The problem with having a single such tool is that the ISPs will prioritize traffic generated by it, just like they do with speedtest.net etc.

How would you work around that without implementing measures that make the measurement of net neutrality related parameters impossible? VPN, for instance, would stop the ISP from prioritizing the measurement tool's data, but it would also prevent any of the potentially Net Neutrality threatening QoS/Blocking you're trying to measure in the first place. Any ideas?

Let me preface this by saying I'm typing this on a custom-built Win7 (& Win8.1/Win10/Ubuntu/ARCH/Debian if you include the dual boot and VMs) PC, I have a Win8.1 tablet on my nightstand and run Windows 7 and Debian on my laptop... but I kinda doubt that.

The MBPs have far far far (~100Wh vs. ~50Wh) Battery life, PCIe-based SSDs vs. (m)SATA, MagSafe... oh and they work OOTB in regards to a POSIX system. The only thing I'd consider genuinely *better* on the M3800 is the screen, and maye the non-backspace delete button :D

Huh... and here I've been hearing that CoreAudio makes everything pro audio so much better on Macs. I can't really complain on Win7, but I suppose the ASIO drivers for a lot of interfaces could be more stable...

Have you ever been at the store and wondered if there was anything else you needed to replenish in your fridge? Wouldn't it be great to pull up a webcam view of the interior right at that moment? Or how about making sure your oven and stove and iron are off? Or getting a video call on your smartphone when someone rings your doorbell while you're not home?

These are just a few of the things that I personally would find useful or at least interesting - I'm sure other people have entirely different lists of things that would be useful or interesting to them. However, in order to allow all of us to do the things we want, we need to first connect, well, pretty much everything to the internet.

It needs to be well-planned and secure, of course... which is why I won't be installing any of this stuff unless I've vetted it myself first.

I can't help but wonder how many others there are like me though. If there's a ton, dropping the free w/ ads tier and setting the premium price to $5/5€ would probably quadruple the number of subscribers over night... It's the carrot and the stick :p

$5 per month would be perfect, IMHO. Worth getting rid of the ads...

10€ on the other hand (there's no half-price student package here in Germany) is too much - I have a huge music collection that I'm still actively adding to, so theoretically I don't actually *need* Spotify, especially at home. Sure, I could afford 10€ a month, but I'd prefer to spend that on extra beer...

Okay that price is fucking impressive.

Tablets that run full-blown desktop Windows or Linux? At that price point, I'm assuming Android x86 tablets... prove me wrong with a link (please? If the damned things have at least 2gigs of RAM and run full Win8.1 I'll probably buy one right away, because my Win8.1 tablet is stupid huge at 11.6" - people look at me funny when I take it to the bathroom :p).

Also: this stick is ideal for people who don't want a full-blown HTPC in their living room, but also don't want to fuck around with "app-y" shit a la Chromecast or Fire TV Stick. Full Windows or Linux desktop with a keyboard and a mouse is great for living room usage... no limitations other than processing power, and with full hardware decode support (I'm assuming) for HD video, you're not likely to run into issues there.

"And in winter, how should a child cope with the neighbor who runs a gasoline-powered snow thrower up and down the whole block for free out of 1. altruism and 2. wanting to walk to the bus stop without having to dodge cars in the street? (I am said neighbor.)"

Just pawn that off on a kid and get the neighbors to chip in a little pocket money for him/her. Unless you truly enjoy running up and down the street with that snowblower.

That's incorrect. I can no longer sell dropped items on the marketplace and I've spent ~$100 on my account over its lifetime. It's something like spend $x in the last y days... The last thing I bought was CS:GO, so I can no longer use the marketplace (I just sell the stuff that drops in CSGO, I'm up to like $50 in Steam credit and I only played like an hour a week for about a year or so) until I buy a new game via Steam.

I think it's a step in the right direction though... towards the end I was also getting a lot of invites purely for trading's sake and it was starting to piss me off.

So... separate solar cell? I'm sure the actual picture taking part of the sensor would be more efficient if it was optimized for power saving than in this spliced abomination.

Is there a specific reason you're usuing a RAID controller with mSATA sockets instead of plain old SATA drives? Is this a uSFF system or something?

Oh sorry, I just meant that I spent a lot of time in forums and on Slashdot arguing with other neckbeards who, even back then, considered 1080p superfluous :D

Of course font size is different from pixel size - what I'm saying is that when there are enough pixels to smoothly render a font at a size that's unreadable for someone with perfect vision, it's highly unlikely you'll gain anything by upping the pixel density even further.

And why would you want to "upscale" visual elements from older designs intended for lower resolution screens? Unless they're vector graphics you'll need to interpolate and it'll look like shite. If you mean Retina-style rendering, well, meh... a lot of (GPU) work for very little gain.

I was one of the biggest advocates for FullHD displays on smartphones. I could and can easily tell the difference between 720p and 1080p on a 4-5" smartphone screen, and the legibility of small text is greatly improvied on 1080p screens of that size. However, at 1080p, it's most definitely good enough, even for my picky eyes.

There comes a point when text simply becomes too small to read, even if the pixel denisty is still high enough to read it.

As for video/images... I'd happily stick with 720p on a phone for that.

What, like "Autokill on/off"? Oh I would love that on Android... that would be fantastic.

For now though, it looks like I might be in the market for a phone with 3+GB of RAM - how fucking stupid is that?