> $10/year isn't bad, but that's $200 to be able to review/reread the book over the next 20 years is.

Exactly...and what happens if the business model doesn't work out and the platform goes offline ten years from now? At that point you would be out $100 in subscription charges with nothing more to show for it than your memory of experiencing the content.

I'd rather just buy the hardback and be able to enjoy it whenever and however I choose to...something that I've done for all of Stephenson's books following Snow Crash.

True, but at least my android phone defaults to charge only mode when plugged in via USB (default action is user-configurable). I need to unlock it after plugging it in to mount it as a drive.

True, but if actually use their service then you're building up a friend list, allowing someone with the appropriate level of access to do things like profile you based on the characteristics of the people you choose to associate with.

The same could probably be said for things like remotely stored address books on web mail accounts, but the bigger players in that space don't have the same track record of turning private data into public data the way Facebook has.

Time to start uploading pictures of other people with a dummy account and tagging them as yourself. If you can't get lost in the system, might as well try to get lost in the noise.

It really depends on if the thief wants to break into a house or if they want to break into your house specifically. Dogs are like thorn bushes under your windows...they won't stop someone who really wants in, but they can be enough of a deterrent to convince someone less motivated to rob someone else instead.

A lot about World of Warcraft still doesn't make sense to my videogame-loving brain, but I'm not sure that the people who stick with WoW for years really love videogames to begin with.

I think it depends entirely on the user. For most /. readers, a netbook compliments a PC instead of replacing it. On the other hand, the overall population plays video games on a console, sticks with lightweight web games like Farmville, or doesn't play video games at all. Video is popular, but netbook processors are capable of supporting HD playback in combination with a GPU to offload work to.

Meaning yet another power-hungry disposable consumer good to sit in common space now and in the landfill later. Thanks, but no thanks. Besides, if they already spent for a PS3, they can already stream video over wi-fi using PS3 Media Server.

"My Documents" still exists if you want it. The key advantage of the Library is allowing the user to define additional locations (local or remote) where content of a certain type exists. The OS indexes the contents of all directories defined in this way and presents the user with a combined view of all defined content in within a section of the library.

Let's say you like to keep your local video content on a different hard drive than the one your OS is installed on. You also have a removable drive that you use to carry very large video files between locations with. In addition, there's a share on your network that has video content that you need to access from time to time. You can add those locations to your video library and then have a unified view of all related content. It lets you initially focus on WHAT you want, not WHERE it may be hiding

Yeah, it is a little different, but it is a pretty big improvement over the if you deal with multiple directories or just wish to keep your content someplace different than your OS. I always ignored the MyWhatever folders in XP because I keep my local content on an external drive, but I find myself using the library all the time now.

Just to clarify: It's broken on Vista 64-bit. It works fine on Windows 7 64-bit.

I'm not seeing the contradiction. This is an adult who has control enough over her impulses to be able to *want* to do something without having the intent to actually go through with it. There's a world of difference between desire and action. Wants are transitory, but they impact no one. Is the husband who daydreams about cheating on his wife, but who never acts on that impulse the same as the philanderer who goes through with it?

She said that she "wanted" to do something, not that she had any intention of following through with it. An unrelated post said she was looking forward to class.

There's a world of difference between wanting to do something and actually doing something.

Now all the criminals in their coats and their ties are free to drink martinis and watch the sun rise.

If you owe the bank $100,000 they own you, but if you owe the bank $1,000,000,000,000 you own them.

China's fate is just as wrapped up in the value of that debt as our own is.

Ouzo?