Ha ha ha.

I have no idea how inter-state rail works over there in the US (I'd imagine not very well, since public transport seems to be an alien concept to the majority of Americans and a simple journey from South to North usually requires a twelve-hour change at Chicago) but... it'll be just like a 'normal', commuter train.

As in:

• Catch the bus (or heck, walk to the station) - no more than thirty minutes.
• Buy ticket from the ticket office or from the self-service machine (don't even bother with this if you have a season ticket - instead concentrate on perfecting the art of waltzing through the ticket barrier in one fluid motion.) Note: no security checks apart from the ticket barrier.
• Wait for the train (thirty minutes, tops).
• Board train.
• Wait for train to reach destination or station where you need to change.
• Alight.
• Walk or get bus to your destination.

Perhaps you don't understand this concept, but it works perfectly well in the UK. (And we generally consider our public transport system to be terrible - the French and the Spanish do it best of all.

Also, security checks at stations are practically non-existent - the most I've ever heard is a pre-recorded announcement over the station intercom saying "do try to keep all personal belongings with you and do not take photographs of the security equipment: if you see anything suspicious, please tell a member of staff or hit the Emergency button on the Help Point."

I speak as someone who commutes by train every single working day (albeit over a shorter route.)

Exactly. Why should I be penalized for a game that not enough people want to buy.

That form of "penalisation" is what most of us refer to as... um... "paying".

If I go into a record store and find a dusty old LP that's been in the shop for years and has barely been touched, I still expect to have to pay for it, despite the fact I'm the only one who could give a rat's arse over it.

I do agree with most of your argument—however, the rationale at the beginning just smells strongly of trying to justify stealing. (Not piracy: pirates are people who make a living off selling stolen products.)

Buy him a copy of C for Dummies and have done with it. C is kind of like the Latin of programming, except it's easier to learn than Latin.

I would have suggested BASIC around a decade ago, but I can't think of a modern BASIC implementation that's neither horrendously complex for a new programmer or insanely outdated.

I'm terrified! I'm more likely to be killed by my iPod than by my tea cosy!

But you don't have to pay for Spotify.

"One of the most recognizable brands in the history of illegal downloading is due to officially resurface, perhaps as early as next week, sources close to the company told CNET News. Only this time the name Kazaa will be part of a legal music service. Altnet and parent company Brilliant Digital Entertainment attached the Kazaa brand to a subscription service that will offer songs and ringtones from all four of the major recording companies. For the past few months, a beta version has been available. The company tried recently to ratchet up expectations with a series of vague, and what some considered misguided, press releases. The site will open with over 1 million tracks."

It's failed already. You have to pay money every month to listen to music you don't own. This is why subscription-based services have never worked - iTunes and Amazon offer (and have offered for a while), for a much more reasonable price, music that you get to keep forever, and, since the abolition of DRM, can do anything you want (within the law, of course *nudge nudge wink wink*) with.

It didn't work for the Zune, it didn't work for Wippit, it's not working for Napster, it's not going to work for the relaunched Kazaa.

If it's for a kid, though, assuming that you put it into Simple Finder mode and installed suitable educational games on there, an iMac DV running Tiger would be perfect. (I'm speaking here as a student running 10.4 on a slot-loading iMac DV as my secondary machine. It's a bit sluggish, but it does the job very well.)

What's to stop them bundling an Apache and MySQL server, denying access to everyone but 127.0.0.1, and running the apps locally from that server?

But the flipside of that is you can take as many duff shots as you want, and you'll never waste any paper. Digital photos are also easier to store than those in paper form.