This is an extremely fitting description of why the bill shouldn't passed, considering that it will put us under the same umbrella as Iran, China, and Syria...at least when it comes to the DNS blocking part of the bills and internet censorship in general if SOPA/PIPA are passed

A 6970 I bought in November 2011 was $300, and you can find them for much less now. And that is a top-tier card. Back when PS3 came out, I don't know what card I was using but it certainly didn't cost me $600-800. Plus a PC wears way more hats than a PS3 (especially after OtherOS got removed) so the cost of a PC can't really be compared to a PS3 @ launch since it is more functional, and played games at a much higher resolution with better graphics. But even if you did, with a $600-800 budget, I could build an entire PC including an OS, keyboard, mouse, etc. in 2007-2008 that would've blown the doors off a PS3. Even now, the cost of a mid to top-tier videocard capable of running current 2012 games @ 1080p will set you back about the cost of a new PS3 slim.

Agreed. This was the biggest reason I didn't get a PS3 until almost 4 years into it's launch. I simply couldn't justify paying that much. Especially after they dropped the backward compatible model and removed the other OS feature. Waited til I saw the slim version for close to $200 before taking the plunge.

Also, with the exception of Final Fantasy, every game I wanted to play was on the PC in higher resolution and the ability to mod. To be honest, even Final Fantasy might not be enough to get me to purchase a PS4 (sadly FF13 was the reason I got a PS3, and it sucked...).

Don't advertise features that you may later remove completely

While I was not one of the ones who missed the OtherOS feature, for some it was a huge deal. I would hope the uproar over losing this option will teach Sony not to include and make light of large feature sets that they wind up removing later, after the fact. Regardless of what that feature may or may not be, I don't think it is cool to remove stuff that originally came with the system. I don't think anyone wants to see features disappear from a piece of hardware they own just because they want to stay up to date with the latest firmware/updates, and that doesn't just go for PS4 either.

I find it extremely difficult to have confidence in ANY reporting that claims to be unbiased nowadays. I am extremely scorn when it comes to trusting anything to do with the mainstream media, and have grown increasingly wary of some of the sources I once trusted. This is why I was excited when stuff like Wikileaks started happening, because at least it was devoid of bullshit and just official documents that you could draw your own conclusions from. Granted that is still possible, but with a much larger amount of effort required now as opposed to the the searchable database of cables and closed-door documents that were available for a while.

If anything, the costs for accepting phone calls and online payments has decreased in price, and with that decreased price comes higher bandwidth capabilities, so there really isn't any other justification for this other than they want to be able to make up for those giant christmas bonuses they give out or be able to refuel their private jets. Typical of most companies nowadays.

GoDaddy is to Web Hosting Services what AOL is to ISP's circa 2011.

...perhaps we should have some better places to go? All these companies are spending $ to be able to fly rich idiots into low earth orbit. So what's the next step? the ISS? Oh wait, that's not going to be around much longer. The moon? Well China will most likely be there by the time everyone else is ready. Where else?

Fact is, we don't have the technology to reach even out into our own solar system, let alone anywhere REALLY meaningful (such as some of those "Goldilocks" planets we see millions of light years away but can't hope to get anything other than pictures of). Face it, the private space initiative if crap. It's something for the super-rich to spend their money on. Meanwhile the people who have actually been dreaming of space flight or venturing outside of our solar system, for more than the cheap thrill these private "space flight" companies are offering, for their entire lives are stuck at home in a 9-5 without any hope of being able to pay the cost of entry to the lowest form of space flight possible, or available, to the average person (a.k.a. NOT astronauts).

Instead of this, they should be pooling their money into R&D and backing NASA to help develop the tech we need to GET OFF THIS ROCK and really explore the universe. I hate to sound like a broken record, but we literally know NOTHING about the universe we live in. How can $20,000 - $200,000 (depending on who you go with and when) for a few minutes of weightlessness be what the world is happy with? I for one expected more out of human ambition and curiosity.

I really don't understand why people aren't up in arms over this kind of crap. It literally makes the 4th amendment for anyone who travels completely moot. There should be 300 Million Americans beating down the doors to our government demanding this stop. When did people become complacent in letting these assholes steal away our basic rights like being innocent until proven guilty or not allowing unwarranted/unauthorized searches?

I'll be giving the finger to any of these assholes if they try to pay me down, and refusing a search, especially outside of an airport (I specifically avoided air travel to avoid possibly punching a TSA officer in the face). Even the people who were for the airport searches should see this is getting crazy, no? I hope the rest of the country is with me on this, otherwise you may as well bend over and spread your cheeks now. Regardless of race, creed, nationality, political affiliation, or sex, everyone will be equally fucked if we let this continue.

Makes you wonder why people think shredding their documents is a good way to protect the information on them. A little time and patience can reconstruct shredded files. Fire seems like a much better way to dispose of potentially damaging hard copies of stuff. Although I'm not sure they can make burning barrels office safe.

The iPhone 4S is a huge disappointment in several other regards too.

This might be troublesome to places that run stand-alone AP's, but anyone who runs a controller-based wifi network knows this isn't an issue at all, considering how easy it would be to create a new SSID on a 5Ghz band and push it out to all APs simultaneously. We run 5508 Cisco controllers, where I work, that support between 500 and 1000 devices connecting at any given time (only about 200 APs between the two controllers). For us to put out a new 5Ghz 802.11a or 802.11n-based SSID would take all of 5 minutes from creation to people using it live. The problem is, as the article suggest, the lack of devices that support 5Ghz. He were going to turn on WPA2 and 802.11n @ 5Ghz at the beginning of this year, until we found out all the phones and laptops everyone uses where we work (several thousand people) don't support WPA2 or 5Ghz. Have to wait until the end of the refresh to turn on all that. I have a feeling this is the case for a lot of other companies too, especially those tied to state and local government IT refresh cycles.

Well the travel itself might not be great, but you are thinking in terms of current space flight tech. I'm thinking more along the lines of Star Trek-style ships and technologies. But a trip to EXPLORE space is the entire reason to go. There is no "destination" really. The destination is space itself. We have to get out there first before we can get some destinations! Sure, we see some stuff through telescopes, but those are LIGHT YEARS away from us, and all we have is a picture. We need to explore our own little pocket of the solar system before we venture outside of it. And in order to do that, we have to develop the technology to do that. And for THAT to happen, there has to be a push for space tech like there was when we went to the moon.

First of all, really? A Newspaper? By the time you read that, the news is a day old. Hate to break it to you, but newspapers are going the way of the 8-track and the floppy disk...and the stone tablet. Why pay for hard copy when you have up to the minute news for free from any outlet you can think of online 24/7? Why kill more trees and waste more resources to print crappy newspapers when the information is available online already? Secondly, same goes for paying for news online. Until there is a pay-wall in front of ALL news on the Internet, anyone who pays for news from a single source is moronic with so many others to choose from that are free. And free it should be. I'm against having to pay to find out what is going on in the country. They have advertisements to shove in my face to pay the bills. Don't charge me for trying to involve myself in current affairs through some bull shit pay wall that does nothing but line the pockets of the administrators while the editors and actual journalists still make nothing in comparison (in most cases). I am reading the same news as someone who pays for it, only I read it for free and from a variety of sources. Also, if someone put a gun to my head and told me I had to pick an online newspaper with a pay-wall, it certainly wouldn't be one from inside the US. I tend to try and get as many outside news sources as possible, although that is more of a person preference. News sources that originate from outside the county you live in, more often than not, tend to be more revealing as to what is going on in that country, and at the very least provide an important additional insight into that country's current affairs.

So the Salvation Army? I know tons of people that buy shit for cash there and it's all donated (people get tax write offs for it though, sooooo....)