Yes, ease of use and time are a big problem, as is strength and costs, both are issues on production based 3d printers as well, so don;t go thinking the big ones are better.

No, what many forget is that many people simply don't create much.
You can buy a small personal machine shop for your garage for about the price of a small 3d printer, you can also put together a nice woodshop as well. You can also buy tools to fix your car, or professional grade photo/video editors for photo and video editing. So why doesn't everyone have these? They have no need or want of them.

The only reason printers in the home took off because people found a use for them, or got them free with their computer. Kids could type and print reports for school, you could print off reports for work, etc... What purpose does the average person have for modern 3d printers? NONE. It doesn't matter if the price is $30, it's time consuming, fickle, technical, and expensive. Do you rally want to spend 8 hours, and $10 on plastic to make a vase you can buy at Walmart for $3. Of course not.

It doesn't matter how simple you make it, or how cheap, so long as it's easier and cheaper to just go buy the item you can print, it will never be on the kitchen counter. Get us somewhere close to Star Trek level replicators and yes, then we may see it, but until we get anywhere close to that, it's simply not going to happen in the average home. At the moment hobbyists and professionals are using them because they either need them or want to play with them, but the average home has absolutely zero use for one, anyone who says otherwise is riding the hype train and probably trying make a buck from it. Current 3d printers belong in labs, machine, hobby and fabrication shops, not the kitchen counter and it will remain that way for a long time yet.

*gay marriage backers (not foes)

Not only does marriage pre-date your religion, who do you think gives you the marriage certificate/license (hint, it's not your religion)? Since society dictates religion, it's society that defines marriage. If you doubt that, ask yourself when was the last time you stoned anyone. Many things listed in the bible and right by religion are illegal, including selling your daughter and slavery. Why is that? Because society decided to change it.

More importantly though, Prop 8 was NOT about granting gay marriage, it was phrased as gay marriage so opponents could push it easier, most of whom were from out of state. Prop 8 was about removing gay's right to a civil union, which they were already allowed to do. That's oppression, which what Eich supported and why the court struck it down. There is also word that this may not be what broke the camels back anyhow. He also supported anti-Semitic candidates, and they knew if that broke, the sh*tstorm would have been even worse.

And contrary to what many think, gay marriage foes are not celebrating, this wasn't good for anyone, but how would you feel about someone in power who actively tried to take away your rights? My guess is that you wouldn't exactly welcome them with open arms now would you? This wasn't ancient history, and this fight is still ongoing.

Wrong, Prop 8 did not maintain the status quo, it took away civil marriage from gays. A.K.A. oppression, which is why it was struck down in the courts.

As for Obama, he wasn't for it, but he wasn't actively trying to take it away from those who had it, which is what Republicans were after. And while they scream states rights, just about every Pub candidate called for a federal amendment to stop it when pushed.

No, this is exactly what anti-gays are using as a foundation lately to stop gay legislation, and the basis for "religious freedom" laws bills going up around the country. It's wrong, stop playing into it.

If you don't like something, you have a right to that opinion. You can say you hate me, my family, religion, this country, whatever... I'm okay with that. That is your opinion and that is me being tolerant.

He didn't express an opinion, nor did he spend money to announce that he disliked it, this man spent money to help take away someone's already given rights. Gays were allowed civil unions at the time of Prop 8, the goal of Prop 8 was to deny them that right. When you try to actively participate in taking away someones rights, you have crossed over from opinion, to oppression. That is why Prop 8 was shot down every time it went to court and that is what this man supported, publicly.

Shapeways does this, however they don't use DRM, because the file formats used in printing is/are standardized and usually open source formats. You could DRM an Autocad file, but how do you drm an STL file anyone can generate? They simply try and not allow for IP protected items to be uploaded or printed. Which is about all they can do.

Another issue is that anyone with a camera can now clone parts with some software. So while you may DRM the files, people can make their own files. It's similar to the RIAA trying to stop garage bands from playing protected songs. Technology has reached a point where anyone can create, and therefore, created content will have less and less value.

Yes, people have proposed it, and it will work about as well as it has for stopping movie piracy by putting DRM in Windows (probably a lot worse in fact).

Many fail to realize that there is a TON of home built 3d printers that use only open source parts/plans/software/hardware and common hardware used in other applications. In fact, there is a HUGE segment of the 3d printer community dedicated to building (only) open source designs that can be printed on open source printers (Reprap). In other words, you can build one from things found around the house/shop and an electronics lab/hackerspace/Radio Shack/Ebay/Amazon, so where exactly do you put this DRM? If there is no part that is specifically tailored to 3d printing, there's little you can do to regulate it.

My printers were each built for about $500 with parts easily scavenged or bought, using only open source and common hardware items. You may be able to tell me what I can print, but as far as installing DRM on it, good luck convincing the open source community on that. 2d printers are controlled by a small cartel of manufacturers and easily controlled, that isn't the case for 3d printing, which is still very much in it's infancy and heavily open source at the hobby/home level.

While I won't argue with the Blacks, they work great and I like them (they are not the same as other WD drives), but I don't agree with buying more expensive drives specifically for a longer warranty.

A drive doesn't drop dead upon warranty expiration. Taking this and the fact that prices drop so fast (ignoring the flood), you are doing the same as buying an in store, extended warranty, which have been shown time and time again to be a bad choice. If the drive survives the warranty period, odds are it will go a bit longer, by which point, you destroy any advantage you gained by a longer warranty. Besides, by the time that drive does fail, out of warranty, you can buy newer, faster, bigger, for less.

There was a whole line of Deskstar drives over many years, many of them were fantastic. It was one specific model using a new technology was bad/completely defective and that is where it got the reputation, but the others were great.

Agreed
Excluding Raptor and Black lines (which aren't entirely consumer grade drives), I've seen and had nothing but trouble from WD drives, and very few failures from Seagate, including my handful of 2 TB drives. When a customer loses a drive, it gets a Seagate, it's been that way for well over a decade. Even when I buy a new notebook, if it has a common WD, I swap it out as soon as I can (I repurpose them for non-mission critical external drives).

Something people need to remember,
These guys are using consumer drives in a corporate backup environment with a heavy, heavy duty cycle of nearly all writes, their results are pointless to pretty much anyone but them. Run an SSD in this environment and it would be very short lived. So while WD may work great in their environment, that doesn't mean it will in any other environment.

Hopefully things are better, but years ago, Toms was under a lot of scrutiny for false reviews, test scores and bullying smaller sites. Much of which they accused Intel of doing to them just a few years earlier. I haven't relied on them for much since.

While I trust a few sites for the most part, after working at a dotcom and seeing the bosses pay for reviews as well as work at a review site getting paid for such reviews, I take them all with a bit of hesitation. There is a LOT of money and free product flying around. As for Newegg and such... As mentioned, you have to read the reviews in some cases as many people shopping there are idiots.

Most of the sites mentioned are good, none really rate long term reliability, which comes with experience more than anything. Watching what those who have been doing it a while use in long term machines is a good indicator. There are a few companies, I simply won't buy from, no matter how great the reviews or even their support staff are (not needing to RMA is the best RMA).

Agreed, though there are cheaper ways to do it
Find a friend/business within driving distance, but at least half a mile.
You need to be far enough from fire, tornados and lightening to be usefull. While this won't save you from a hurricane or earthquake, if either of those destroy everything, your data will be the least of your concerns. Offer to host their backups in exchange.

I use a multi-stage approach.
Things I can get back easily (installers, movies, music and such), I backup to a local external, if I lose this, it's not a problem. I have it set to update by simply connecting the drive.
My large, important data is offsite, and is about an hours drive away with 24/7 access. The initial backup was done over LAN, and then moved to the new location, only updates are handled over WAN, which are incremental and done automatically through Crashplan Free. If things go severely south, an hours drive and I have my data back. I could even do a redundant backup with Google Drive or Dropbox for the absolute necessities. I have it set to back up my web server as well. Most of this was spare hardware, and since I split the data into necessity and disposable, I could use smaller, spare drives I had sitting around rather than a large drive matching my storage capacity.

One concession I make is I do a single drive image, at most, then do selective folder backups. Windows Vista/7/8 (and WINE) can easily top 20gigs of unnecessary data so stripping that out saves a lot of space. Yes, I need to reimage/re-install then restore but I don't have a problem with that, I prefer a clean system and you may no longer have a system or even that system to restore to. On Windows, that can make an image pointless anyhow. I not only don't have to worry about it not booting (because I know it won't) but it's also easier to determine if it is a working backup as it's clear what is and isn't there. It's just how I do it, to each their own and this may not be practical on a mission critical server, but works fine for home/small business use.

Above all...
As Raymorris and Fencepost (below) have said, it needs to be automatic, and Crashplan does this well. Crashplan will also inform you by email as to status of backups and alert you if one was missed. It has been the best, most reliable backup system I have used yet.

Some carriers are still selling phones with 2.2, and some are barely over a year old, some cheap tablets out of China are still coming with it as well.

Actually, in a way, yes.

Windows and Linux are a generic operating system designed to run on many devices and be easy for developers to make it and it's applications work across many machines. It's designed to compensate for different screen resolutions, processors, memory, and more.

Android isn't.
While people think of Android as being similar to Windows or Linux, it's not KDE versus Gnome or Win7 versus Xp either. Android is more like a very specialized motherboard bios/operating system/custom interface and each is hand made for that particular circuit board with little or no overhead for compatibility. It's a specialized embedded system, not a generic operating system. It's compiled not just on a per phone model basis, it's compiled and customized specifically for each carrier and frequency band as well, and it even goes beyond that. Android can't settle on how to handle storage, wants to boot, or even how to update itself. Then you have manufacturers trying to distinguish their phones from others... I like to tell people, take the worst parts of Windows (security), Linux (usability) and Apple computers (upgradability) and you get Android. It's too many people arguing about where to go, but with no one actually steering the ship.

Ask yourself this, how many updates a week does your computer get? Several a week? How about an iphone? Iphone 3's can upgrade all the way to IOS 5 (possibly IOS6). Now how about Android? Many Android phones are lucky to get a single security update before being end of life'd, much less an OS update, and if you do, there is a very real chance the update breaks something. Why is that? Manufacturers cannot write an update to all of their phones like Apple can, each has to be made for every specific model and carrier, which is expensive. This was a known issue with Android from the very beginning, but Google chose to ignore it (they have only recently started to address it), and don't even get me started on Android security (which is attrocious). While Blackberry understood modularity and looked professional on top and underneath, and Apple builds their phones from a traditional computer OS perspective (a generic system to cover many models), Android is pure anarchy, anything goes and ultimately users suffer, even if they don't know it.

So why is it popular?
Well that's easy, it's cheap. You can buy (without subsidies) an Iphone for $500 or an Android for $50 and let's be honest, they do the same things.

Before you start saying I'm biased, I'm actually an Android Developer (I work on roms mostly) and I use Android on a daily basis. I know several app developers, and one of their biggest complaints is compatibility.

Exactly, I had to explain yesterday to a customer why her "Windows" tablet couldn't run Outlook and, oh, was she angry.

Microsoft has done a pathetic job getting the public to understand the difference between the models. Many of those who bought them, feel as though they were caught in a bait and switch operation, which means not only does MS have few people wanting them, but they have a bunch of people angry over it as well.

Yes, 8.1 corrects this "oversight", that does nothing for those who spent all that beforehand.