It runs a customized AMD x86-64 APU based on their desktop processors (including Radeon GPU), so no, not Intel-manufactured hardware; but compare this to past consoles with specialized processors. I would imagine this makes cross-platform development somewhat easier.

Yeah, come on, you're killing us here!

I was fortunate enough to hear Kongar-ol Ondar and some other Tuvan singers perform live about a decade ago. It was a special experience. I heard about Tuvan throat singing from my parents, who were huge Richard Feynman fans and learned about it from him.

I didn't include the cost of internet, since for me personally, that part would be the same either way; others may have a choice of ISP (Comcast/DSL/FiOS/Google). Perhaps you're suggesting that Comcast will raise their internet access prices, and that may in fact happen; but it's hard to factor into a services comparison like this. It's worth noting that Comcast gives a ~$20 "discount" on their internet access for also subscribing to digital cable, so that would need to be added as well. And at $10/mo for modem rental, it makes a lot of sense to buy your own - it will pay for itself in fairly short order.

I welcome another streaming service. Why? Because it increases the alternative options for cable customers. Consider:
Netflix ($9) + Hulu Plus ($8) + Amazon Prime ($8.25) + Sony ("competitive") = ~$35
Comcast's Digital Preferred (where I live): $86 (not counting taxes) + $10 HD fee + $8 DVR fee = $104

There's some overlap with the streaming services, but each one offers something a little different, and customers can get a pretty broad selection. Combine with ad-hoc Redbox rentals for hardware viewing of recent releases and the upcoming HBO Go offerings, digital cable television as a value proposition becomes less and less appealing for many customers.

The single biggest draw for cable IMHO is live sports - and ESPN currently offers a similar deal to what HBO is moving away from. I think as internet streaming reaches critical mass, content providers like ESPN may decide that their exclusive contracts with cable companies are a liability. Another important issue is advertising dollars - cable-company provided DVRs allow viewers to skip commercials, whereas live streaming doesn't currently allow that, so commercials on streaming video may start to look more lucrative than on TV.

Right, I think religions really need to spice up their offerings. Eternal happiness plus UNLIMITED VIDEO STREAMING!! Now that's a deal!

Now, I'm no fan of gay marriage, but marriage is a social institution, i.e. something practiced by a society according to its cultural values; and the American civil philosophy of individual rights and personal liberty is generally understood to mean the government shouldn't prohibit something unless there's some overriding state or societal interest in doing so. At least I think that's how it used to be.

What I believe this means is that although you do not have a right to be guaranteed a marriage, nor to have your marriage formally recognized by the state, a society does in general have the right to practice whatever forms of marriage it sees fit, absent a compelling interest otherwise.

The binary number 10000 equals 16 in decimal (ArcadeMan's joke)
The hexadecimal number 10000 equals 65,536 in decimal (my joke)

You know, a number base joke. For crying out loud, people, the sum of your UIDs is barely half mine.

What are you talking about? He said it has 65,536 lakes.

Meant to include a link: http://nineplanets.org/triton.html

I hear about it. I remember hearing a while ago that Triton was theorized to be a captured Kuiper belt object. It's one of the "big moons", and it has ice volcanoes. How cool is that?

Sure, we don't hear about it a lot, because it's so far out, so there isn't a high rate of discovery like planets that have been probed.

Rather than "religion", you should say "fundamentalists" - not all religious are fundamentalist, and not are fundamentalists are religious. Some religions (such as mine) state that all truth, whether divinely revealed or arrived at through empirical or rational means, ultimately come from the same source and cannot conflict. If they appear to do so, then your understanding of one or the other must be in error.

Great, just what an encyclopedia of facts needs: a way for readers to filter it to present the reality they want to see. Why don't they just subscribe to blogs if they only want to view things they agree with?

Because some people are tremendous assholes. See also, laws, prisons.

I suggest Turgidson's Law.

I understood it to mean that other experiments produced - as a side effect - a beam of high-energy electrons, and the researchers set up this experiment that would run on the side whenever they were conducting whatever primary experiment that produced the beam.