That's understandable - they're mostly a hardware company, which historically have lower margins than software companies.

Having said that, compare:
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=AAPL
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=MSFT

21.15% vs 29%

I watch Movies and TV shows all the time on my iPad, it's a great portable media player for the bedroom, kitchen, or on a plane.... at home with basically any format using AirVideo, or over an internet connection via Netflix, or (of course) iTunes. While flying Virgin America recently I could basically use the airplane's WiFi and watch any Netflix show I wanted instead of the crappy in-flight options.

The recent update of Netflix also added support for the video out cable.

It's a pretty good portable media player. A laptop is more versatile, but it's much bigger and heavier.

Yep, no crisis at all right. Easy to find jobs. We didn't waste billions of taxpayer dollars "bailing out" businesses. Not sure if that was your primary point that it didn't exist, but putting "economic crisis" in quotes seem to indicate it...

The bailouts have been working. Yes, we have lower job numbers than desirable, but that's arguably because the stimulus wasn't big enough.

Because we should all be just happy that we have a president who has wasted billions of taxpayer dollars, supports a supreme court nominee vowed against true freedom of speech and supports unsustainable programs. Right?

I note that the bank bailouts were accomplished under Bush.
I have no idea what you're talking about regarding Kagan or Sotomayor, and i've been following both FOX and other outlets' opinions of her. Many conservatives are supportive of Kagan.
As for unsustainable programs, I assume you are referring to Medicare and Social Security? What would you propose be done with them?

News flash. News sources are biased. It isn't new. Look at MSNBC, heck, look at the Guardian which TFA is taken from. The Guardian doesn't even make any claims to be balanced or fair.

MSNBC has some left wing opinion shows, a right wing morning show, and pretty much run of the mill NBC news otherwise.

I venture that your views above have demonstrated a number of falsehoods mixed in with truths, and some debatable points. You might want to sort out which from which.

Err, they saw the ad during the Oscars and read about it in the paper prior to that. Neither would have any idea what an SD card or USB is; we share photo and vids via email or MobileMe , and even that doesn't work well with my Aunt since she doesn't have a PC. We wind up mailing photos and stuff.

I don't like being "family tech support" so no, I didn't push this on them, but apparently your worldview requires you to believe that I'm already a fanboi and thus not worth listening to.

A walled garden isn't required, never said that it was, only that I appreciate Apple's for removing bullshit from my computing and communications devices.

With utterly crap user experiences. No thanks.

Apple wants to control the world's premium hardware devices (and how they are used).
Google wants to control the world's information.

Only one of these visions frightens me.

I think the folks attacking Apple have as much of a track record of being consistently and intentionally wrong. Case in point.

For example, both my Mother and my Aunt, in their 60's, want an iPad. They are not fangrrrls. One has a Mac and would prefer the pad, the other doesn't use PC's a lot but would like a simple, portable device for email and internet, and easily sharing photos of my family (since she lives in Europe).

As for the walled garden, I'd say the motives are mixed. I (and many people I know) actually like walled gardens, in some circumstances, if it helps remove bullshit from my life. Not all circumstances, of course.

I do agree the blocking of iPad -> iPhone tethering is crap, but I can't tether on AT&T as it is.

As I've said elsewhere, I fly regularly, and until this weekend, the TSA, while generally surly, has not been as much of a hassle as most people here that swear off flying think it is. Yes, I'm a white Canadian, so it colours my experience, but I don't think that makes it worth dismissing.

I flew the day the airports reopened after 9-11, through the shoe bomber incident, the liquid bomber crap, and now this fire cracker asshat. I do think the TSA needs to change it's policy on responding to terrorist threats, and avoid these panic-stricken restrictions, like the ones this weekend, or 2006's liquid/gel restriction. They are pure theatre.

But usually, after the initial slow down, things get quite manageable and efficient at security checkpoints. For every anecdotal horror story, there are dozens of regular travellers that continue to travel this way, and it's gotten much more efficient than back in 2001-2002. The TSA needs to improve, absolutely, but I think many people that swore off flying years ago have imagined a beast far worse than the reality.

One can stop flying because they don't like being patted down and searched, and that's fine. It's a tradeoff.

But I also believe that it is politically impossible for the U.S. to drastically change their philosophy of airport checkpoint security, in spite of your best efforts to contact your congressman about this matter. The political climate is way too polarized. Minor adjustments will probably be achievable though. And I really hope this weekend's restrictions are lifted, the current news seems to indicate it will after Tuesday.

If you got patted down as missed your flight, you certainly didn't show up to the airport early enough. It adds maybe 10 minutes to the security process at most airports. I'd also note that missing a flight is a fairly minor inconvenience.

I think heightened inspection is generally a good thing, and a minor inconvenience. There are aspects I disagree with (liquids/gel restrictions, and this weekend's nothing-on-your-lap fiasco). But random inspections and pat downs, to me, make a lot of sense for this mode of travel.

Sure. And there are lots of Russian, Indian, and Arab colleagues are also Canadian and U.S. citizens, and really don't have problems with the TSA. I do know some dual citizens of countries such as Canada + Lebanon that have problems with CBP, but that's a different agency.

My point is that there are a number of people that refuse to fly because of TSA fears. And I think that's been overblown, generally. Until this past weekend, when they basically crippled inbound U.S. travel (some family members are still stuck in Toronto).

I fly regularly. It's really not that bad. I've never had a problem at the checkpoints, even when I'm randomly selected for a detailed search. Even U.S. CBP has been courteous when I cross the border.

This last hour sitting bullshit is rather fresh, of course.... but the TSA's measures aren't much of a hassle to date.

FWIW, Oracle takes about 30 minutes to install to vanilla state & create a basic database.

The big problem with VMs is image proliferation. Package-level management, like RPMs, etc. still is essential to understand versioning dependencies; virtualization does not fix that problem.

Srsly. I'd like to know.

I've tried Conan, LOTR, Warhammer, and Eve. Eve was cool but different playstyle. Warhammer was also cool but the social aspects were botched IMO and it's too PVP focused (though I still have an account). LOTR is pretty close, admittedly. Conan didn't click with me.

The only MMO that looks like it might really give Blizz a run for their money is Bioware and the Old Republic.

Between Malygos & The Nexus, Obsidian Sanctum, and the fact that Ulduar is , er, quite huge, I think there's some sour grapes there.

The new Colesium 10/25 raid has some quite fun encounters; Faction Champions in 25 is a fun grawl, and Twin Val'kyrs has a unique twist. Of course, this is all to get people to gear up for Icecrown, so there's not another Sunwell debacle where most people don't get to see that content.

I don't get the bitterness about grinding, it's inevitable that something new will always be added - you never will "win" the game. The only reason there is to go hardcore or to grind it out is to be "first". And with the achievements / title system, you get to brag about it afterwards, if that's your thing.

While in principle, I agree, it's unclear what level of "free" involvement one expects from a standards organization.

"Pay to play" standards organizations have for long been the norm - including the W3C. The IETF, while not pay-to-play, is certainly funded by large organizations.

So, in their cases, while you don't need to pay to implement the standard, you do need to contribute to the standards organization costs (not trivial) to participate in forming the standard.

In short, organizing teams of people costs money, and someone has to foot the bill. That's either a background benefactor, or its a published process for participants.