Good call.

By your logic, I'm going to cancel my auto insurance, my home insurance, my health insurance, stop seeing the doctor, never get my teeth cleaned, and start crossing the freeway with my eyes closed and ears plugged.

"Chance favors only the prepared mind." - Louis Pasteur

Do you have insurance? That sounds like paranoia. Do you look both ways before crossing the street? Definitely paranoia.

It's not paranoia to simply be prepared for something in the [unlikely] event that it happens. "Paranoia" and "preparedness" are different words for a reason.

What?

Well that's remarkably narrow-minded.

... because home invaders never target people in "nicer" areas due to the higher level of returns on a break-in?

... because nobody in a "nice" area ever had their home burglarized?

... because feeling safe and protected only applies to people in "non-nice" areas?

I don't live in the ghetto, and I keep loaded firearms in my home. Do I fear someone breaking in? No... but that doesn't mean it can't or won't happen. If it does, I'm prepared.

The most dangerous gun in one's home is the unloaded one. That is, of course, assuming education and not ignorance.

I've never, not once, ever, had a receiver quit on me.

I've had Sony, Yamaha, Denon, Onkyo...

A couple things -- the store that I actually bought the Onkyo receiver from (through Amazon) is listed as an Onkyo authorized reseller. No problems there. Also, manufacturer's warranties are essentially useless, they'll find *any* excuse not to honor them, it's just the way it is. And third-party warranties? No thanks. Really, with the money I save by buying smart, if the thing craps out on me, I'll buy another one. I'll still come out ahead in the long run. A calculated risk.

Yes, but not entirely. I still wander through Magnolia when I'm shopping for something. If they have it for me to demo (speakers, TVs, etc.) then I will give them an audition.

Where they are really shooting themselves in the foot is that they won't price match. I gave them numerous opportunities to make a sale, but they wouldn't price match online prices from Frys.com, Amazon, or other online stores. They claim it's because those prices can't be verified or validated. In one case (an Onkyo receiver that BB wanted 899.99 for and I found it on Amazon for 549.99 with free shipping and no tax) they claimed that selling it to me for that price would actually be less than they paid for it, and would violate their contract with Onkyo -- which I doubt in both cases. But they were arrogant, and the manager thought he was going to bully me around and I would do what he said, and he was wrong. He told me I was a fool to trust online markets. So I went and bought the receiver from Amazon, and the next weekend I needed to go to another store in the same center as the BB, so I brought my receipt with me. I asked to speak to the GM of the store, explained what had transpired the week before with the Home Theater dept. manager, and showed him my receipt, and told him that I was glad to be a fool who saved $400. He was fairly irritated with his manager.

THIS is why Best Buy has failed. Not "is failing" -- "has failed." Being the Internet's showroom would be fine if they would price match and keep the people IN THEIR STORE -- that's when the added opportunity for impulse purchases kicks in. If I buy a Blu-ray player in the BB store because they price matched it and I didn't have to wait for shipping, as I'm walking toward the check-out line I'll pass by the Blu-rays and maybe I'll let my judgement lapse for a short time and pick up a couple overpriced titles for the sheer convenience of "I can go watch this RIGHT NOW." Hell, they could even con the masses into upgrading their HDMI cables while they're at it. No, the informed consumer won't bite, but they don't need EVERY ONE to bite, they only need a few of the dumber ones to bite, and that's who their target is anyway.

And price tag.

Efficiently evacuating the heat output is a different issue than dumping excess cold air into a room to compensate for lack of the former.

I've been in "warm" data centers that focus on getting rid of the heat rather than overcooling the intake -- the servers were perfectly happy and their energy costs were quite reasonable.

I think you would need a much smaller /. UID in order to get that joke.

Like the extensive libraries of standardized "widgets" used commonly in GUI design to provide a consistent user experience. Those which you condemn for their drag-and-drop nature, because even though they are standardized, you must customize them, therefore you'd be better off just coding it yourself. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Wow, I'll bet whoever you buy your Cisco gear from loves you.

Next time you're out shopping, stop by Best Buy and pick up some $400 HDMI cables and a few extended warranties.

So that they can... drag and drop it into their projects? What if they want to customize it? I would imagine they're better off coding it themselves.

... or perhaps (as I reread your post) you meant just using the iPad as simply a dumb monitor, in which case I misinterpreted originally.

In that case, I would simply offer an emphatic "why?" Why limit yourself to a 9.7" display area (regardless of the marketing uberjuice of pixel density!)? I see no real functional benefit to a 9.7" screen @ 2048x1536 over a 13" screen @ 1440x900, and with the 13" notebook the aforementioned requirements are met - the screen is just a screen and all the important bits are inside the keyboard. Hey, for convenience, they're even hinged together for easy carrying!

Something like this?

I'm not sold on the idea that 2048x1536 on a 9.7" screen is going to solve any real world lack-of-screen-real-estate-for-developing problems, unless you have magic eyesight, though.

Resolution is great, but there's a limit to where it is useful.

You make a good point, but unfortunately your ideals and reality just don't converge.

I have an Android phone, an Acura with it's "infotainment audio/GPS/voice command/bullshit" system, and I'm typing this on a Macbook Pro. I also use lots of Windows and Linux variants on different systems at work at home. Do you care? No, but my point is that I'm not a fanboy and I use them all, and they all have their pros and cons. I can tell you this -- I would vote for Apple in my car. Why? Because Apple is awesome at user interfaces, and that is what sucks so hard in most vehicle systems these days.

AndroidCar or LinuxCar -- really, you seriously want that? I don't. I don't want to have to spend hours upon hours upon hours tweaking, tuning, building, and otherwise manipulating my car's GUI just to make it usable. The reason Linux hasn't taken over the desktop? Because there's too god damn many knobs to turn. Yes, choice is great, but too much choice just ends up in a ridiculously fragmented experience. Show me 2 Linux systems owned by 2 nerds, and they'll neither look nor flow ANYTHING alike. That's awesome for nerd-land, that's terrible for a vehicle. We need SIMPLE, (dare I say) elegant systems in our cars. We need fewer distractions, and dicking around with knobs, buttons, and wondering how to get through the menu system in a car is a perpetually BAD idea. Apple EXCELS at streamlining this very process.

I think Microsoft / Ford SYNC was a step in the right direction. I also think that while it was a reasonably good idea, it wasn't particularly well-executed.

Does Apple suck when it comes to proprietary lock-in, etc.? Hell yes they do. Do they rock the house on user interfaces? Far and away. Are they expensive? Yup, no doubt. But, have you seen the prices of what the NAV systems go for in cars? It cost me $2,000 to get the stupid NAV upgrade on my car just so that I could get some OTHER features that I wanted that were only available if you also had NAV. I think for the exorbitant prices that vehicle manufacturers charge for infotainment systems, they could easily do a lot better. Maybe if there was something of a competitive market out there for these systems prices would be more reasonable. I don't really understand why auto companies hire tech companies to keep reinventing proprietary systems for each vehicle line. It's absurd, a waste of money, and that expense just gets passed on to the consumer. The lock-in from the auto manufacturers is 10X worse than Apple, IMO.

My perfect world? One where I can have a somewhat standardized interface and plug in the infotainment system of my choice and have it work. A set of open standard APIs could be developed and utilized. As it is, with modern vehicles, you can't even realistically put in aftermarket audio systems. The head units are not only physically unique to each dashboard, requiring ass-ugly filler plates and adapters to fit an aftermarket unit in the dash, but pretty much all of the useful functionality of the factory system goes right out the window, too. Steering wheel controls? Forget about ever using those again. Voice command? Maybe, but it'll be tied to the audio system and won't work with the vehicle's climate control, NAV, etc. Furthermore, if you take the audio head unit out of many vehicles today, your NAV flat out stops working. In many vehicles, if you take out the audio head unit, your CLIMATE CONTROL stops working. Awesome, thanks big auto. Talk about vendor lock-in!!!! Want a better audio system? BUY A NEW CAR!!! I realize my perfect world scenario here will never happen, because the auto manufacturers will never work together on an open standard, and they would never do anything that would potentially undercut the stupid profits of forcing people who like to have tech gadgets in their vehicles to buy new cars when they want new features. I'd also be content if I had a system that could be upgraded. Again, a frightening idea for the auto manufacturers. Really, though... what a pain in the ass. My 2008 Acura has Bluetooth integration, but it's an older generation and doesn't support things like pass-through voice dialing to my phone, or Bluetooth audio. The phonebook integration requires me to actually download the phone's address book into the car's NAV system, and voice dialing works from there. That is a huge pain in the ass, and frankly doesn't really work all that well anyway. All the really neat Bluetooth features came along a year or two after I bought this vehicle, and now I'm stuck. Go shop for a new vehicle just to get a better tech integration experience? Gosh, an upgrade kit for the car's system would be nice. I'd even pay a typically-high price to get it from the auto manufacturer. Maybe a daughtercard upgrade if the radio or a processor needed a physical change, or a firmware flash over a USB port to put new software into the system. What a concept.