Windows 7 also requires you to be a genius to actually find anything. Here is the guide to searching using complex queries: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb266512(VS.85).aspx Why the hell isn't a simple interface included? Windows generously suggests around six filters as standard and I imagine you're expected to guess the rest...

It's probably the oxygen free cabling. Who knew Monster were in the defence business?

If you choose to believe Bin Laden - certainly his opinion holds just as much weight as people who think they know why he did it - you can get answers.

A Reddit user had a good rundown of Bin Laden's own talks: http://www.reddit.com/r/WTF/comments/wcpls/this_i_my_friends_son_being_searched_by_the_tsa/c5cabqo?context=2

Note these are reasons for 9/11 rather than why he turned specifically, but it is certainly the occasion in the public's mind.

In particular:

I have no quibble with the material on there, I just find it a bit lacking in depth. The python examples you cite are a good example - they're good, but basic. It's the sort of stuff you'd be learning in a high school programming class. The problem is if you want to learn about something in more detail, you're stuck, you've got to go to a university site to get that information. Calculus is getting better, the multiple integration stuff isn't bad. I guess I'm just a bit picky when people tout Kahn as the be all and end all of education. The parent of my post got it spot on with the criticism videos - the idea of Khan is fantastic, but the execution is far from optimal and isn't necessarily the best way to learn. For Python, I found the official documentation to be stellar as is Learn Python the Hard Way (free online or a few bucks for a pdf).

Khan is rubbish once you need greater than high school level knowledge. Granted there are great introductions to fields like finance, but fields that, at first glance, appear to have lots of videos often aren't that useful. So yes, it's a nice resource and good for learning new things, but don't expect to learn very much on there. As a physics graduate, I'm much more inclined to view things on iTunes U or the various university homepages because the quality is good and the material is at a much higher level.

The problem (is it a problem?) currently is that the different providers have different strengths. Microsoft has very good non-satellite maps, I think they're prettier than Google and they have the massive bonus of being partners with Ordnance Survey in the UK. Anyone who lives in Britain will know that OS is the mapping service for outdoor people. Bing has also had aerial (45deg) view for a long time, way before Google woke up.

Open Street Map is highly variable, but the best maps (for instance, Berlin) offer a level of detail that is frankly astounding - down to benches and lamp posts. Crowd sourcing has both advantages and disadvantages, though I haven't seen any vandalism yet. The ability to export maps is also great for developers/data miners. Simply being able to download reasonable maps of the entire planet for free (minus 20GB) is fantastic.

And of course Google Maps is venerable, has a uniformly good interface, decent satellite imagery and great navigation. And the killer feature - integration with search results and directory enquiry information.

Horses for courses really. I wish that we could have Google's search capacity with Bing's graphics and OSM's level of detail, but that'll take time.

But neither do I want happy-go-lucky platform jumpers. I want a game with a solid story and quality production, something sorely lacking in App stores. That doesn't mean realism, that means a heavy dose of empathy, great voice acting and considerate level design.

I'm thinking games like The Longest Journey, Golden Sun or the early Zelda games where I genuinely felt for the characters. The Golden Age of Gaming really did exist. The only thing that's come close recently for me is Bastion.

As an owner of a Zune HD, I can attest to it being a great product let down by abysmal marketing and poor support from Microsoft. It was the only real competitor to the iPod Touch and one of a very small number of PMPs that has (had?) 64GB flash memory. If they'd released it properly in the EU and actually paid for advertising it might have fared differently.