If you want to hang up on someone and deliver the same experience, just shout "fuck you!" and tap the "end call" button. You get the same satisfaction and they'll get the message. Is that so hard?

Stop spending your money on this garbage.

There are plenty of great indie/homebrew games out there. I know it's a long shot that these titles will ever be "mainstream," but the biggest problem is that although I hear gamers whine and bitch about DRM and the like, none of them have the self-control to stop buying these titles. Stop. It. I know it's hard, for example, for a Final Fantasy fan to NOT buy the latest FF title, but realize that as long as you do so, you will keep this going forever.

I don't disagree about how our terribly our government works, but it's kind of funny that you conveniently left out the very next question in that interview:

QUESTION: Is this file, by any chance, connected to the invitation – extended invitation – for President Mubarak to visit the United States?
SECRETARY CLINTON: No. It’s an annual report. It is not in any way connected. We look forward to President Mubarak coming as soon as his schedule would permit. I had a wonderful time with him this morning. I really consider President and Mrs. Mubarak to be friends of my family. So I hope to see him often here in Egypt and in the United States.
QUESTION: How do you view the presidency in Egypt, the future of the presidency in Egypt?
SECRETARY CLINTON: That’s for the people of Egypt to decide. That is a very important issue that really is up to Egyptians.

Microsoft: Develops proprietary non-standard browser set to default on their dominating operating system, takes over the web
Apple: forks an open source browser project, develops Webkit out of it, gives it back to the community and works with the community, refuses to support proprietary buggy exploit-ridden browser plug-ins and helps kill it off from the web

i'm not happy about the whole h.264 thing either, but at least we know they have a reason--their idevices are only capable of decoding h.264 in hardware. it doesn't really make it any better but what they have done isn't anything near what MSFT did 10+ years ago.

I started out on the "I hate Windows 8" bandwagon, but... I am using Windows 8 in a Parallels VM on my MacBook Pro and I find its performance is so much better than Windows 7's. With Windows 7 I would have battery drains, fans, etc. when idling just like you say. Now with Windows 8 I literally leave the VM running 24/7 without a problem (8GB of RAM, Core 2 Duo 2.26GHz). Coherence doesn't work as well with Windows 8 due to the fullscreen nature of Metro, so I just run Windows 8 in its own workspace and three-finger swipe to it when I need it. The performance benefits of Windows 8 are pretty extraordinary. Don't tell my Apple-hating friends I said that though, I'm an Apple fanboy and wouldn't hear the end of it. :-)

And OS X doesn't let you choose a browser?

What browser do you run on OpenBSD, FreeBSD, Linux, or Hurd? If you said Firefox (the usual default browser in most distros)... guess what? Mozilla blocked Java too!

Mozilla did the same thing with blocking Java on Firefox on January 10th.

Java 7 Update 13 is out already and works on Macs again anyway.

I know, I can be dangerously addictive sometimes.

Typing the string has the same effect on the app as quitting the app. So.... have fun going to the apple store and quitting the apps.

Steve Jobs was a man with a lot of faults. Unfortunately, you aren't naming the right ones. Steve had an integral role in Apple's product designs. That's what he's like, known for.

Everyone will complain, but if I asked you to name one consumer tech company that does things most differently than any other, you'd say Apple. Why should Apple not enjoy the protection of these differences--which clearly make them very successful? I don't have a solution in particular here, but it's hard to claim that Apple has nothing to pursue here.

Re: 4. He said he got a parcel, I'm assuming from the post. So no one dropped it off, it was delivered.

I loved Gentoo, and in fact, I used it for longer than any of the other distros. But I didn't switch to OS X because I couldn't figure it out. Once I had everything configured to my liking, which, of course, takes quite a while on Gentoo, I didn't have a problem with the OS or how it performed on my system.

The problem was that I couldn't go to a store and buy anything. Hardware would only work if it's an extremely common type of hardware with standard drivers.

Buy a new wireless headset? The software to make it work (beyond just playing audio) is Win/Mac only.
I bought an iPhone before Android even existed. Software is Win/Mac only.
I don't like GIMP. I much prefer PhotoShop. Win/Mac only.
I like watching Netflix on my laptop. Win/Mac only.
I bought a Jawbone bluetooth for my phone. I can only configure it and change settings with Win/Mac software.
Something new, like Spotify comes out? Win/Mac only (although they have an unsupported Linux client nowadays)

It's random things like that that turned me off from Linux over time.

(And before anyone says it, using Windows in a VM would defeat the purpose, IMHO. And WINE, while nice, isn't foolproof either).

Mandrake -> Red Hat -> Xandros -> Gentoo -> OS X...

I love Linux and all, but the mainstream support of OS X combined with UNIX under the hood made the Mac the best platform for me. Sure, it's much more expensive, but I don't mind the additional money... after all, I am on my computer all the time anyway. I might as well spend the cash for the one I like best.