The main reason TV has traditionally sucked is the way in which it is delivered and consumed. It is pushed at the viewer on a preset schedule. Viewers are given many channels, and they end up flipping through channels randomly. As a result, the shows are designed to grab attention with loud gimmicks, and they must be written for low attention spans.

However, the landscape is changing, and over the past several years we've had some of the best shows ever made. Because of DVRs and shows on DVD, it is much easier for a person to follow a show completely, and so certain shows are being written more intelligently for people who are paying attention. Because of the internet, it's much easier to read reviews and find shows which are high quality and suited to a person's interests.

Of course, there's also more crap television being made than ever before! But that's why I don't get cable or flip through channels. I choose things that are worth my time. There is also no shortage of awful books and websites, but it's easy for me to skip those things and just read what I care about.

I happen to think TV can be a compelling story telling medium in the right hands. It allows for exploring and developing characters in depth much like a book, but with the visual language and theatrical elements of movies. One show which proves how artistically and excellently this can be done is Breaking Bad.

I'm hoping this leads to a fan edit in which every dead character on screen is replaced by Bush! I say this not because of hatred for Bush, but because HBO and various commentators have taken this amusing situation way too seriously.

I created some back-of-the-envelope predictions in July 2009 about the cost for 10TB of storage using either type of drive technology. Unfortunately, neither technology has kept pace with my predictions, but SSDs are making much better progress.

Actual July 2009 Prices for 10TB: Platter = $750, Flash = $28,125
Actual June 2012 Prices: Platter = $567, Flash = $8200

Previous Prediction for July 2010: Platter = $528, Flash = $9,868
Previous Prediction for July 2012: Platter = $262, Flash = $1,215
Previous Prediction for July 2014: Platter= $130, Flash = $150
Previous Prediction for July 2019: Platter= $23, Flash = $0.80

It's a shame to see that after three years, the prices are closer to where I hoped to see them in a single year. I think it's time to update my predictions based on what has happened over the previous 35 months. (Yes, I know this in unscientific and silly!)

New Prediction for July 2012: Platter = $562, Flash = $7916
New Prediction for July 2013: Platter = $511, Flash = $5188
New Prediction for July 2014: Platter = $464, Flash = $3400
New Prediction for July 2015: Platter = $422, Flash = $2228
New Prediction for July 2019: Platter = $287, Flash = $411
New Prediction for July 2024: Platter = $178, Flash = $50

These predictions seem much more achievable than last time. In fact, I expect that platter drives will exceed this pace as the industry recovers. I can't believe that platter drives will only see around a 50% price reduction per TB over the next seven years. However, that's been the pace of improvement from July 2009 until now.

The most interesting date will be when the technologies reach price equivalence. This would be August 2020 according to my model, at the price of $260 for 10 TB. My gut feeling is that equivalence will be reached a couple of years earlier than that, but who knows? We'll just have to watch and see!

Quickly, Downolad! To the Up-mobile! We must get to the bottom of Lepto-man's strange plans. He may be on top for now, but he won't charm this city forever.

I do. The common mantra seems to be, "Enough privacy to get people to stop complaining." Google, Facebook, Myspace, Microsoft, Apple, Adobe are all guilty of this thinking, and they're showing no sign of letting up.

You're free to find a paid service for your email and web searching needs. When you go to Google's page, you're choosing to trade a little privacy for free services. Most people find this trade worthwhile.

To me the most important factor is whether an ad-supported service makes the effort to respect their users and to be careful with how they use the information they obtain. Places like Google and Yahoo seem to take the approach of respecting the users, although Google has made mistakes recently. Facebook, on the other hands, seems determined to strategically take every advantage possible from their users.

I get it... you were in for spamming! I think I will not email you. :)

The video of last year's winning AI player is impressive, but it's not anything like watching a real person play. For next year, they should add a Mario Turing contest. The goal is to make an AI player that is the hardest to distinguish from a human player.

This would be relevant to game design, as having opponents and allies who seem to act human can greatly improve a game.

Can anyone say how close to the path one needs to be in order to see/hear anything?

"Do not look back at the auto-automobile with remaining eye."

Good points. It makes no sense to take features which have proved useful on the desktop and make them available in the browser environment. Also, someone needs to stand up and tell people to stop developing these browser based applications.

If you want to edit a document, you should install a native application on every PC you want to access it on. You should have to sort out all the details of network storage and collaboration yourself. If you don't have the time or expertise to set that up, you don't deserve to be editing documents. If you accept the convenience offered by such online companies, don't be surprised when many horrible things happen to you!

Even an email would be fine. A simple message saying that "Bank X has requested your credit report in order to process an auto loan. If you have not initiated this loan request, please contact so-and-so at Bank X immediately."

It's interesting to me that my idea received one positive and one negative mod, but your negative, dismissive response quickly shot to +5 insightful. We could do with a little open-mindedness.

Depending on the implementation, my idea could result in a bloated mess. I readily admit that. But it's really easy to criticize an idea and call it impossible. When browsers were first released, it would have been thought impossible for them to do anything close to what they do today, and yet here we are. Javascript performance has made great leaps forward because Google was willing to question if those leaps were possible.

I can see two factors which could help my idea succeed. One is the continuing increase in computer power. The other is the chance to actually simplify and optimize the core windowing system code. For it to be sufficiently flexible, it would need to be carefully written. For example, when displaying a tree showing directory contents, the developers wouldn't be thinking about the specifics of the graphics, colors, and spacing. They'd be writing to a general case, which could be made very simple and efficient. Then another piece of code would apply a style to this element. CSS has already shown that styles can be applied with great efficiency.

I'm really tired of the trade-off between simplicity and functionality. This trade-off should not be inherent to either windowing system. Rather, the variety of options presented to the user should be configurable. Each distribution should be able to decide how simple or how configurable they want to make their windowing environment when it is first installed.

A great windowing environment would be able to be made to look very similar to Gnome, KDE, Windows, Mac OS, etc. I don't just mean superficially similar - it should be configurable down to the menu options presented and the types of configuration options presented in dialogs. All of this presentation of options and behaviors should be managed in a special layer, much like CSS is used to configure the presentation of a website.

For example, Ubuntu might choose to ship with a very simple, user-friendly interface. In the system administration, this interface could be changed to a more configurable preset if the user so desires. It wouldn't be a matter of switching from Gnome to KDE. Visually, the change might be as dramatic as a switch from Gnome to KDE, but the basic windowing system would just be running with an alternate configuration.

I never shot horse while playing Uno, but I've shot horse just before playing Uno. I've shot pig and dog too. Tried hippopotamus once, but the game goes on too long.

They're selling two different versions of the game? Is the new version the same as the old, with the word "not" whited out in one section of the rulebook?

This should sell well among those people who believe that the rulebooks that come with games are legally enforceable. I've been playing Uno with homespun rules for years, so I guess I'm the type of guy who likes to live on the edge.