The only reason I held onto mine for so long is that it didn't cost a lot, and I was "soft" on deciding to drop it. Now I am not longer soft, lol, I am steaming hard on it. BYE BYE Netflix, I loved you for a while - so long as you gave me pretty things for cheap, Now that you don't, I no longer love you.

There is no safe level of radiation - there are simply levels that don't significantly increase risk. It may well be discovered that hanging out by XRay sources isn't as un-bad for your health as previously assumed (perhaps due to not actually testing..) I'm so glad my tax dollars paid for all this tech and will now pay all the large sums that will get awarded in the inevitable law suits.. Yay.

From what I recall of reading about this a year+ ago, the same tech would allow for mathematically changing focus, zoom, pan, tilt in real time on the signal from the camera or post-fact on a recording of the same signal. So, basically, a flat non-moving sensor can now emulate a PZT camera. I can imagine that with a spherical lens or one of those weird mirrors that lets a regular camera catch a 360 image, it should be possible to make a near holocam. Imagine a movie shot like this and glasses that allow you to focus on different depths at will (maybe by watching your eyes?) it would be a "real" 3d experience, none of that fuzzy background you get on stereo 3d movies.

So, knowing better than to waste my time, I called AT&T today and, as expected, "Apple still doesn't allow us to unlock iPhones." Anyone have a clue if this policy is ever going away?

I stopped consuming music years ago.
I am happy with the hundreds of hours of music I already own and generally find little new music I like. I get my new music fix from the radio, pandora, and the like. The only music I actually acquire are the free weekly downloads from itunes.
I stopped primarily due to DRM and crazy ass licensing. Less DRM now, but my new habits around this are established.
Our copyright/IP system is entirely broken and getting more so every day. Something has to break, I am sitting on the sidelines waiting to see what goes first - the last of our civil liberties, or the insane system we have built.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPgHbt0ODr4

If by 'Meredith's executive branch and business experience along with her exceptional relationships in Washington bring Comcast and NBCUniversal the perfect combination of skills.' they mean that she accepts bribes, er, a job offer from the people she JUST granted a favor to, then, YES.

STOP BUYING THEIR MUSIC (and don't pirate it.) Sooner or later they will die away like any meme that has become bad.
Who knows, maybe the govt will force us to shop with them, grin, but I doubt it - even forcing us to buy something useful, like medical insurance, is meeting incredible resistance.

One big reason the american cell system is inherently more difficult is that it has (currently) two different radio standards and two spectrums in each standard. Meaning we (consumers) can make use of somewhere between a quarter and a half of the installed towers depending on our provider. Basic mathematics dictate that all other things equal, it is not possible for Americans to get the same level of service in this case for less than 2x+ the cost (not profit) in Europe.. Perhaps, some day, phones will be made that can switch and roam on any tower available. That day is NOT today.
I've said for years that the state of the American cell network is one of the most glaring examples of utter failure of the capitalist free markets system.. Little to no government regulation around cell radio standards results in competition that, ultimately, only HURTS consumer choices in the US.
Lets compare this to the electrical system in the US. It's highly regulated and has fixed profitability (at least in my state of California) imposed by the PUC. All this regulation doesn't seem to keep PG&G from making a living and occasionally spending it unwisely (e.g. arguably illegally trying to pass a state proposition 2-3 elections ago enshrining it as a monopoly!) That said, our electrical system is entirely functional by comparison. Customer service is pretty good as well (again, in my state.)

.. and with "all" those regulations (far less than in Europe) the quality of the product (cell phone network) is still pathetic compared to Europe and what it could be. tell me how unlimited profitability and limited regulatio in wireless services makes us a better market..

Too much profit (while I can't define what that is, I can say that much like obscenity, I know it when I see it) is bad. When the number of players drops - and depending on how you view this merger, the number has just dropped to one (GSM world phone ISP), each has less incentive to compete - 40bil profit indicates they are charging us a high premium on their costs - meaning our prices are higher than they could be. Now that they are about to become a monopoly, in our very unregulated country, this can only get worse. Oh, I suppose the government can step in and regulate them better - but recent history indicates this is less and less likely to happen.

40 billion dollars - that's money they made off you, me, whicever of us is an AT&T customer, profit above and beyond their costs. Translation - they raped us, their customers, for 40bil dollars! No wonder our cell phone costs are highest in the western world, our service is the worse, our phone selection is the most abysmal, etc..
Yay for free markets - they work ever so well (dripping sarcasm!)

They cost as much or sometimes more than the printed copy, are badly edited/proofread and the software for reading them has issues with formatting, they are DRM'ed, and the rules for lending and/or reselling them (when that is even possible) are restrictive and draconian..
Fact is, e-books are an outrageous scam, by any measure. Far more so than the music and movie industry, the book industry figured out how to fleece its customers more, so much more.
That said, they do save paper. I own a kindle, but I am still trying to figure out how much money I want to give amazon. I am petitioning my favorite authors to directly publish, hopefully cheaper..