If you live in LA you can surf and ski on the same day. You enjoy a mild-dry climate instead of a hot and humid Texas climate (at least in the summer). Authentic ethnic food is far easier and cheaper to find in LA than in Dallas. The same "LA" arguments apply to the Silicon Valley. California cities are a great place for bicyclists, but in Texas bicyclists are being moved down with big ass trucks like they're some sort of terrorists. I can tell you from my personal observations that a small Bay Area city like Berkeley or Oakland, has far more bicycle paths than San Antonio, a Texas city of 1 million and one of the fattest in the nation.

.. simply because the OEM disabled MSE/Defender and instead shipped the PCs with a trial version of Norton or some other commercial suite? At some point those trials expire, and there could be a lot of people who neither bought the full version nor enabled MSE/Defender.

A little correction. In the last few years, Alpha hardware wasn't being updated, but nobody was beating Alpha when it was alive and developed. Once Compaq bought DEC, they simply let Alpha die on the vine. Compaq, a very x86-centric company, had not interest in proprietary Unix/RISC solution. They apparently bought DEC simply for the DEC customer's contact book.

While I normally prefer MacOS X to Linux, MacOS X 10.4 was the last MacOS X version that was officially supported on my dual-USB G3 iBook. I didn't mind it because 10.4 is still a nice OS, but some time later, like 10 years ago, I realized that getting the latest software, such as Octave, we getting increasingly hard for this OS. Finally, Mozilla announced that Firefox 3.6.28 was the last web browser supported on OS X 10.4 a few years back. At that point, I was left no choice but to install Debian.

I disagree about BB. People who are not nerds continue to shop at Best Buy. Best Buy will not price match Amazon and Newegg, so the argument about their prices not competitive is kind of moot. It's also quite reassuring for many people to see and inspect such big household items like washing machine, TV, or refrigerator before buying one.

They could have "gone back to their roots" by dumping all the common electronics that you can get anywhere and addressing the do-it-yourselfers by hopping on the robotics/Arduino bandwagons.

They could, but that would seriously downsize the scale of their operations. For example, in San Antonio, a city of +1 million, they have near a couple of dozen stores. There is not enough enough demand for DIY or hands on projects to keep all those stores open. They could afford to run at most one or two at best.

By the way, it's not correct that every mobile i7 has 4 cores. The low power i7 CPUs have only two cores. Considering that Broadwell is focusing on low power parts (less than 30W TDP), there will not be a quad core Broadwell Core i7. If you need a quad core i7, then you have to get the Haswell part.

If Americans were required to carry a dash camera for insurance claims, I am sure you would have seen on youtube plenty of the American road stupidity too.

The dash cams simply prove that Russians are the kind of people who tend to cheat the system, be it the government or an insurance company, if you take their word without a recording. Probably a result of 70 years of living in a massively corrupt country where everything is a state property and therefore can be stolen. Sometimes I think that the millions killed in repressions during the Stalin era WERE NECESSARY to run a tight ship in USSR. As soon as Stalinist repressions ended, corruption and mafia spread like a hydra in USSR.

Russia is simply showing its true colors. "Homesexual" is pretty much a swear word in Russia culture.

Many people in the West think that Putin is oppressing the democracy-loving Russians, but in reality, 90% of Russian MPs, most mayors, all governors, the military, and the executive branch of Russian government think like him and support him. Most people who live outside of the liberal Moscow and St Petersburg cities also support him. This law wouldn't pass without and overwhelming popular support.

Actually, Russian drunk driving laws have been getting tough too. 0.0356% BAC is considered DIU (0.08 in USA)

I just got myself a new Samsung Galaxy Tab S 10.5 a month ago. It came with Kitkat, and there is no option to upgrade. I don't know if this is due to vendors' lazyness or because it takes so long to port the OS to all the different devices that can run it.

To be fair, after a few weeks of using Kitkat, I am perfectly happy and don't lose my sleep over the upgrade.

There are only two good travel shows, anything with Anthony Bourdain and with Andrew Zimmern.

Just don't go to the movie during the first few weeks of its release. Wait a month and then watch it in a half empty movie theater on a Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday. That's what I do, and noise hasn't been an issue.

Indeed. Going to movies could be a highlight of a week (or day) for some in the 80s and 90s. But nowadays there are so many more ways to kill your time..

I understand why the prices at the theater bars is such a problem. The movie theater is not a restaurant, coffee, or an ice cream shop. I don't understand how the society has gotten to the point where people can't enjoy watching a movie without gulping a supersize bucket of a carbonated sugary drink with a bag of popcorn. Instead of spending your money on this junk, just have a nicer dinner before or after movie.

And I don't know why you think that everyone should go watch a movie with someone. I for one a fan of independent and international cinema, something my friends or family do not always enjoy or have time for. So the cost of paying 10 bucks per movie to see it on a big screen does not seem so high.