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I don't think it's best to post the TRUTH in Slashdot comments. Please contact me here.

If you want, I can provide you some space on my web server so that you don't have to copy and paste your promotion of hosts files like that. Reply here if interested.

The geek's explanation for his every failure in law, politics and government is bribery.

As I understand it: The average citizen gets information about issues and candidates from one of the major TV news networks. A news source can refuse to cover a particular issue or a particular candidate's campaign. This means the citizen won't be made aware of it. So if TV news networks fail to cover developments in copyright law or candidates who have expressed interest in a balanced approach to copyright, they can influence the behavior of voters. Now guess what conglomerates own the major TV news sources and would have a reasonable motive and opportunity to exploit their conflict of interest: the parent companies of five of the six studios that make up the MPAA.

The simplest fix, of course, is to use https for all cookie handling, which probably means https for every page access.

The problem with having HTTPS on every logged-in page access is that Internet Explorer for Windows XP and Android Browser for Android 2.x lack support for Server Name Indication. This means that if a web server hosts more than one domain using name-based virtual hosting, a browser using an SNI-incapable SSL stack can't see any certificate past the first, and users will see a certificate error. In this era of IPv4 address scarcity, this especially hurts hobbyist sites on shared web hosting, whose operators don't necessarily have the money for a VPS with its own IP address. For example, this looks fine on Chrome, Firefox, or IE 9+, but it gives a cert error on Gingerbread's browser and IE 8 on XP. Windows XP will pass out of support in 13 months, but seeing how prepaid wireless carriers are still selling Android 2.3 devices, I don't see the SNI problem ending any time soon.

what are some differences in the last two or three updates to android, gingerbread to Jellybean?

One big new thing in Android 4.x compared to 2.2 and 2.3 is that the built-in SSL stack supports Server Name Indication, which lets you use SSL on sites that use shared hosting. Without SNI, your device can't see any certificate on port 443 of a given IP address other than that of the first site, instead giving a certificate mismatch error. This rules out putting hundreds of sites on a single IP like shared hosting providers do. For example, you get this error when you try to access https://pineight.com/ using Internet Explorer on Windows XP or Android Browser on Android 2.x because these browsers don't tell the SSL layer what hostname it's using when establishing a connection. Instead, you have to either fall back to HTTP, upgrade Windows or Android, or switch to Chrome or Firefox on Windows.

So for which "real handheld gaming device" should an amateur or a startup company develop a video game? I agree with the control disadvantage of a smartphone or tablet compared to a PlayStation or DS family product, but they have one big advantage: a selection you can't get on Sony or Nintendo.

the content of the christmas festival celebrated by bible believing christians has nothing to do with the "yule".

Then what's with the Christmas trees? (Jeremiah 10:1-5) And what's with the "do not open until Xmas" spirit of holding back of gift-giving in the months leading up to the date? Learn why one Christian denomination believes origins matter:

Maybe you feel that the origins of holidays have little to do with how they are celebrated today. Do origins really matter? Yes! To illustrate: Suppose you saw a piece of candy lying in the gutter. Would you pick up that candy and eat it? Of course not! That candy is unclean. Like that candy, holidays may seem sweet, but they have been picked up from unclean places. To take a stand for true worship, we need to have a viewpoint like that of the prophet Isaiah, who told true worshipers: "Touch nothing unclean."--Isaiah 52:11.

You wrote:

The only thing you could argue is that name "Easter" may have been co-opted by the church and some of the secular trappings resemble elements from pagan traditions that the church tried to stamp out but the festival within the church bares no relation to the old pagan celebration.

In what way are rabbits and eggs resurrection of the Christ? They're fertility symbols associated with Ishtar/Astarte/Eostre.

It is a celebration of the birth of christ.

For one thing, Jesus was probably born in the early fall; the Church chose the winter solstice out of a superstitious belief that he was conceived on the same day he died, and Yule was the closest holiday to nine months after Nisan 14. For another, did Jesus ever ask for his birth to be celebrated? Jesus was raised a Jew, and Jews were far more likely to celebrate a death anniversary: "A name is better than good oil, and the day of death than the day of one’s being born." (Ecclesiastes 7:1) That's why Jehovah's Witnesses, for example, celebrate Good Friday on the eve of Nisan 14 but don't celebrate Christmas. Only two birthdays are ever mentioned in the Bible, and in both cases, the birthday boy had someone put to death as his gift.--Genesis 40:16-23; Mark 6:14-29.

I've written more about birthdays and the commercialized holiday posing as Christmas.

the content of the christmas festival celebrated by bible believing christians has nothing to do with the "yule".

Then what's with the Christmas trees? (Jeremiah 10:1-5) And what's with the "do not open until Xmas" spirit of holding back of gift-giving in the months leading up to the date? Learn why one Christian denomination believes origins matter:

Maybe you feel that the origins of holidays have little to do with how they are celebrated today. Do origins really matter? Yes! To illustrate: Suppose you saw a piece of candy lying in the gutter. Would you pick up that candy and eat it? Of course not! That candy is unclean. Like that candy, holidays may seem sweet, but they have been picked up from unclean places. To take a stand for true worship, we need to have a viewpoint like that of the prophet Isaiah, who told true worshipers: "Touch nothing unclean."--Isaiah 52:11.

You wrote:

The only thing you could argue is that name "Easter" may have been co-opted by the church and some of the secular trappings resemble elements from pagan traditions that the church tried to stamp out but the festival within the church bares no relation to the old pagan celebration.

In what way are rabbits and eggs resurrection of the Christ? They're fertility symbols associated with Ishtar/Astarte/Eostre.

It is a celebration of the birth of christ.

For one thing, Jesus was probably born in the early fall; the Church chose the winter solstice out of a superstitious belief that he was conceived on the same day he died, and Yule was the closest holiday to nine months after Nisan 14. For another, did Jesus ever ask for his birth to be celebrated? Jesus was raised a Jew, and Jews were far more likely to celebrate a death anniversary: "A name is better than good oil, and the day of death than the day of one’s being born." (Ecclesiastes 7:1) That's why Jehovah's Witnesses, for example, celebrate Good Friday on the eve of Nisan 14 but don't celebrate Christmas. Only two birthdays are ever mentioned in the Bible, and in both cases, the birthday boy had someone put to death as his gift.--Genesis 40:16-23; Mark 6:14-29.

I've written more about birthdays and the commercialized holiday posing as Christmas.

A much more likely, and indeed common case is an Android app that is repeatedly polling some web service.

This is also solvable: file a bug report on the developer's issue tracker requesting a switch to GCM, so that the application can receive a push notification from Google that the web service has new information to pass.

Android tends to slow down, and reduce battery life over time as more apps are left running in the background. iOS doesn't.

Android also has a tool to tell the user what application is causing the device to wake up and drain its battery. For me, "Screen" is the biggest culprit by far, taking a two-thirds supermajority of juice on my Nexus 7. From there, if the user thinks an application is misbehaving, it's just two taps to uninstall it until the developer pushes out a fixed version. In any case, I don't see how that outweighs several application categories being absent from the App Store for reasons other than battery use.

He considers social outreach, rather than doctrinal battles, to be the essential business of the church.

If a new focus on outreach catches on in the Catholic Church, will Catholics start bearing witness from door to door like Jesus recommended (Matthew 10:5-15) and like first-century Christians did (Acts 5:42)? They have to stop the rapid growth of Jehovah's Witnesses somehow.

He considers social outreach, rather than doctrinal battles, to be the essential business of the church.

If a new focus on outreach catches on in the Catholic Church, will Catholics start bearing witness from door to door like Jesus recommended (Matthew 10:5-15) and like first-century Christians did (Acts 5:42)? They have to stop the rapid growth of Jehovah's Witnesses somehow.

Steam? I thought installing non-free software such as games defeated the purpose of using Trisquel over, say, Xubuntu.

I want a phone that works, where I can easily buy billions of apps and new songs and movies instantly.

Until you want an app that isn't available on the App Store due to Apple's policy. How many Russian roulette apps are there?

Russian Roulette only makes sense with a real gun. For you I suggest a fully loaded one.

all I read about Android is how much of a clusterfuck and virus-magnet it is. [...] I buy something if it meets my requirements.

Then I'll assume your requirements don't include anything listed here.

I want a phone that works, where I can easily buy billions of apps and new songs and movies instantly.

Until you want an app that isn't available on the App Store due to Apple's policy. How many Russian roulette apps are there? 0. How many chat roulette apps? 0. How many apps to map out Wi-Fi hotspots? 0. How many games that satirize an identifiable organization? 0. How many apps that provide a virtual machine on which to run video games published by companies that are now out of business? 0. How many web browsers that implement HTML features that Apple has left out of Safari? 0. How many launcher replacements, even if only for the sake of accessibility? 0.

Want to "control" something? BUY IT (or rather, majority stock share control) - after all folks: It's ALL for sale if it's a publicly held company on the stock market!

DO that? Yes - You'll get EXACTLY WHAT YOU WANT TO HAPPEN & GO THRU!

(Yes folks: It's THAT easy for those with large ca$h to play that particular game, & use those types of mechanics to make stuff happen for them!)

Costs up-front? Yes, it does!

HOWEVER - "the infamous they" (man behind the curtain you're NOT supposed to pay attention to ala the Wizard of Oz), wouldn't buy it to do so, without that 'end-goal' in mind...

Spend some, to make a LOT in other words. Simple trick really - nothing magical about it!

Where's it done? Everywhere pretty much - this is a small example "proof thereof" -> https://pineight.com/mw/?title=MPAA_news

---

PERTINENT QUOTE/EXCERPT:

"Five out of the six major U.S. motion picture studios in the Motion Picture Association of America control the five major U.S. television news outlets"

---

Since they have the funds necessary to do THAT, then what exactly makes you *think* they're not "buying up" ISP's also, simply to do EXACTLY what I said above??

APK

P.S.=> IF you want to control a nation, industry, & (insert anything to do with "the holy dollar" here really)?

Again: BUY IT UP, end-to-end!

All the way from suppliers of materials (tangible or intangible), to logistics for delivery of RAW materials, to production, to marketing & distribution channels + COMMUNICATIONS CHANNELS (very important for the 'pr' end of it & marketing)! You control costs this way as well...

See - That way?

Yes, you really DO control it, completely (& can pull stuff like this off)...

The only part that "spooks me" is that say, if the 'enemies' the US has have reasoned this out, then what's stopping THEM from doing it? NOTHING... e

Especially say, Arabs with Oil monies!

I mean - think about it: Why bother "fight" us, you won't win (too much "muscle" in US military might)... or do "terrorism" (too much cost in lives etc.) - just BUY US UP, via the public stockmarket, & mismanage the hell out of us... that'd do the job!

Fact is, & I've suspected THAT for decades now? It's being done - I am NOT the "smartest guy" out there, but I do observe what goes on around me, sampling the thoughts & findings of others, & then I make decisions...

ANYHOW/ANYWAYS:

Hence, the huge mess around us financially (since nobody SANE would've allowed things to get so "outta control" as they are now presently in that arena, which affects EVERYTHING else pretty much - yes, I do suspect someone with a LOT of monetary power is steering this & creating it, for the reasons noted above - control, & power)...

... apk

Home/consumer software has been post-scarcity for a long time

Including games? I thought games needed skills from multiple disciplines, some of which have not yet developed a mentality analogous to the free software movement. And how well has free accounting software been able to keep up with annual updates to tax codes in all industrialized jurisdictions?

Bullshit. Votes are more important than campaign funds.

And each company in the entertainment industry can control votes by using whatever news outlets its parent company owns to frame the political discourse.

I just see a PC way more versatile than a console.

So do I, but I'm a geek. Most users are not geeks. How exactly does a PC's versatility benefit the average user in the living room? The average user expects a device connected to a TV to play video games, movies, and TV series, and that's pretty much it. The user doesn't expect to use a set-top device to surf, e-mail, tweet, or edit documents because a mouse and keyboard won't fit easily into the user's lap while in a recliner, nor can a user at a typical TV seating distance read the small text on web sites that target desktop PCs. Or if I have something all wrong, what am I missing?

Don't get me wrong; I want set-top PCs to become popular. But first I have to understand how to make them practical to a crowd accustomed to the limitations of consoles.

I can then though, take my existing setup, toss $400 at it every few years to keep up with the updated games.

Likewise, a console owner can toss a new console at an existing setup to keep up with new games.

The correct answer is: build support, get into government, change the laws.

How is that possible when the movie studios control the means of getting into national government?

But there are tools which could be used by 4th graders, that's not the problem. But 3D modelling is a field for experienced artists.

Simple programs like Voxel Fun (Android) and Minecraft (PC) are introducing children to the concept of voxel sculpting. Or is there a huge step from that to mesh sculpting?

Did you ever try to make anything more complex than a box with blender or Maya?

I made this, this, and this in Blender. That probably makes me an edge case.

But there are tools which could be used by 4th graders, that's not the problem. But 3D modelling is a field for experienced artists.

Simple programs like Voxel Fun (Android) and Minecraft (PC) are introducing children to the concept of voxel sculpting. Or is there a huge step from that to mesh sculpting?

Did you ever try to make anything more complex than a box with blender or Maya?

I made this, this, and this in Blender. That probably makes me an edge case.

But there are tools which could be used by 4th graders, that's not the problem. But 3D modelling is a field for experienced artists.

Simple programs like Voxel Fun (Android) and Minecraft (PC) are introducing children to the concept of voxel sculpting. Or is there a huge step from that to mesh sculpting?

Did you ever try to make anything more complex than a box with blender or Maya?

I made this, this, and this in Blender. That probably makes me an edge case.

You won't build a $400 gaming PC that is a) quite and b) as fast as a current gen game console.

Acer makes the Aspire X series of compact PCs that are roughly the size of the original Xbox 360, and anything with an AMD CPU will come with an integrated graphics processor capable of gaming. I have one, and it's been far less noisy than my cousin's original Xbox 360.

It's hell to set up anything else because there's no standard for button numbering.

I'm aware of this, and I've been doing a bit of research toward this. A PC game developer's best bet is to find the most common controllers among users, possibly using some counterpart to Microsoft's Customer Experience Improvement Program, and bundle working presets for those controllers with the game. These would include at least the Gravis/Logitech layout and the Xbox 360 layout.

I've pushed button 1 on my controller and had it show up as button 3 in game.

Then you played defective games. A game seeing a particular brand of controller for the first time should show a list of buttons to press in order. Once the player has pressed Up, Down, Left, Right, Jump, Fire, Special, and Pause, the configuration for that controller is saved. Someone using a Genesis RetroPort, for example, would take eight seconds to press Up, Down, Left, Right, C, B, A, and Start, and that hurdle is surpassed on that machine.

The last GBA game was Final Fantasy IV Advanced, released 2006. So about 5 years, give or take.

You're referring to what some have called "lame duck" games and what others have called the daddy system. Games compatible with old PCs are still being released, just as PS1 games continued to come out during the first several years of the PS2 and PS2 games continued to come out during the first several years of the PS3. So I call this a wash.

I can usually tell within the first five minutes if I want to spend time completing any particular game. If so, I layout the keys so that they are comfortable and natural to me.

So in a universe with all these different button layouts, what sane defaults would get you to the five minute mark?

I wouldn't say they're equivalent of 2600 games but the vast majority are no match for even PSone titles in gameplay or quality.

Which is why the price of the vast majority would be no match for PSone titles. It has been demonstrated elsewhere that something with the depth of an NES game can sell online for $5. An open or semi-open platform gives a developer a chance to build a portfolio to put on his resume while he saves up for the multi-year apprenticeship in Austin, Boston, or Seattle.

Weren't all of your games clones/knock offs of somebody elses game, "Luminesweeper" and those tetris clones with slightly modded rules that you did?

I haven't touched a line of code in a falling block game for several years. Just because a single developer who regularly posts to Slashdot used to make falling block clones and has been working at maturing past that point into other genres doesn't mean that all games from micro-studios are falling block clones. Please be careful.

Not to mention that what games are there are intended for touch screens, not game controller play.

Every game has to support the touch screen, even if only to drop a virtual gamepad onto the screen. But a lot of games already support the iControlPad, iCade, Sixaxis Controller, Xperia Play, or a slide-out physical keyboard, and could be easily ported.

An Ouya controller includes physical buttons and a trackpad, and games will be designed and balanced around this input device. What input device comes with the RK3066 Android stick? Sure, there's a USB hub, but there's really not much standardization in the button layout of USB game controllers. I'm not fully convinced that all users will have the time to sit through control calibration ("Press up, down, left, right, jump, shoot, in that order") for each new game that they install.

C gives you just enough rope, to shoot yourself in the foot!

Then perhaps it's a good thing that the little guy with the gun that shoots ropes has no feet.

C gives you just enough rope, to shoot yourself in the foot!

Then perhaps it's a good thing that the little guy with the gun that shoots ropes has no feet.

Ultimately, I believe that open set-top devices such as HTPC are the optimal long-term solution, and I've been collecting arguments on both sides for years on my pages about the debate (HTPC in general and HTPC gaming). But I feel that if I don't play devil's advocate, and I instead express my true belief, the randoms tend to either moderate my pro-HTPC posts down as Overrated (when they have mod points) or make more anti-HTPC posts (when they don't). By parading the anti-HTPC randoms' arguments, I'm trying to encourage HTPC supporters to reply with their strongest counter-arguments. Arguments about the pros and cons of HTPCs appear more useful to me than ad-homs like "the people making the arguments against HTPCs are random Internet users". Perhaps more reliable statistics will appear by the end of this year once Ouya comes out and Big Picture has a chance to gain users.

Ultimately, I believe that open set-top devices such as HTPC are the optimal long-term solution, and I've been collecting arguments on both sides for years on my pages about the debate (HTPC in general and HTPC gaming). But I feel that if I don't play devil's advocate, and I instead express my true belief, the randoms tend to either moderate my pro-HTPC posts down as Overrated (when they have mod points) or make more anti-HTPC posts (when they don't). By parading the anti-HTPC randoms' arguments, I'm trying to encourage HTPC supporters to reply with their strongest counter-arguments. Arguments about the pros and cons of HTPCs appear more useful to me than ad-homs like "the people making the arguments against HTPCs are random Internet users". Perhaps more reliable statistics will appear by the end of this year once Ouya comes out and Big Picture has a chance to gain users.

If they just released a solid bluetooth gamepad for Apple TV & iPads

How is using swipes on a touch screen as a gamepad not enough?

The problem with something like the iControlPad or the iCade 8-Bitty is that I can't think of anybody who's willing to buy a $62 device to play a 99 cent game. On the consoles, either a game is fully designed for the controller that came with the console, or the game comes on a disc and the controller is bundled with the game (e.g. DDR, Wii Fit, Rock Band). How would one bundle a Bluetooth gamepad with a download? Otherwise, phone games are stuck with using swipes to emulate a gamepad.

it's as easy as plugging in a cord to your tv, with the added benefit of not having an iOS system. Which I assume would be heavily locked down similar to the iPhone, iPad, and iPod.

These iTrinkets are far less locked down than the major consoles. For about $1000 for hardware (recent Mac mini and an iOS device) plus $100 per year, any two or three-man home-based family business can develop and publish a game. On the consoles, you end up with the problem Robert Pelloni had when he tried to bring his RPG Bob's Game to the Nintendo DS: only developers with "relevant video game industry experience", "financial stability", and a "dedicated secure office" are allowed onto the consoles. To qualify, a developer pretty much has to move to a city like Austin, Boston, or Seattle, and do a multi-year internship with a company already licensed to develop for a major console. Apple is wide open by comparison. The only problem is no buttons, and that can be worked around.

Then how do some Zelda games for Nintendo DS (LOZ:PH, LOZ:ST) get away with touch-only control, and single-touch at that? And why can't traditional gamepad oriented genres be adapted to multitouch?

Good luck find games/apps (outside the ones on Cydia) that work with a PS3/Wii/generic wireless controller.

Why can't games that use a gamepad just be redesigned to use touch screen swipes as buttons so that you don't have to carry a console's proprietary Bluetooth gamepad?

Pretty much all of those problems go away if you build from source

Except that there are several kinds of application where there's no business model to allow building from source. The canonical examples are games, playback software for rented videos, and tax preparation software.

You want to support SD cards larger than 32 GB?

No, not at least until you can prove it's absolutely necessary. Why can't a future device design just drop support for SD cards and use UDF or Ext formatted USB flash drives instead? As a widely respected first-century teacher might have put it: "If [SD support] causes you to stumble, cut it off."--Mark 9:43.

Well why not?

Over the past few years, fans of networked multiplayer have pointed out plenty of reasons why single-screen multiplayer might not be right for them.

With Android, you have to make sure the device where you run emulators supports physical buttons. Android 4.2 broke Bluetooth gamepads on my Nexus 7, and very few Android devices have an internal gamepad: pretty much the Xperia Play phone, the JXD S5100 and S5110 pocket tablets, and the forthcoming Archos GamePad tablet. On-screen gamepads have their own problems, as any player of fast action games in DroidEmuLite will tell you. This sort of limits the game genres that are viable on Android.

Verdict: Figure out how to import more JXD S5100 tablets.

JInput lets me control my PS3 DualShock controller, Thrustmaster Warthog HOTAS, Thrustmaster Cougar HOTAS, Thrustmaster F-16 MFDs , all sorts of mice (wired, wireless, laptop touchpad)

There's a difference between flight simulator joysticks, such as the Thrustmaster products you mention, and general-purpose gamepads such as the Xbox 360 Controller and PlayStation 3 DualShock controller. As I understand it, flight simulators are a niche product with one player per machine, but general-purpose gamepads are commonly used with games supporting same-screen multiplayer.

and it does this on Windows, Linux and Mac (I test in all three environments). [...] Still think XNA is the shizz? (hint: it's not, it is inferior in several ways).

XNA is inferior in several ways, as I've pointed out elsewhere, but I'm told it's superior in one key way: a larger market. The mass market prefers to use general-purpose gamepads with a console, not a PC. If FunkSoulBrother's numbers are accurate, there are probably far more Xbox 360 consoles connected to a TV than Windows PCs, Linux PCs, and Macs put together connected to a TV. The problem is that as kamapuaa put it, "Nobody wants to attach their PC to their TV" because of a widespread mental set against this. But if you're telling me the market of home theater PCs and other PCs with a monitor big enough for multiple players is big enough to support a developer, I'm willing to take a look at your evidence.

If they did that Android would be forked. People who cared would move to the fork

And lose all the non-free applications that one relies on, because those are unlikely to be made available for the fork. Not very many people are going to want to buy and carry two phones, one for only applications distributed as free software and one for only applications in categories not conducive to the free software model, and pay for cellular voice and data service on both. So between the status quo and carrying two phones, where should the line be drawn?

I pull out Thwaite for NES and make my own fireworks. Then I pull out FantaVision for PS2 and make my own fireworks.

Then you need to keep up because I already have several controllers on GNU/Linux

So do I. I just wonder whether a platformer optimized for a controller (but also playable with a keyboard to the same extent as, say, emulated Mega Man) will have any chance of selling, especially given the button mapping phase that the player has to go through for any controller that isn't an Xbox 360 controller.

and One on my Phone (Xperia Play Baby!)

Unfortunately, there aren't enough others like you. Another web site reports "poor retail performance" for the Xperia Play. Only once Ouya comes out will games other than casual games and strategy games have a chance of being viable on Android.

I see no need to convince anyone of something they can see for themselves.

I'd like to see for myself some reliable statistics about the prevalence of HTPC gaming.

I have an HTPC so I know they exist.

A work of authorship is typically financed by amortizing the cost of development across a large number of users, be they owners of a copy under the copyright model or backers under the Kickstarter model. This means h4rr4r alone does not a market make. Nor do all the other admitted HTPC users I know about, to be honest. A platform, such as Ouya, phones-with-external-keyboards, or PC-with-gamepads, has to have enough other users to make it profitable for professional developers to target it. Case in point: There were still paying Xbox Live subscribers logged on to Halo 2 when Microsoft pulled the plug on Xbox Live for original Xbox games two and a half years ago. There just weren't enough to convince Microsoft that keeping their subscriptions was worth the cost of keeping online connectivity in original Xbox games working.

Android tablets already support HDMI out and input from bluetooth controllers.

Using controllers controllers on PCs and Android tablets has several problems compared to using them on a game console. First, because a controller is not bundled with most Android tablets shipping in the United States, developers can't rely on the presence of a controller. (Archos GamePad and Ouya don't ship for several months.) Second, some Android devices (most notably HTC and Samsung devices) have been seen to be incompatible with some Bluetooth controllers. Third, Google has been known to pull the rug out from under developers of applications related to Bluetooth controllers certain when it changes how Bluetooth works in new versions of Android, such as Android 4.2 that broke the Wii Remote driver. Fourth, even if a controller is present and compatible with a given tablet, as I understand it, Bluetooth controllers are like USB controllers in that every model appears to have its numbered buttons in a different order. How likely is it that a casual gamer will have the patience to sit through a button mapping form every time a different brand of controller is connected?

Why don't they just put that stuff into regular apt repo?

Let me know when "regular apt repo" supports authentication, which would allow paid downloads of certain types of software that inherently don't mesh well with the free software movement or open source methodology.

IN fct, why do you think 'the government is a single separate entity from the people?

Because of the way elections are rigged. Any candidate for federal office who refuses to do what the corporate masters say won't even win the primary. Consider, for example, how the movie industry and political news are joined at the hip.

In fact, Temple Run is a good example of using swipe actions.

If you would consider this game to show best practices for a tablet platformer, I'll try it on my Nexus 7. Is there anything more like Mario or Mega Man that you'd recommend?

I meant first-person shooters

Has there been a good nonviolent first-person shooter since FaceBall in the early 1990s?

and no, the thumb-on-screen system is nowhere near being a mouse and keyboard, because my fingers can't find the exact placements to use at a moment's notice

That's what I wrote in my own essay about mobile game controls, yet mobile fanboys keep reminding me that workarounds exist. For example, a well-designed gesture system requires only that the initial point of contact be in the correct ninth of the screen.

have to look periodically to make sure your thumb is centered

Or just lift and drop your thumb to recenter if a game measures motion relative to the initial point of contact.

if I hold the tablet perfectly level, its not perfectly level, its off by a bit and the car slowly bends left or right.

Analog sticks have the same problem, which is why games implement a dead zone in the center of a sensor's range. Except for Desert Bus, of course, where slowly bending left or right is part of the challenge.