Funny... you clearly seem to care... the person that responded to my original post seemed to care since he asked...

I haven't wasted anything... unless you think that my life is somehow less fulfilling without shiny Apple toys... take your own advice and get a life fanboi.

I've disliked Apple and Steve Jobs since for a variety of reasons since the early 90s.
1) They crushed the Mac clone market
2) Until switching to Intel's CTD chips,they sold inferior hardware for bloated prices to their legions of loyal fans.
3) Jobs/Pixar/Stock options
4) iTunes

Amazon provides solid hardware at great prices, they allow me to copy PDFs directly to my Kindle via a regular, 99 cent USB cable, they provided free instant videos to Prime Users, etc, etc, etc.

Apple will not get a penny from me at long as they insist on controlling everything via iTunes and selling proprietary crab accessories like cables for $40.

I don't own a tablet yet. I refuse to give Apple any money, and other tablets didn't impress me.
I like that this thing is only 7" and will fit into an inside suit jacket pocket.
I was seriously looking at the BB Playbook, but the software just isn't there yet.
This was a no brainer for me.
The Kindle Fire will make a nice media consumption device.

I already have a 3G kindle for reading books.

Verizon uses VDSL as part of their FIOS service in apartment buildings if they can't get access to run fiber to the apartment. This usualy limits bandwidth to about 30Mb downstram and 4 or 5 Mb upstream.
If they switch to VDSL2 then I may finally get the full 35/35 speeds I'm paying for.

Freshman year in college. Our dorm rooms were wired with 10Mb ethernet and pathworks.
We had accounts on a couple of VMS boxes that were exposed to internet using a couple of T1 lines.
Don't remember the first graphical browser I used.

I actually like my Capital One MC.
It's one of the few credit cards that doesn't charge a fee for international transactions.
I save 2-3% over using my Amex whenever I travel abroad.

nt

Revenue != profit.
GM had revenues in the 100+ billion range when it needed to be bailed out.
McAfee's net income was 172.21 million; at that rate, it would take over 50 years to make back their money.

WTF are they thinking. Granted they're sitting on a pile of cash, but this is silly.
If I were an INTC shareholder I would be pretty pissed off.
If they were looking for something to do with the cash, they should have just paid out a nice dividend.

nt

Damn it Cartman, stop saying Hella.

Skip the middle man.

Newton was a devout bible scholar and a subscriber to the idea of Arian Heresy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arianism/

Copernicus was a priest.

What's your point?

Religious believers/advocates doing science is still science. Science is a method.
Newton didn't discover calculus or the laws of motion in the bible or the koran. He observed and experimented; he was doing science.

When religion puts a person on the moon, or when a priest receives schematics for a new invention via divine inspiration, or when a faith healer cures anything in a controlled environment then perhaps I'll start listening.

Science works; science delivers the goods. That's the difference.