This. Apple is very, very good at evolution. Rarely revolution.

History is almost never rewritten, it's just reinterpreted. Look at America and Christopher Columbus. School books are being rewritten to give more weight to how unfairly Native Americans were treated. By a strict definition they're rewriting history -- the history I learned growing up anyway. What's your opinion on this?

Exactly. I bought an ipod touch for "entertainment" on a cross country flight with my kids. My just-turned-five year old had it up and running, pulling up movies and playing the games that I put on there with no help, except for showing her how to turn it on and telling her to "touch the screen". That's why people buy an iPhone/iPod, and that's why they're cooler than the LG whatever or the Zune.

For the non-technical crowd, that simplicity -- simple but still usable devices -- makes Apple stuff "cool". Microsoft has never even remotely approached that level.

I'm not sure I'd want to be "stopping crime" under an oppressive regime that has a lot of innocuous stuff being criminal.

, a stack of sauté pans, and a station with various other pieces of hardware to help me prepare my "mise en place". I'll take that stuff over the "forest of monitors" that I used to work with any day. :-D

Here...let me explain... First...get all teary...then start whining...then demand that everyone should give you what you want the way you want it because you want it to be that way. Then start stomping...screaming...crying...maybe rolling around on the floor. Basically...all you really need to do is throw a temper tantrum that would make a 2yr old proud and you will understand the entitlement mentality behind all of this. "I should get what I want, for the price I want, with the rules I want, because I want it that way." This is all driven by people who think that if they don't like the terms of an agreement that they can unilaterally alter them to meet their needs. These are the same people that dream up stupid shit ideas like "We reserve the right to alter this agreement at any time without notice" and then scream bloody murder when other like minded idiots lock them into a contract that says the same thing.

I don't like what the RIAA is doing. I haven't bought any RIAA music in almost 10 years now. I also haven't downloaded any music. I don't try to rationalize some weird shit reason that says it is ok for me to simply take what I want because they won't offer it to me on the terms I want. The same goes for software. I VERY rarely buy software, and I pretty much restrict most of my software to F/OSS stuff. There are a few software package that I have bought, but rather than downloading, I wait for a deal where I can pay the price I want, or I find another product. It is that simple. This insane entitlement mentality is getting disgusting, and is ultimately what drives much of behavior the whiners usually throw tantrums about. Tell me that the RIAA behavior is anything other than greedy entitlement bullshit...just the same as the idiots downloading music.

These battles are escalating battles between large groups of spoiled brats that think that they deserve whatever they demand on the terms they demand and they will go to great lengths to force their demands.

Poor guy must be conservative Christian. Good luck, indeed.

I understand where you're coming from, but you also have to take into account the history of all of Germany. Her citizens were led into one of the worst atrocities of modern times - the mass genocide of millions of Jews. These crimes were perpetrated by ordinary people like you and I. The German law recognizes this conundrum and that murderers, while they may have done horrible things, were seduced by poor thinking. While I would agree that some murderers are self deprecating to the point where they will continue to have poor thinking. As evidenced by German society as a whole, these same people who were once murders can come to a point of recognition of the atrocity of their actions, and learn to find healthy ways to relate when problems arise. I have met with a number of Germans who, while not old enough at the time to have committed the atrocities, were old enough to remember what it was like, and all of them not only express shame in what happened, but also a need to distance themselves from the mindsets, even those they were participatory in. People who express remorse and distance themselves from a murderous mindset show the ability of people to change.

Yeah..........unless you're developing weapons, it's often hard for science agencies to get government funding as a guarantee...

Look into any free trade agreements between the US and Canada. Often (as the bigger of the two), the US inserts clauses where the second country brings copyright laws into line with America's (that's pretty much what happened over in Australia).

And no, this type of clause is generally not reciprocated.

Broken link.

Yeah, splitting is what it is...

There is no center of the Universe as the big bang too place every where! Now wrap your head around that ache. Before the big bang the universe didn't exist and there was no space nor time. Actually it makes little sense to talk about a before since time didn't exist. Then the big bang existed at the moment that time and space began... and rapidly expanded space itself till today where that singularity is now the entire universe.

Or so the Big Bang Hypothesis, er mythology, with some evidence goes to say. Now of course there are other variants on this but this is a summary of the major bits of the mainstream view. Corrections welcome.

It's a segue way to deep packet inspection and bandwidth metering/shaping.

You all know how IT Dilberts can get away with pure lack of inspiration or willingness to provide service by using the "it's a security problem" trump card...

[comcast senses new p2p activity coming from a home IP]
Comcast Pop: Dear User, you recently installed a networked application. This application is spyware and is probably stealing your credit card information as we speak. For your safety, remove the software and any corrupted media downloaded by it.

I thought it was in this case (I saw it on the BBC teletext pages a couple of days ago and laughed and the innovative idea - people will love the "win money" together with "spy on people like the Big Brother house" idea) but I wasn't sure and couldn't be bothered to RTFA. Not that it'll stop people whining about how terrible Britain is as a CCTV nation.

Personally I'd rather have the CCTV that can help catch criminals by tracking their movements while police get to the scene than having any idiot who has the money carrying a gun!