And this is why Apple is still winning.

Microsoft needs to desperately flush the toilet of all the old. The fact that the Surface Tablet, a supposed walled garden that supports only Flash, but not Java, still needed to perform a Windows Defender scan after it's first update, proves it. They can't break out of their old ways, and they're still not trying.

When did power steering become a safety feature?? Personally, as a commuter who uses drives to a train every day, I'm all for getting a car that's cheap and efficient - and this one sounds perfect. Airbags make perfect sense to me as a safety requirement, but I don't see where traction control should be required - this is what insurance is for. I do see the mileage going down however once it's got the weight added to the doors to prevent passenger smush in side collisions.. and in this country, that means the passengers have to live through an SUV collision.

Latency that high is unacceptable - you can't use an IP phone with that kind of lag. You can't play games online, and I seriously doubt you could watch youtube with it. I'd call in again and escalate the issue. If they can deliver that with their contract, you're screwed.

$55/month - unlimited voice/text/data. And Cricket is trying hard to make sure that the rate they post is the rate they charge - so that $55/month is actually $55.00 - not the $117.23/month you pay to Sprint (in Colorado) when you're getting the $99 simply everything plan. If you live in a primarily Cricket area, your calls will be on Cricket's network first and foremost. If you're outside a native Cricket area, or in a city where MetroPCS is dominant, then you'll be using Sprints network with your Cricket phone - either way, no roaming charges, and the same flat rate. The choice of handset does define call quality - their new droid - the Huawei Mercury is worth considering - most of their other droids are just okay - good for non power users/non movie watchers. If you don't want the data plan at all, the basic talk and text plan is $35/month and they have phones that can do that, take pictures, Etc. One thing that people notice about Cricket is that their handsets cost more - this is because Cricket does not subsidize their handsets through contracts like all the major players do - so you have to pay for your handset, then pay the month fee to use it - but that's it. Cricket can also port your existing number over as well, and just about any Cricket dealer can migrate your contacts from your old handset to a new one.

In the 3D printer world, how you feed your plastic and how you melt (extrude) your plastic are the LARGEST problems - period - free software does the rest of the work, and the circuitry and such are all open sourced as well. This Buildatron group seems to be holding on real tight to their X-Carriage design, as well as their feeder mechanism and their extruder design - plus, I don't see any public distribution of the document anywhere - and basically put - this is a derivative work of the Prusa - and all of that stuff is licensed under the GPL Free Documentation License - so I gotta ask, who goes after them for this potential violation? And short of paying them for one of their (way overpriced) kits, has anyone gotten one and can show pictures of how they're actually extruding?

Sure does look just like my Prusa. I guess the funny reel in the back made it more tech - that and the laser cut wooden box. For those really wanting to build these, go hit reprap.org - I built mine entire from parts found at lulzbot and ultimachine - and I got the Arduino from Hong Kong for $25. See mine in action on my Piratefish blog - the future is here - and Buildatron doesn't have the lock on it! Oh, yeah, and for the wise guys saying I want one that prints other ones - well, they almost do. I want to build a Mendlemax in the worst way now...

Agreed. Kind of like Fox News...

On my iPhone4, I'm seeing a major slowdown under IOS 5 - the new "home screen" has major lag as well - there are times I press the home key and my phone's home screen doesn't come back. I'll give this a while to settle in, but I'm not getting that "good upgrade feel" that I've had in the past..

Okay, so what do I eat to get my metaclorian count up?

Tracing down something to an IP address can be a solid pointer for a courtroom - remember, if it's a jury trial, and it goes that far, you have to convince the jury, not the judge - this means a good lawyer and no smoking guns will get you off. If a common person has an IP that leads law enforcement to their doorstep, then that person is screwed. A good lawyer can make all the difference, but having a fairly diverse network with potential vulnerabilities could go a long way.

I've seen worse things - PenTeleData (ptd.net) puts their subscriber information into their reverse DNS. I'm just glad I don't use them. Does their doing this constitute a breech of their promise to not provide customer identifying information? I think yes, regardless of how you defend against being tagged with your IP, it can still give out a lot more than you'd want to share.

This block, 24.229.69.0/24 is owned by ptd.net – and this ISP, located in Eastern PA, puts their customers names in the reverse lookup of their IP address. Tell me that these folks don't get more than their fair share of P2P lawsuits and targeted advertising.

24.229.69.2 : cpe-static-jpjayassoc-rtr.cmts.all.ptd.net
24.229.69.3 : cpe-wifi-subwaytilghman-145.2.1-ap.cmts.all.ptd.net
24.229.69.4 : cpe-static-aestheticsurgery-rtr.cmts.all.ptd.net
24.229.69.7 : cpe-static-thecontigrpmdm2-rtr-cmts.all.ptd.net
24.229.69.8 : cpe-static-apa612wlindenst-rtr.cmts.all2.ptd.net
24.229.69.12 : cpe-static-ramadainnkiosk-rtr.cmts.all.ptd.net
24.229.69.15 : cpe-static-cntyoflehighgovtcntr-rtr.cmts.all.ptd.net
24.229.69.51 : cpe-static-westendpharmacy-rtr.cmts.all2.ptd.net
24.229.69.52 : cpe-static-bnaibrithapartments-rtr.cmts.all2.ptd.net
24.229.69.55 : cpe-static-adultmedgeriatics-rtr.cmts.all2.ptd.net
24.229.69.56 : cpe-static-cysticfibrosis-rtr.cmts.tv2.ptd.net
24.229.69.57 : cpe-static-stanleywest-rtr.cmts.all2.ptd.net
24.229.69.58 : cpe-static-panylentzengineering-rtr.cmts.all2.ptd.net
24.229.69.59 : cpe-static-drhabig-rtr.cmts.all2.ptd.net

I'll nominate Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back. R2D2 mistakes a power port in the flying city for a data port. Droid blows smoke, tosses a fit, then plugs into data port shortly thereafter. BS.

SyFy is infuriating. I loved Caprica and all that is/was Stargate - sure, they all had their highs and lows, but it was still decent storytelling, enjoyable, and worlds more intelligent than wrestling. My only hope is that some other network starts picking up the shows that SyFy deems unprofitable - if nobody does, we're going to fall into a "sci-fi" vacuum again, and some real garbage will start to creep in before anything really good comes along.

One simple solution I can see for this is forcing a certain amount of up time on the servers to avoid charges that make short-use less desirable. An example - if I want to spin up multiple parallel servers for 1 hour each, I can get 10 servers for a few dollars. That's a blink in terms of usage, but a lot of power for a short time - there's IO, provisioning, transfer, Etc., and real costs incurred on Amazon's side of things - and in terms of payback, Amazon probably makes more money if those 10 servers stay online for at least a couple-hours each. If someone makes a server run for short burns, they could employ a simple grace system - you get 4 systems an hour, and then get charged $1 for each create/shut performed unless the systems stay up in excess of 4 hours. This way, folks can feel their way in as newbs without taking a hit, but abuses could then pay a premium for doing things with behaviors that appear to be more malicious than kindly. Something along those lines could curb abuse - but I must agree with other folks' posting to some extent - it's not Amazon's place to enforce proper Internet behavior. Profiting from a slightly less abusable pricing model is probably the way to go - as long as they don't kill their customers or send business away.

Palo Alto Networks (www.paloaltonetworks.com) happens to have the the technology to do exactly this - plus lower the bitrate based on the user (integrated LDAP). They can even proxy SSL sessions, decode content, detect applications (or data loss) and act accordingly. Kinda scary really, but awesome power...

Actually, Australian "Powerful Owls" eat 200-350 possums each per year - bring them in, or better, maybe Spotted Owls... Note: Change thread to "Life imitates Futurama"