I think of it like the falling green code in The Matrix. Once you really know what you're doing, you can look at HTML and see the page itself. I don't even see the DIVs, all I see is...blonde, brunette, red-head...

I may come off as an Apple apologist here but they aren't a patent troll. They have products that implement the patents in question as opposed to true trolls who produce nothing but lawsuits. At worst you could call them patent abusers, at best they're just playing the game.

Wikipedia:

On a local network, nothing will transcode with a PC/Mac client, nor anything a device supports (and everything does h264 these days, and most do XviD). It remuxes if it has to but leaves the streams alone. Also over a local network the transcoding can have a huge bitrate and look fine. Admittedly it requires a beefy server. Remote streaming obviously gets a lower bitrate but you're trading quality for quantity with the ability to browse terabytes of media.

Look, I'm aware it isn't for everyone. I'm not going to respond to everyone here, but I guess "I know it's the best solution for many people" wasn't a good enough disclaimer.

I have to think that while something like Plex would be better for a lot of people, XBMC still gets used on name recognition alone. If you have more than one device that you watch media on (TVs, Roku, tablets, phones, whatever) why wouldn't you want a central server managing the library, downloading metadata, saving watched flags, holding resume times, and serving up video to the devices? I turned a friend on to Plex from XBMC and he's amazed at how often he stops watching in one room and resumes in another. I love it too. I can't count the times that I've started watching something on the iPad in the kitchen while cleaning up and then going into the bedroom to finish on the TV. That's a way bigger feature to me than getting "the real deal" running everywhere I need it.

The people above wanting this for Google TV...check out Plex, it may be exactly what you're looking for.

Sorry to not gush for XBMC, I know it's the best solution for many people and I truly appreciate the heritage and the fact that it's the foundation for Plex, but until they have a centralized server (if ever), I can't even consider it for myself. And no I'm not going to jump through hoops to get it.

I think Microsoft is just sitting back waiting until Windows 8 comes out. Most people will learn about the new Windows and Metro no matter what, then they just have to be shown the phone that works like what they [now] already know (and, for Microsoft's sake, hopefully like).

And all the days of Noah were nine hundred and fifty years: and he died.

http://www.aolnews.com/2010/03/09/petas-euthanasia-rates-have-critics-fuming/

http://www.lmgtfy.com/?q=peta+euthanasia

While I think they should have both, consider this a failing of all other manufacturers not standardizing on a common port to compete with the iPod dock. The fact that I plug one wire into my iPod in the car and get audio, power, and control is a beautiful thing. Maybe there's a chance now with Micro USB becoming standard. The iPod dock and the consistency it provides accessory manufacturers is a huge advantage for Apple.

Also remember that we're coming up on 4 years since the iPhone came out and was ridiculed for not supporting Flash. 4 years of vastly increasing mobile computing power and memory. 4 years for Adobe to get its act together. 4 years to see why HTML5 video and animation is important.

4 years. If this is what we're seeing now, just imagine what Jobs was shown way back when the decision was made.

Ah, the supply side fairy tale.

http://www.factcheck.org/taxes/supply-side_spin.html

Friggin' Unix, that do-nothing OS.

Oh I know, and it may just be familiarity at this point but I still prefer Firebug. I'd rate Firebug a 9, Webkit tools 7 or 8, and IE9 a 4...not good but not completely useless like it used to be. At least there's a lifeline for those IE specific issues. Eh, maybe a 5, the script debugger is greatly improved and the network tools may actually be the best.

I'll pretend you didn't say anything about needing Expressions or Dreamweaver and recommend Firebug for playing with CSS on the fly. I've moved to Chrome for my personal browsing but it'll be a while before I use anything but Firefox for my main development work.

I'm so glad the IE team made the decision not to worry about the ACID test. It's only PR for geeks who'd rather care about a single number than attempt to judge on real world use.

IE9 is a solid browser which will of course fall behind with the slow IE dev cycle. But if they keep the pace from IE7 through IE9, IE10 will blow the others away.

While the Green Party is interested in ecological issues, they are not really representative of the environmental "green" movement.

http://www.gp.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Party_of_the_United_States