... welcome my government agency overlords. I feel safer already.

I'm glad our taxes are so well spent.

I'm sure you were aiming for funny... But you missed.

I wrote this several years ago when the PS3 was on the verge of being released. They're a company that you just can't trust to do the sane thing let alone the right thing. I bet most of you forget that the original PS3 controller was fifteen-feet wide and curved like a boomerang.

http://thepcspy.com/read/how_sony_screwed_up/

How is different from people who need and can't afford (or just can't get) certain drugs? TFA's daughter can't talk but millions die because they can't get a $1 vaccine or super-expensive healthcare and cancer treatments.

Any for-profit company delivering healthcare, drugs and and assistive devices is pitting what they think the market will support against their bottom line. The parent in TFA is losing out because they can't find a device that follows the required IP structure that works for them in the market but why is their need [for parent reform] greater than somebody dying because certain drugs aren't available because they'd never be commercially viable? In both cases people lose out and it's morally atrocious that something as transitory and meaningless as money is hindering quality of life.

I'll be honest, I don't know the solution. Nuking all patents from space sounds great if you're allergic to showers and buy into the Occupy Everything movements people in the real world realise that RND costs are real. Destroying patents would have a significant and fairly unpredictable effect on the world.

And you can be sure, whatever the real solution is, whenever it comes along, the companies that own all this IP aren't going to let their patents go without a fight.

To clarify - I hand them a DVD and some cash, and they hand me back a USB drive with the video on it. Bonus points for being able to give them a USB HD to fill up with DVDs you give them.

... they let me trade in a DVD for a DRM-free 10-15GB h.264 MKV with the digital HD audio track. I'll happily pay money for that because it adds value for me. I could just buy the Bluray but this would save me filling up my house with those infernal things and would save me a fair chunk of transcoding time. I don't even care if you watermark the hell out of them (if the watermarks aren't visible) - just as long as they're DRM-free, so I can use them how I like.

I'm not going to spend extra money so I can trade one crappy format for another.

And just remember TPB offers this service for free. That's who you're competing against.

We should definitely consider putting Bruce Willis, Ben Affleck and Aerosmith into cryo right now. Without them, we won't have a chance.

I thought 3 and 5 core tablets were supposed to be coming out, where the "odd" core is so underpowered it can be left on when the screen and other cores are off, using practically no battery but still letting the tablet run its background processes.

I'm surprised more emphasis isn't being put on improving "standby" battery time because that seems to be the real killer in so many mobile applications these days (like my 14h SGS2 battery of doom).

Oh whoop! Another referral link!

Oh lolz. Turns out it doesn't matter how awful a suggestion this is for this purpose, as long as you get to post a referral link.

Downmod parent as spam.

I think this is a fairly common sentiment towards Apache from developers who have to deploy their own stuff. I've certainly been in that camp more than a few times in the past. We're talking about:
  - RAM usage
  - Just being slow to push out simple files
  - mod_php being the worst thing ever written
  - mod_python disproving the last statement and taking the crown
  - Various FastCGI/WSGI toolchains just not being up to scratch either.

I moved to nginx and Cherokee and suddenly configuration was both compact and modular and the settings seemed to make a real difference. RAM usage is completely minimal and performance is scorchingly hot. In more than one case I took an Apache box, switched Apache out and we were using half the RAM for the same jobs, and getting better performing websites, with less configuration.

I'm certain Apache could have been tuned but I don't think it's unreasonable for a developer to blame the software if you have to do a three year BSc in Apache Administration just to get something equivalent to 30 minutes playing in nginx.

I truly do hope that things are improving (competition is key in this environment!) but now I've left Apache on multiple servers, they're going to need to do more than just say "If you tune it, it can now match nginx speed", because my time is valuable too. I'm not going to jump back in until for most deployments it "just works".

1 and 3 can be done by online retailers. They tend to have a margin advantage if they're big enough, some just choose not to because they feel they're only competing against other online retailers.

2 is an interesting one. I live at least 20 minutes away from a serious retailer and that's probably fairly average for most people. My time getting to and from the shop and then dealing with somebody is not free. It might be convenient, eg if I needed the item for work, then, sure, there's no debate, but for something like your vacuum cleaner where I'll happily wait a week, it's opportunistically better value to just walk it down the road five minutes to the post office and send it back, or book collection from a courier for £5-10.

Given that all these things have to be done in business hours, paying for a courier is often cheaper and more convenient for *most* medium-sized electronics than wasting your own time getting something fixed face-to-face.

Isn't it more likely that patriotic USPTO staff will just rush through any old rubbish (worse than now) to make sure every vague hint of an idea is owned by the US?

You're free to carry on using whatever you like but the rest of us want a usable desktop.