Microsoft has been controlling computers for years by flexing its muscles.

- 22-26 minutes maximum playing time per side.
- Rumble. Especially when it came pressed into the record.
- Scratches. A click or pop was forever. Often with the very first playing.
- Warpage. This was especially a problem after 1969-1972, when records became thinner. (Thank you RCA, for that "Dynaflex" nonsense.)
- Playing a phonograph record was a fiddly business. Extracting the record from its jacket and inner bag without getting fingerprints all over it (which could lead to more clicks and rumble). Cleaning the record surface with a brush before playing. You took all those precautions because you didn't want to make things worse, but it was rather like pissing in the wind, as the saying goes. No matter how great your cartridge was or how light your tracking force, your records would inevitably wear, especially your favorites.

Obviously, I'm not in the demographic that wants vinyl today. I was never a DJ (not in the context of a dance club, anyway), and I have no nostalgia, false or otherwise, to bring me back to the medium.

But I can't help but wonder if the problems that plague CDs today parallel the problems that vinyl in its heyday had. Everything I mentioned above were the reasons I was so quick to embrace CDs. (And if you've ever heard Ry Cooder's "Bop 'Til You Drop" or Dire Straits' "Brothers In Arms," you know exactly how wonderful CDs could sound.) But, it was a reaction, and I'm wondering if things like DRM and the "loudness wars" are the reaction people who are migrating to vinyl are having.

I have no first-hand knowledge of the condition of the computers involved in the story.

But as a student completing college in 1990, I lived in a small one-bedroom apartment, and smoked perhaps 3/4 pack a day. At that time I had owned a Macintosh II with a 13" AppleColor display for the past year and a half or so.

One day I noticed that the display had become somewhat dim. On closer inspection, the glass looked as if it had been fogged over, and so I fetched some Windex and a paper towel to clean it. What came off beggared belief. The paper towel was covered with a gooey brown sludge. On a hunch, I opened the case of the display and found that everything inside was similarly coated with that brown gunk. The thought of taking the thing apart and washing the chassis in a microsonic cleaner crossed my mind, but I decided to leave well enough alone as long as it worked, washing the exterior case instead.

Oddly, the Macintosh II itself seemed to be fairly free of that crud.

Nonetheless, this is why I haven't had a cigarette since that day.

It amazes me that there are still people out there who are afraid of vaccinations. They are an important tool in preventing disease, and without them many of us would have died before we reached the age of 5. Just because a vaccine may cause adverse reactions in a tiny percentage of people does not make it bad -- for every life they take, they save many millions more. Vaccinations need a certain percentage of the population to take them to be effective at stopping disease outbreaks. Not submitting to vaccinations is socially irresponsible and selfish.

So why are you still smoking? You surely realise that it has no up sides? I quit a couple of months ago after ~10 years smoking, best decision I made in ages.

A netbook with Chrome OS is the perfect solution for companies with employees that need to access their company's intra/extranet while working in the field. Most of the security is already done, all IT has to do is restrict them to a set of the company's URLs and they're good to go.

I don't see it as anything other than a novelty toy for other consumers, though. But then I don't see the point of netbooks, and people buy them, so I'm probably wrong.

I guess Opera's release and development cycle(s) is why it is so popular!

Actually, Opera doesn't have nightlies. Weeklies at best most of the time. And there's no "bleeding-edge" build available. They have the next major version cooking apparently, but they aren't sharing anything until they have exhausted 10.x it seems. Firefox and Chrome, on the other hand, have nightlies of both current and future releases.

The article includes a video on how to cyanosear and cyanorender duck, doesn't it?

(blink)

Never mind.

The 360 is by no means a new console, where every component goes at a premium price. If Microsoft is still losing money on every sale, they must be doing something wrong.

...for identifying people who are frightened of being identified as being frightened.

> ...especially the fear in relation to criminal acts...

Bullshit. Someone whos is afraid that customs will catch him smuggling lizards will smell no different from someone who is afraid of flying (the lizards might, though).

Combined with Bomb Detecting Dowser Rods, what could possibly go wrong?

It's a popular and wrong sentiment that Republicans are connected with "big business" and Democrats are connected with Hollywood. Clearly both parties are in bed with big business (see Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, Barack Obama). Democrats just have the advantage of support from prominent figures in Hollywood and the old media, but that doesn't at all means that they somehow have no inclination to cater to big business any less than do Republicans.

No. I didn't. But if I'm going to have to hear an asshole in the administration speak for four to eight years, I'd rather have to hear one who's articulate than one who can barely put two words together to make a coherent sentence.

"Slut Wars, the force unleashed on your Wii Wii"

Say it out loud and you can't help but notice that "mature games on Wii" is an absurd, even oxymoronic, phrase.