While I agree with you completely, I think you're looking at this backwards. Linux people will put Linux on servers no matter what - but if we know that purchasing a ProLiant server is going to come with less or no headaches as compared to some other brand's unknown experience, maybe we'll be more likely to purchase a ProLiant. At least that seems to be HP's angle in this case.

I think where the judge's analogy falls apart is when he assumes your car would still be "fully functioning" if you avoided the amusement park for cars. If I want to buy (insert some new PS3 game here) and play it without ever connecting to the PSN, I'm going to be forced to install a firmware update just to play the new game, aren't I? I don't see how that would constitute my PS3 being "fully functional" anymore. (and I don't see how that could be worked into this car analogy either)

Not that I own a PS3; I don't. But that's how things are done with my Xbox360.

Exactly. Or perhaps a better analogy would be handsfree Bluetooth.

"I bought this car because it has Bluetooth. It's not a feature every owner of this model will use, but it is one of the reasons I chose THIS car over other cars."

And then the manufacturer remotely bricks the Bluetooth because I got my oil changed somewhere other than the dealership.

I don't agree with my position, but to play Devil's advocate here...

In the case of geohot and the PS3 hacking, Sony might argue that it is harming their business. Because corporations are people, after all.

It appears with posts like this, that perhaps the opposite of your signature is also true.

Off-topic I know, but sorry, I couldn't resist.

Mod parent up! It's great to have Ubiquity back!

I've been loving Firefox for years, but this fast release schedule is driving me nuts. Every time a new "major" version comes out now, at least one or two of my extensions break. The first one to go (on FF4) was Ubiquity, which still isn't fixed, and the stupid thing about that is Ubiquity is a Mozilla Labs extension. It's pretty sad when their own damn extensions can't even keep up, let alone 3rd party stuff.

So, back to your point about extensions being the only downside, honestly, do we use Firefox for any other reason? I could have ditched FF for Chrome or even IE9 (shudder) but it's the extensions that make Firefox so awesome, and that's what's suffering the most with this bullshit release schedule.

As a webmaster, I get a lot of those ones presumably from China and thereabouts that all say pretty much the same thing:

Dear CEO,

We are big important registrar and $FICTICIOUS_COMPANY wants to buy from us this follows:
$YOUR_HOSTNAME.cn
$YOUR_HOSTNAME.tw
$YOUR_HOSTNAME.com.cn
$YOUR_HOSTNAME.com.tw
(et cetera)

Sometimes the poor English can be entertaining.

"Yes, I was really sad too, when the artist stopped drawing the deer."

I think that making every app work in a browser is the path of least resistance for companies trying to make a multi-platform product. This might not actually be true in all cases, but a lot of executives with a limited knowledge of technology see it this way.

Amen brother. Although the parent didn't really make that specific argument, it sounded like they just wanted to get their Zerg on.

I'd like to throw something out there. In SC1 I always wanted the ability to zoom OUT and see more of the battlefield at once. With the ability to select more than 12 units at a time this would have been a great feature for SC2. But what did they do instead? They added the ability to zoom IN. What the fuck is the point of that? I don't need to see how graphically detailed these units are. And with all of the things going on in the game, who has time to admire the scenery?