I think it would help if you told us what kind of projects you would like to contribute or to learn more about. Are you into OS kernels, IDEs, Ray Tracing, sound editing, etc. Then people might be able to suggest a manageable open source project to your liking (one which you will be more likely to brave through the learning curve), and resources for that specific project.

While I understand the caveat that texts go directly to the cell phone (ie, purely "push"), what is wrong with using e-mail for IP based messaging? Or Skype?

Since IP is so generic, and you can just download an app for a new protocol (I use the term loosely), isn't it more of an issue of getting your group of friends to agree than it is for there to be a single industry wide standard?

Personally, I think the expectation by someone that others always be accessible by whatever form they want (texting, cell, e-mail) is more selfish than not having a text plan simply to accommodate said expectation.

So what stops them from using variety of real products without the paid placement to keep things realistic?

Having a disproportionate amount of a single company's products filing a scene, or in use by characters throughout the show, is also quite noticeable. Outside of going in a company store, can you give me an example of going somewhere and having a brand image being a noticeable part of of the experience? I can't even say going into my school's computer labs, filled with desktops from a single brand of would have qualified, and that was over a course of four years.

Yet something about the camera angles, prevalence in the world, choice of local contrast, etc. makes you notice Dell in V for Vendetta, for example.

Haven't experienced this with my 2009 unibody with an nVidia card on Lion, but it does not seem like I should be expecting to either.

In any case, I have Windows on bootcamp if bugs in Lion ever become an issue. Unlike Lion which only has partial OpenGL 3.2 support, I get full OpenGL 3.3 support on the windows side, so I'm on there for my graphics coding projects anyway.

Even if they are a generation behind in their GPU (I'm thinking mid to low-end GTX 4xx equivalent), that would still put them significantly ahead of XBox 360 and PS3 in terms of hardware. (Assuming other hardware is reasonably capable capable as well.) Considering how the Wii compared to the state of the art on its release, that seems the high end of something to reasonably expect.

If not mistaken, that would give them a two generation lead on the 360 and PS3 in terms of what they can actually program the cards to do. (Don't know the real term, thinking shader model though.) Think two generations in terms of a jump from DirectX 9 capable to DirectX 11 capable, not simply incremental GTX 2xx - 3xx card series generations. For starters, that would give them GPU tessellation in the "traditional" rendering pipeline, and real GPGPU capabilites (think CUDA, OpenCL, and DirectCompute), not just what you can shoehorn into shaders. Even the low of reasonable expectations, a simple DirectX 9 - DirectX 10 equivalent jump would give, them a lot of this.

I don't expect the hardware will be competitive to the Next Generation of XBox and PS systems, but even the low end of what to expect should still be significantly more capable than the 360 and PS3.

One of the things I have liked about the Wii is getting the games, and feeling like I have purchased a complete game. No "online passes", no resale penalties, not constantly feeling like I have to purchase additional DLC for the game to be complete. The simplicity of the Wii is what got me back into gaming, and the aforementioned aspects of the "Digital Market Place" being so integrated into the gaming experience, or at least how publishers exploit it, is what's driving me away.

To me, a true HD Wii with a modern GPU, decent raw processing power, and higher capacity media for games would be perfect.

That "selling a copy" did not stop working. Even with piracy, which has been around a lot longer than 10 years, it generates billions in revenue. It's more that it doesn't work for them in terms of the strict control they would like to have over your use of it. But for a sale, protecting a copyright and controlling use may overlap to a certain extent, but are very different things.

Copyright is not impossible to enforce to a reasonable extent. A system where revokable keys to copyrighted content would have to be provided to anyone able to pay some reasonable fee. Their device or application would stand up to a court assessment similar to the betamax and limewire cases (including risk for damages if it doesn't), and revokable keys would make such rulings enforceable enough. That would be enforcing copyright.

Licensing the ability to make devices that can access peoples' purchased content on the conditions that they will only function as content holders see fit is controlling use. That this scheme effectively supersedes any rights that a purchaser might legally have and, more than anything, I think has signified the shift to what could be described as an "Imaginary property" model. Since this model became prevalent with the rise DVD 10 years ago, that would coincide with your estimate.

I don't really see those "free as in beer" people as being all that different from the MPAA/RIAA. They both think they can define what property really means on the basis of the beliefs that suit them, actual laws (hopefully made without corrupting influences) that define such things and related rights be damned. They are just on the other side of the same coin.

I am not overly concerned about the content that is on my shelf being DRM-free. I am more concerned about that DRM being too big to fail. Examples: Blu-ray is cracked, but they have to live with it because it's just not practical to replace everyone's players and movie collections to close that hole. Same with the HDMI private key being out in the open. I just want devices for playback to be prevalent, and able to work with the content on my shelf even if I never had an Internet connection in my life.

That being said, all the other points you made are exactly why I will NEVER "purchase" a "cloud" copy of anything. It is reasoning that translates to the average joe pretty well, and they just might realize that for what they've spent on their purchases, they could have rented a stream the number of times they ended up watching them for a lot cheaper.

Yes, If you replaced your TV with Internet based services, you'd go over the cap. That is exactly the point.

For a family of four, each with their own shows, that would be thirty minutes a day per person. Not much even for people who do get outside, if we overlook the fact that it's a red herring. Up the quality of the video to something that is not full of block artifacts or smoothed to wax, ie something that resembles HD in not just video resolution but also actual picture quality, and that time goes down significantly.

Whether people should go outside more or not has no bearing on the fact that the cap is about inhibiting competition.

The last tablet I helped someone with was a Microsoft Signature from HP. I'll grant that the bloatware was cut down. Instead, there was a lot crap related to the HP side of the "experience". They still had their pen software, and a lot of it was some part of HP Touch, provided by some other company that might have otherwise put the software as a "basic" edition on a non-signature machine. Some basic functions, such as the screen being reoriented when rotated, were buried in this heavyweight, HP branded "Touch" experience, when they could have been provided by small, "you don't know they're there" device drivers.

It is good to know Microsoft realizes the damage PC manufacturers are doing to Windows brand by including bloatware, but having it wrapped it in a custom "experience" does not get rid of it.