I do do my part.

I bought cable and HBO for the 2 months it was on.

Last monday, I canceled cable, because it was over.

I also download it every week, but I don't believe that I count amoung pirates as I have paid to watch it.

They should allow digital streaming (in 1080) the moment it airs for $price/episode tho.

Simple grade 3 math explained why the shares went down. It's hard to justify that kind of multiple of earnings. Their income growth rate makes it unlikely it'll ever sustain that kind of value. It's got nothing to do with generational shifts to mobile.

Facebook is different than Google, very different. Facebook is one well developed web app, with remarkable popularity. Google is founded on the strengths of their search engine. Search is key, search is where you start. Search means you're looking for something, and susceptible to being introduced to something else that you might not have been looking for. Facebook is a tool, an application. Ads in applications diminish my experience with my application, ads in my tools make me not use said tool.

Tho I feel I'm not actually pirating it.

I paid for the Cable Subscription required to get access to HD HBO for the period of Game of Thrones.

I like the show and want to pay for it, I want them to make more of it.

I also download it every week to archive a copy, because it's less hassle than pulling it off my PVR.

It bugs me that AMC also gets money for my liking Game of Thrones, and that HBO gets money for other crap from my liking Game of Thrones. I don't want gritty political dramas, I don't want witty comedies; I want good Fantasy and good Sci Fi. I will pay for it.

I hope everyone out there that only downloads it, finds a way to contribute to the economic success of the project; to encourage it to keep going. Rather than the way of Rome.

There is a fundamental shift in the underlying business models. (Thank goodness)

a) No longer is the only source of getting a song, buying an album. Now, if you like a song, you buy the song for 1.29, rather than the album for $20 from HMV or wherever.
b) Social media and word of mouth trumps advertising and corporate presentation. It's much harder to convince your audience to spend the $20 for the album with 1 mediocre song, and it's much easier for your audience to talk amongst them selves and realize that the album isn't worth it.

c) Thanks to the digital age, the industry is shrinking. Same for newspapers.

A large portion of the size of the industry was the overhead necessary to distribute physical media. I'm not sure what %, but I'm certain it was significant. This business value is gone and/or going now. What you're left with is the value of the purely creative side, some marketing, some overhead.

If the value of a newspaper in 1990 was $100M, and $60M of that could be attributed to the capital & overhead required to actually produce and deliver the newspaper; now it's 2012, and after inflation the same company finds itself worth $40M because they've lost the need to maintain the infrastructure to do the physical delivery. The same is true for Music (tho not yet for movies, although coming) A very large portion of the value of a music distribution company was the distribution part. That's gone now, thank goodness.

We just need the industry to adapt to the new mode where creation is harder than delivery, because right now I feel like we're not being served well by record company A&R.

But that's just me

Ultima, Bards Tale, how many of these games are franchises bought by EA which sits on them and doesn't develop the franchise?

Because MS has done such a good job of all their online offerings to date?

I'm afraid that MS grabbing yahoo would mean the death of yahoo. Mind you, I haven't used yahoo in any meaningful way really ever. The internet, and the world are better off with Yahoo being Yahoo. We need more companies driving the internet, not less.

MS buying yahoo would be a bad call for MS as well. They don't need to spend more billions down a path of online presence than they're already haemorrhaging billions down, MS needs to dramatically re-think it's commitment to the interconnected world or face their own crisis eventually; but that's another story...

First business (independent ISP in 1996) didn't go so well, but cashed out for what I put in. Later on it failed and some people lost money.
Second business (Internet Consulting) also didn't go so well, belly up in 1998
Third business sold for $10M in 2006.
Starting fourth company now. Hope to sell it in 3 to 4 years, once the viability of the business plan is proven.

If you have an idea, DO IT!!! Manage your risk exposure appropriately, but really - you can always start small. Just DO IT.

The war in Afghanistan is a direct result of american soil being attacked. I'm Canadian, and our troops are (rightfully) there in support of our American friends. The taliban government harboured Al'Queda, including those who did the 9/11 attacks. By allowing their territory to be used in the attack they committed an attack on all of Nato. The only surprising thing (to me) about all of this is that instead of devoting the bulk of your military resources to nailing down and hunting for the perpetrators of these attacks, your government went off and invaded Iraq instead.

The taliban still need to be destroyed. Afghanistan still needs massive amounts of reconstruction. For all the resources that have been applied, more still need to be applied. We are not in Afghanistan to prop up a fledgling democracy, we are not there to promote human rights. We are there to destroy a fundamentalist movement, and more effort needs to be spent in order to succeed.

Or we can let Afghanistan fall, again. They'll harbour enemies of the west, again.

No doubt MS's tactics during the height of the v4 browser wars were low, but...

A web browser is an integral part of the operating system of any modern user-based computer.

Sure, ship Windows without IE. Ship it without any browser, or for that matter http tool. The Microsoft implementation of the ftp command line tool should probably be removed too.

IE bites, but a browser *is* an integral part of an operating system. (I won't buy a cell phone without one!)

I just wish anti-virus was too.