"But we were using the chemical weapons against the jungle, not against the people who were IN the jungle. So that means we're still the good guys. U-S-A! U-S-A!"

Nobody was ever hurt from having a camera pointed at them.

Did someone seriously just say this?

Who's talking violence? I'm just saying that after a few thousand dollars of Google Glass have been removed from your head and stomped underfoot because you don't understand social cues, you'll learn to modify your behaviour.

It's a self-correcting problem. After the Glasses have been knocked off your face and stomped underfoot a few times, you'll modify your behaviour.

Religious or not, the Bible in an incredible historical document that should be treated with respect and educated thoughtfulness, not snarky cherry picking and misrepresentation.

Just like Mein Kampf!

jQuery *is* a hack. A necessary one that has grown into some kind of terrifying chimera, but still fundamentally a hack.

So it's like emacs then?

Prediction: "smart" masks that not only obscure your face but also photorealistically display the face of some other random person.

Years ago ago those of us who used any *nix desktop ('every morning when you wake up, the house is a little different') were seen as willing to embrace change and spend hours tinkering and configuring until we got new desktop versions to work the way we wanted, while there was an opposite perception of desktop users over in the Mac world ('it just works')

If you want a UNIX desktop that just works, then you get a Mac.

"open"

I'm not sure which I detest more

You are double counting. The faster replacement cycle is what drives the discrepancy in user / sales.

What? Who's talking about sales? I'm talking about MARGINS.

Thank you for that insightful comment from the magical land of Aspergers Syndrome.

whatever you believe, politically speaking, the artists *should* be able to sell their music to make a living

I disagree. A musician's desire to make music in no way places an obligation upon me to pay for it.

But that's beside the point. I don't pay the artist, Spotify doesn't pay the artist, the record label pays the artist.

Artist and feeling butthurt? Not my problem. Take it up with the label.

Let's extend your example a bit. Let's say that Dropbox develops an unnatural power over hard drive manufacturers and demands lower and lower prices to the point where no one could afford to make hard drives for their service anymore.

Then Dropbox would have no new hard drives, and it would go out of business, and I'd stop using it.

I don't care what Dropbox pays for its hard drives and I don't care what Spotify pays to the music labels. If that level is sustainable the service will remain operative and I will keep using it if I find it good value. If it's not sustainable the service will stop and I'll use something else.

Either way - I don't care. I hate these articles because the implication is that this is in fact an ARTISTS' RIGHTS discussion or an INFORMATION WANTS TO BE FREE discussion. But it's not. A company is paying money to its own suppliers in order to provide me with a service I can use or not use. And this is a big deal? THAT'S EVERY FUCKING COMPANY IN THE WORLD.

Oh, Apple is far and a way the most profitable manufacturer in the PC market. It makes more money from Mac sales than Dell, HP. Lenovo, Asus, and Acer make from all their WinPC sales combined.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/30697024/asymcopcshare2012.png
http://www.asymco.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Screen-Shot-2013-04-16-at-4-16-4.16.46-PM-620x587.png

(all stats from Asymco)

But the dominating the PC market is dominating a market that doesn't have a future. Or rather, not a big one.