Apple steals liberally from competitors (iOS5 status bar and wireless updates and sync, anyone?), and then sues them when the opposite happens. How do you arrive at your conclusion?

You sure are demanding and lazy, aren't you?

You obviously haven't worked with many doctors and their computer problems.

As it should be. But if your machine is the one that starts spamming the network with a new virus, then you should also be the one run up the pole, not IT.

I've found a lot of it goes down to the disconnect from hardware. I've met WAY too many developers that'll just allocate more RAM rather than understand WHY they have to keep doing so, and what the performance implications are, especially on lesser hardware or when the dataset grows beyond their testing data set and hits the production data set.

I'm in a similar position, but it's a really small company. So I was actually hired on with the intention of me being a part-time sysadmin. I actually like it like that, being able to do stuff other than just development all the time. Wearing many hats makes me happy, but I realize that I'm in the minority usually.

Except the Democrats have compromised on nearly everything already, hell they even put up cuts to Social Security and Medicare to compromise, but the Republicans refused to entertain any Tax Increases at all and shot it down. It would seem the only one's playing the game of "We get what we want or else" is the Republicans.

Hold on...this isn't the Secretary of Defense suggesting a spending cuts? What about Obama suggesting Defense Spending Cuts Here. It seems your information is wrong. Every proposal that the Democrats have made included defense spending cuts. It was the Republicans who refused to cut defense spending.

The rest of your post I completely agree with though.

And those are still a pain in the ass. An audio adapter of some sort to your music player or phone is much handier, and removes another device from the chain. I personally just use Bluetooth A2DP to my car stereo, which removes yet another cable.

It's not hard to rip movies, and once you do it once you're done... it's something you can just go check every now and then and swap disks when necessary while you're doing something else. Kinda like doing the laundry.

Not specifically with the computer, but getting systems/cables set up for presentations or work in a new location. It's pretty handy when you're a consultant. I sure as shit don't miss the work, though.

Wait... games on CDs don't have DRM on them? Since when?