400,000 people cut the cord, but that doesn't count the 275,000 subscriber increase for Verizon and AT&T's TV offerings. Doesn't change the overall trend, but it is misleading to say that overall 400,000 people cut the cord when it's really "only" 125,000.

I'm not familiar with that game; did you mean Auction House Tycoon?

Is it possible that this is a miniaturized Thunderbolt? Seems like that would offer all of the connectivity they want, although the pin count is off (by one). Just seems strange (although all-too Apple-like) to invent yet another connector that is different from everything else they use.

Hmm, reminds me of a certain other MS product... what's it called... oh yeah, Windows 8.

Hey, let's redesign our UI specifically for an interface that 95% of our customers don't use! Brilliant!

Platinum etchings sandwiched between two layers of sapphire. Like microfilm, but with etchings. So now we can write all sorts of shit down, but where do we put it so we know whoever is digging will stop and figure out what it says?

Personally I think the need for millions of years of survivability are stupid. We've been using atomic energy for what, 60 years? I think we might find a way to put the "waste" to use long before we have to worry about such long-term data storage. That, and we'll either be advanced enough to repair radiation-induced damage in the next couple of hundred years, or civilization will have fallen and our life spans will be so short that a little radiological damage won't really matter.

The worst part is definitely the little bio bits. Boring, and I just don't care. Reminds me of Olympic broadcasts here in the U.S. Twenty minutes of giving the life story of every American athlete, then thirty seconds of those athletes failing miserably. If there's time left between commercials, they might show the top three or four foreign competitors. Yuck. Drop the "human interest", just give me the goddamn events - as many as you can cram into however much time you have. I would much rather be watching the last place pole vaulter from New Guinea than some shitty story about how American Athlete #3 is bravely competing through the pain of a stubbed toe and their mother's recent diagnosis of a hang nail.

Same with Ninja Warrior - I enjoy the Japanese version from time to time, because 90% of the show is someone actually trying to complete the course. You know, the interesting part that got me to turn on the channel. Minimal time is spent on building up each individual competitor, and the brief sketches they do occasionally give are more than enough to establish who the person is. American version, approximately 60-70% seems to be build-up for athletes who end up eating it on the first obstacle.

Gandhi's threats of NUCLEAR WEAPONS never kept me from going to war with him, so clearly this premise is false.

Following the downing of an American drone in Iran the hypothesis was put forward that the Iranians spoofed the GPS signal and convinced the drone that it wasn't where it thought it was in order to get it to land in Iran (I'm not sure if this was ever confirmed). A recent issue of Aviation Week reported on a group I believe in the U.S. working on the same idea, spoofing the GPS signal in a transparent manner to convince an autonomous vehicle that is was somewhere other than its actual location. Would NAVSOP make it more difficult to accomplish this sort of spoofing?

No kidding. What half-witted mods don't realize that everybody already knows this. Hardly informative ;)

Speaking of Monster Cable... check out how much they want for 6' of speaker cables.

And how about the crappy, low-sensitivity, poor frequency-response speakers they are pairing with it (of course, with only 12.5 watts per channel to work with it's pretty tough to find a decent pair of bookshelf speakers that will work well)?

Nice that they are manufacturing in the U.S., but by the look of it the only reason they are doing so is that they realize this is a niche product with limited sales potential so they are doing very small manufacturing runs. For the relatively small runs they must be doing, it is doubtful that getting manufacturing set up in China would be significantly cheaper - the economics work out when you are doing hundreds of thousands or millions of units, not a handful of thousands that I would guess they are looking at for this. I'd suggest the reason they aren't pushing the "Made In USA" angle is because if the product does somehow take off, they probably plan to move manufacturing overseas.

That said, I really don't understand this device. It doesn't match the functionality of competing media streaming boxes (even Google's own). The amp adds complexity and cost, but it is so small that it is only ever going to be enough for a pretty small room - 12.5 watts/channel doesn't go very far even if you have very efficient speakers (speakers extra). The only market seems to be as a tech toy to show off to your buddies, maybe something an executive would stick in their private office to impress people - except it isn't even outrageously expensive enough for that (maybe if it was $3,000). I just don't get what they are trying to do with it, though the design does look kind of cool.

As opposed to going up every year for no particular reason, like it has been...

Somehow I think your insurance rates would continue to climb no matter what, now they just have a convenient excuse. "Not our fault, blame Obama!"

Island in question.

After all, I'm pretty sure those Indonesians are violating his copyright.

Interesting, I might have to try watching in that order one of these days. Though I suppose that would mean having to actually buy the prequels...

I agree with the Zahn books. I couldn't remember what age I read them, had to look it up on wikipedia to see that I was 12 when the first one came out - but I remember wondering for years why there were no Star Wars books to read aside from a few (young) children's storybooks. Judging by other books I read at the time, 8 is probably old enough assuming some familiarity with the original movies. Actually thinking about it, even this new and incredible Machete Order wouldn't fix the inconsistencies between Zahn's books and the prequel trilogy, so might be best to drop the prequels entirely, watch the original movies, and then read the better Star Wars books (Zahn and Stackpole would be my picks).

I think it is definitely easier to pick out fantasy books for kids. Here are a few that would probably be age appropriate and which are excellent books:

The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien
Prydain Chronicles (first one is The Book of Three), Lloyd Alexander
Earthsea (A Wizard of Earthsea), Ursula K. LeGuin
Narnia (The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe), C.S. Lewis
The Dark is Rising, Susan Cooper

For Sci-Fi, I think it is a bit harder to find good books for kids - most of the sci-fi geared towards children I utterly loathed growing up. But a few you might try:

A Wrinkle In Time, Madeleine L'Engle
Thrawn Trilogy, Timothy Zahn (Star Wars books, so assuming familiarity with the original movies - basically fantasy in space)
Robotech, Jack McKinney (not the greatest literature, but I loved these books at that age; might be hard to find today, though)

Some others, not too sure whether they are age-appropriate but books I enjoyed around that age (plus or minus a couple years):
Gateway, Frederick Pohl
Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card