get your money back"

This was only partly true. Everyone in the game dropped money when they were killed, usually a set amount based on what they were, prostitutes and drug dealers tended to have more money than normal civilians walking around. However, the amount that prosititues dropped did not change based on when you killed them, so you weren't getting your money back, you were getting the money they dropped. I remember seeing the 'run her over after' thing on a list of funny things to do, but it wasn't a programmed in or intended part of the game.

I often wonder how much better handsfree sets are. Is it the act of holding the phone that is distracting, and not the conversation itself? Driving distracted with two hands or one hand isn't a lot different.

What #2 mentions about the up/down speed thing is really annoying, I'll see cell-phone talkers fly by me doing 85 in a 55, then pull over in front of me and slow down to 50 and glare at me when I pass them after.

Oh, my other favorite thing I see all the time is the people who don't use hands free sets, but put their phone on speaker and hold it 2 feet away from their ear instead.

And yes I've used my cell while driving, but only briefly to confirm directions or long enough to let someone know I'll call them back, not have a conversation my entire drive.

#66 - I'm not a lawyer either, but as I understand it from photographers rights websites, you're never required to show ID to an officer. The exception is when pulled over while operating a motor vehicle you are required to provied proof you're allowed to operate it.

Think of it this way - people are not required to carry ID on them unless they are driving a car/truck/etc. So its pretty unreasonable for it to be a law that it must be provided on demand. So I'm walking down the sidewalk, didn't bring my ID with me as I'm not in a car, a cop asks me for ID and I cannot produce, now I can be arrested for that alone? Makes no sense. Some states require you provide a name and address, not sure about NY specifically.

However, I believe in cases where a person identification needs to be made police can hold someone without arrest up to the maximum 48 hours while trying to confirm identity.

Ms. Lin could have handled the situation better and said something like "No, I don't have ID" rather than just walking away. But the cops arresting her for that alone is not legal either, and certainly not on trumped up assault charges.

I find it interesting the tone of the comments here, despite any issues people may have with critial mass, why is it ok for the police to act like this, make things up and arrest people on trumped up and obviously false charges?

Even if Critical Mass was in the wrong for breaking traffic laws, does that give NYPD the right to make false arrest statements and blatantly lie, and then get away with that? Charging someone with interfering with an arrest that happens after their own, and then charging Lin at the end there with assault, thats a bit much. They could charge them with running a redlight or reckless endagerment on a roadway if they did that, but whats the need for 5 cops to throw a small woman off her bike for taking a picture and refusing to show ID?

I like the letters to other famous people after the serial killers, especially Larry Flynt's advice to read the Sears catalog until the kid was old enough to get Hustler.

Isn't it supposed to shred the books when done, as in Rainbows End?

I remember in an interview with the guy behind this keyboard during the CES show, he mentioned a per-key payment structure as well as buying the whole keyboard. The idea being you could buy a starter keyboard for a few hundred, with only a handful of screen-keys and the rest all normal and boring, and then over time buy individual screen-keys for around $20 and just pop the old ones off and drop in one of the new. I thought that was a fitting way to remind yourself exactly how much per-key you're paying for this thing.

No word on that on thinkgeek though.

I did see that pricing model described on the official webpage: http://store.artlebedev.com/computer_add-ons/optimus/

According to the article the lizards' digestive system formed new structures to allow it to better digest plants. That seems more substantial than just saying they changed their diet as alluded to above. They are able to have a different diet because of the change.

I'm not a vegetarian nor do I take much issue with industrial farming, but I can still see this as a benefit. Aren't such farms massive enviromental problems? Isn't methane from massive herds of cattle a major source of greenhouse gases?

As for what we'd do with all the cows once we have vat-grown, I think thats pretty obvious. Slaughter and eat them. Then stop breeding them in such high numbers.

PS - will vat grown beef taste like veal? Mmm.

#1 - I believe the '40 years ago' and 'when I was 8' portions were in reference to questions about Obama and William Ayers more than Obama and Wright.