Get over it.

From what I've seen of Vista, there will be no compelling reason for exisiting computer owners to upgrade, particularly as XP, aside from security issues, is pretty good at this stage. Most copies of Vista will be sold with new PCs, and PC makers will probably boast "Vista-ready" on stickers on the front of boxes that make the grade. Which will be 99.5% of new PCs.

There is no need to worry whether your parents' Dell will run Vista. They will be fine on XP for the lifetime of the computer.

Capitalism sucks.

$150/month may be a decent wage in China, but it sure doesn't compare to $60k/month in the US (I think, I don't live in either country, and haven't visited the USA).

Why doesn't this guy pay his Chinese peon $5000/month, and only keep $55150/month for himself? That way they could both live like kings.

I had a "VPU Recover" crashing problem with my 9600XT, which seemed to go away after disabling AGP Fast Writes in the SMARTGART controls.

Give it a shot.

Isn't Blockbuster a Viacom or Time/Warner subsidiary? Lotsa mutual back-scratching going on there.

That's a thought - maybe Valve should up their licence fees for CyberCafes to like twelve-ty million shekels, then open their own chain of cafes when the indy ones go bust...

Surely Valve are entitled to charge whatever they like for their product. Seeing how democracy has become bunk, the only power the little people have left is as consumers. So you think Valve charge unfairly high premiums for their product? Don't buy it!

As for the cafes, I guess this leaves them with two choices: they either continue to offer Valve games, and pass the cost onto the consumer, or they no longer offer Valve games, and price themselves favorably compared to cafes theat do. Which of these choices is the right one to make depends on whether the consumers would be prepared to pay a little extra to play Valve games as opposed to other companies' games. A little market research on your existing customer base would give you the information you need to make this choice.

If it turns out that people would rather not pay the extra to play CounterStrike or whatever, then Valve will be the long term losers, but I suspect they've followed this line of reasoning themselves, maybe done a little market research too, and have decided they can come out in front with this licencing system.

[I have never set foot in a CyberCafe and do not own any Valve games. No animals were harmed in the writing of this post]

Well, well.

I for one really like Canberra. I don't live there, but I visit a couple of times a year. Decriminalised pot, legal fireworks, highly educated taxi drivers, and some of the finest mountain biking in the country, only 10 minutes drive from parliament house!

Our present government's numerous interferences with the OFLC over controversial films over the last couple of years is completely in keeping with their obsession to undo any kind of social and moral progression that has happened in this country over the last 50 years. Remember Hawke promising a Treaty? Keating's doomed vision of regional integration? Howard is turning the clock back to the times of his political hero, Menzies, when blacks and women shut up and did what they were told, when poofter bashing was publically encouraged, and when video games didn't exist.

And we had an election a few weeks back, and the public delivered their verdict on this kind of outlook: they overwhelmingly approved it. I guess we'd just better get used to a climate of bigotry, intolerance and selfishness as the defining characterisics of what it is to be Australian in the 21st century.

Until interest rates go up, anyway.

Hey, I'd never heard of AutoDuel before. I didn't know that there had previously been a computer version of Car Wars. I really hope that this proves to be the game they're referring to - I wasted many hours many years ago customizing cars in Car Wars. What fun.

Here's hoping it's a computer game version of Car Wars. I76 was the closest we've ever got to that.

So, has anyone actually looked at the movie? Looks pretty silly to me - a weird mix of realistic terrain/vehicles and guys with oversized heads...

Why not make a WW2 game, but replace all the soldiers with hamsters - call it World War Hamster?