There, fixed that for you.

No keyboard... maybe it's a touchscreen version of this.

I would rather have tech and sci-fi books marketed to me when I go to Amazon. The big sale on may actually be the price tipping point for me to buy that. I don't really care about a big sale on that blue gem pendant necklace with 18k chain links. So yes, targeted marketing seems good.

The other side of the fence says, "ZOMG, there is a database with my surfing habits that can be accessed by the government and companies with money willing to pay for it." Some people may not care. Others think that this will allow Big Brother to build a fluff case against them. The middle group just thinks it is a private activity that should not be monitored by others.

I'm in more of the middle group. I have conversations with my wife all the time that are private. Nothing shameful or perverse, but just amicably intimate. I want them kept private, not indexed. I believe that is the heart of most of the objection.

Umm.. how? I like Halo. I don't like RTS games. Will my love of a great FPS all of sudden make me love an RTS game just because ZOMG, I can create units that are based on the same units in the FPS? Dual wielding needlers and jumping into a fray is far removed from selecting a few units and telling them to explore north.

Chrome beat them to it.

At first, I was going to post about not berating Microsoft blindly. Then I RTFA... They have basic courses for free online, but anything past that is an advertisement for MS certs.

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Maybe their whole production process is customized with a Vista image. Imagine that you now have an employee that needs to yank out the vista hard drive, throw in an xp hard drive, and then have another employee make sure that it is an XP system before it ships out. Not to mention the cost of changing the OS sticker on the laptop...

The quote that I have issue with is: "or possibly he couldn't make bail because he's not as filthy rich as Paris"

So it's not an issue of making it "as difficult." Some people simply can't afford bail. Rich people tend to afford bail. If you make it high enough that they can't afford it, then there's no point to it. So we're still back to poor people can't afford bail and you can't raise bail high enough where rich people can't afford it. The only other thing one could say is that bail should be lowered for poorer people to a point where it is affordable for everyone. Yes we can.

Why should it? Not everyone "earns" money the same way, but let's say an industrialist works hard to build up a small fortune. If he commits the same crime as some high school dropout, the industrialist should have his bail set 1000x higher as a punishment for being successful? Why not argue that the price of a milk should decrease Warren Buffet's money at relatively the same rate as a fry cook's money?

Someone's money earns them the right to have fancy cars and mansions. For better or worse, it also lets them afford bail and expensive lawyers. Don't punish people for their success... or the success of their family (Hilton).

</rand> ...err, I mean </rant>

The cameras were paid for by a grant. Maybe DHS at least wants the cameras back to install in... more understanding neighborhoods. DHS doesn't want to pay for uninstalling something that they wanted installed. DHS won't let them simply turn it off.

Good point. I mean, seriously, I'm sure no one has ever thought people answer phones differently than how they open their front door. I just hope that those multi-billion dollar corporations could think of... oh, I dunno, asking the person if they want to allow video or not. It's a real stretch and out-of-the-box thinking, but I have faith that someone at motorola, apple, nokia, etc. would think of it.

Can we stop the lame video-call jokes already? What were people saying when they got wind of the first telephone? "Oh, I hope I'm not talking about someone and they call my phone. It would put me in a such a pickle if they overheard me." Sound stupid? That's because it is.

And let's just say for the sake of argument that auto-expose-yourself-in-your-undies is a feature turned on by default. All your video calls to grandma would be staring at her head because she still doesn't get it and holds the phone to her ear.

And fyi, I'm pretty sure people will not be doing video conferencing all that often either. Bar the occasional long-distance relationship (you get my point), just try holding your cell-phone 2 feet away from your face (and level) for 10 minutes while driving home today. Let me know how that works out for ya.