I brought my iPad to D&D Encounters tonight because my daughter had to come with due to my wife's previous commitment.

My daughter loves the Adobe Ideas app (she just knows it's the blue pencil icon) because it's easier to draw with and choose colors with than the other two drawing/sketching apps I have on there. She kept going back to listen to the book apps she'd already listened to a couple times that evening (Toy Story and Dr. Seuss ABCs and Alice). Her favorite is Diner Dash even though she keeps losing at the last level I mastered.

The entire D&D session was almost derailed by uber nerds wanting to use and/or talk about my iPad instead of playing D&D.

After that encounter and after my wife picked up my daughter after my wife's salon appointment (I know! what a fucking cliche, right?) I ended up having a long conversation about Apple and why I pre-ordered an iPad.

My takeaway was the only people buying and using netbooks, and the people who most want an iPad, are people who are a most perfect fit for either an iPad or a MacBook.

As someone who uses OpenBSD from a command line for most of my professional life and who turns to Apple as soon as my time is my own, I have to say I think most of the Apple hate amongst the fellow nerds here is just jealousy.

If you understand how Opera Mini works and why Apple bans other browsers (hint: it is not because they retrieve and display web pages) you would not find this surprising at all.

My Sprint Pre has no problem getting me through the day, full of email, texting, tunes (I've been listening to Pandora in the background for almost the last year), web, and a little gaming. It's especially awesome using mytether to turn it into a wi-fi access point for my iPad.

Multitasking, real multitasking, on WebOS is the best available on a mobile platform. I don't think that's going to change with iPhone OS4. Android doesn't even come close.

If you are going to go to the expense of creating and distributing physical media, just implement two-factor authentication.

SECURITY NERD RAGE! RAUGH!

In my opinion, pressing a little button on your bank-branded, credit card-sized PIN generator (such as the ones I have from Bank of America and PayPal/eBay) you keep in your wallet next to your credit cards and ID is waaaay easier than trying to remember what bullshit answer I gave to yet another off the wall "security" question. It's clearly much more secure.

Take a long, hard look at the Pre before you settle for anything Android.

I'm super happy with mine, especially that 1) third-party apps can be installed easily, 2) the multitasking and notifications are very, very elegant, 3) carriers can't fuck up the experience by making their own modifications or refusing to upgrade the software (or allow it to be upgraded), and 4) Sprint in the US has been a breath of fresh air for me since switching from Verizon last year.

Sorry, but I refuse to play video games with a controller that looks like the most popular "personal massager" of all time.

I see "look and feel" lawsuit from Hitachi coming.

We don't treat health insurance like insurance. Insurance is for EMERGENCY and RARE EXPENSIVE claims.

That is because health insurance is for humans, not things.

Extra points for the guy destroying his guitar shirt at the end.

They probably want to pick the most inexpensive worker rather than the most politically correct one. If they end up with an entire workforce full of H1B employees, perhaps an investigation should be done as to why there are no other qualified candidates in the area.

FTFY

Watching people get excited about and defend Google gives me terrible nostalgia of Microsoft's history.

Redhat is getting to be pretty bad about this too. Their entire business model revolves around selling support contracts to software you can download for free, so there is a very strong incentive to make that software require a support contract to get anything done.

Many feel that the original intent of this amendment was to maintain personal defense by way of individual gun ownership, and that the right to bear arms implies the right to take your personal gun and defend yourself when threatened. Threatening or harming those who are not threatening you isn't part of this amendment. There have been several instances of attempting to clarify and bring to terms with modern situations the meaning of this amendment over the centuries.

Thanks. I try.

Lighten up, cunt. We're talking about Star Wars here, not nuclear proliferation or health care reform or crop rotation strategies. What the fuck?

Fuck you, asshole. Like a snot-nosed student in junior high these days could properly use "you're", let alone arrange their thoughts into coherent paragraphs.

Umm... Lando?

Ah, yes. How could I forget Uncle Tom?

Well said.

Thank you very much.