I have to wonder if this will mean the North American presence for Sony(Ericsson) phones will increase, as well as end missed release dates and vaporware. What may happen to the Java Platform operating system present on the majority of SonyEricsson "feature" phones, like the WalkMan and CyberShot phones prior to Android. I am also hoping that making customizations will still be easily done and sites which provide services or support for customizations, unlocking, firmware flashing, ELF mods, and so on will not feel the wrath of Sony's legal department.

Putting an environmental impact fee (tax) on fuel would be a more reliable compensation for your impact than GPS. If I sit idling in my car for a few hours I can burn an entire tank of gas without moving an inch.

For what will the GPS tracking *really* be used?

I'm not even interested in reading the blog post when I see a horrible conclusion that Verizon dropping its unlimited data plans are a result of the AT&T/TMO merger. It makes MUCH more sense that a response to the merger would be, "hey, everyone! We have unlimited data plans!!"

Lost direction, have they?

A quick read of this formulated a question in my mind of, does owning an Apple trigger salvation?

Common sense is old news.

Whether true or not, I always made a fun argument about washing hands before using the bathroom. I wash every morning and then carefully pack my clean stuff into clean underwear. On the other hand, my hands do not get such protection, so which should more afraid of the other: my clean and packed stuff, or my hands which touch God-knows-what all day long before unpacking my clean stuff?

I pulled some old cassettes, ranging in age of between 20 and 25 years, out of storage and sampled them into WAVs, then used CS1er and Tape994a to decode the data and load them into emulators. As well, I used the same program(s) to convert the data back into audio and played into a real TI console.

Meh. Not overly challenging in description, but getting the right noise adjustment, tone and volume settings took quite a bit of time to get just right. And each recording needed its own settings. I found that for playback into a real TI-99/4A console from my laptop used the "Reggae" equalizer setting in VLC Player.

I thought the push message functionality does and is for exactly this?

I came late to the Amiga party. Eh, just before Commodore tanked and I began my migration from BBSs to the Internet. I am still rockin' and rollin' 18 years later (holy shit, it really HAS been that long?!) Even my nick/handle/alias is homage. Got my trusty A4000D and several "classic" companions, and a recently-acquired MacMini running MorphOS 2.5. Good times had then, and still yet to be had.

I am sure a lot of people know by now, what with Google and all, but there are a good number of Amiga sites and enthusiast groups, as well as MANUFACTURERS (yes, we get new, modern hardware, too!) amiga.org is a good place to start, though there are many other sites. And let us not forget AmiWest (maybe I will finally make it this year...)

That is a thought, actually. How would this affect DNS queries regime-mangled in oppressive countries...

No, that is not true Capitalism, that is greed and bungled regulation. Capitalism is not greed, and greed is not capitalism. I am AC above you, and I fully agree in terms of government culpability. But if you want to know where the blame against Halliburton is, you must have missed the kangaroo court, Stalinist commission hearings at the outset of the whole mess, where it was like watching the Three Stooges (Oceanic, BP, and Halliburton) in front of what amounts to a show trial. Probably because so much was done wrong from the get-go that they just could not be sure whose process failed and who would be ultimately responsible.

And to which treaty to you refer? If its the Kyoto Accord, the US has not gone with that because it allows exemptions for developing industrial countries, like China, and puts draconian restrictions on third-world countries essentially ensuring that they never develop.

Then there are the boycotts. How utterly stupid. First, BP will need the money to pay for the clean up and damage claims, as it is already beginning to liquidate assets of its North American operations. Secondly, the boycotts really only harm the local business owners. Lastly, if you are going to boycott BP on principal for the leak, then you should also check out the Niger Delta and ExxonMobile, and while you are at it why not boycott Citgo for being owned by a dictatorial regime which uses fear and intimidation, if not flat-out strong-armed tactics, to silence its critics.

And that is exactly how this system is supposed to work. The company which decides to screw and milk its customers falls flat in competition against a competitor which knows what the customer wants and how to provide it.

Provided, of course, we do not decide that, as a service, cable television is too big to fail and must be bailed out. Adapt or die.

Of course, while we are vilifying ComCast and its compatriots, how much do we know about background regulation which could be forcing this upon them? For instance, you know how you hate your bank when you accidentally overdraft your account and they process the big item first, ensuring that many or all smaller items following it will accrue an NSF fee? I have it on good authority from two different banks that this is required be federal regulation and, apparently, the fed gets a cut of NSF fees.

(I welcome any information supportive or to the contrary as I have had little time to research this myself. If true, would anyone truly be shocked?)

Except that ComCast and Cox (and their forerunners) have sued municipalities which attempt to bring in competition or set up their own cable system on the grounds that doing so is "anti-competitive."

Really?

That is how it was done about 10 years ago at the apartment complex where I worked. The complex had its own cable system with its head-end in a shack out by a laundry room (or it might have been the back half of a laundry room, I cannot exactly recall as I only went in there one time.) There was a satellite receiver box for each channel the complex received, each of which was then fed into an analog multiplexer which in turn was amplified and distributed throughout the complex. Not sure how many channels we had, maybe like 20 or 25. As well, there was an input for our "community channel," which was nothing more than a video feed from a video titler in the complex office.

Anyway. I have not had cable now for about three years, and I have not looked back since. Everything I want to watch is on Hulu or available directly from the producer (like "Babylon 5" on thewb.com.) When I visit family with cable or satellite I will spend a little time vegging out and catching up on what new stuff is out there (like "Pawn Stars," pretty interesting) but there is not a damned thing on TV without which I cannot live.