can i have your stuff?

Plenty of fans out there who would queue up to lick the backside of those.

So many high end brands move their production to China sending blueprints of their lucrative products to sweatshops and then wonder why the market suddenly gets flooded with counterfeit/perfect copies. They only really have themselves to blame for selling out their own countrys workers in the name of more profit. +1 for making them foot the customs bill though, hopefully at a vastly inflated rate plus expenses.

Add the tech they use to create this Battlefield 3 simulator and swap their projectors for a rift and I think I might have a good reason to clear out the toolshed and remortgage the house, doubt the wife would appreciate the expense though.

is at least much more lucrative than mining bitcoin with only a GPU, AND you get whizzy laser effects and music to sleep to.

I have started using lastpass's automagic password creation doodah to randomly generate my passwords, I am of course (foolishly) trusting them to stay in business for the rest of my life and paying the measly $10 / sorry, now $12pa to keep them "safe". Is that safer than using the same memorable passwords (tiered for banking/work stuff/forum spamming/unimportant stuff) variations on the same theme just to memorise them? I dont know, SSO in a way but there comes a point in life where it all becomes too many to remember. What to do? For example, World of tanks did not allow me to use non alphabetic characters FFS, unbelievable how many times I use their "reset my password" facility as I cant remember it. Might just get a big bunch of post-it notes and put them around the monitor like my Bosses do.

Since I got a Roku with Plex thats all I do anyway, Works for me.

But learn whatever it takes to webify those embedded systems with utterly pointless interfaces to appeal to the new generation of people who wont even buy a loaf of bread unless it can be monitored by their mobile device. Now, off to the shop to buy toilet paper as my iWipe assroll monitor says that the bathroom is reporting only 3 slices left. Get off my........

with tribbles

Very Very Frightening

Convert them to SteamOS, I can buy hats while I am waiting for a balance update.

I have only ever had a few MKV's that made Plex hiccup but that was down to corrupt files. I do get a lot of files it misses but thats purely down to misnaming them. If you are happy to put yet another overpowered machine under your TV then XBMC is great but from a convenience point of view, get used to naming your files and use plex. I have a small 6Tb centos box feeding 2 Roku's, 3 PC's 2 Android devices, my macbook (even when working away with no additional configuration) and 5 friends with Rokus and Samsung smart TV's. It can take a little hands on to keep the Library in check but a good bulk renamer and some common sense soon has it all in order. I think that XBMC is great for the same people who would rather use an old PC with a few network cards in them to roll their own router/firewall over using a small power efficient router with a flashed firmware. Its good but not entirely scalable throughout the house without a lot of MySQL and config tweaking. Stick with Plex is my vote.

Finally a practical use for Graphene? (aside from speedo's of course)

Correct me if I am wrong (I am speaking of the UK but it must be similar for most countrys) but isnt it just one national grid broken down in to multiple inputs and suppliers? If I was to sign up to a "Green ecolec" supplier who claimed that they only use 100% renewable power it would actually only be my money that is going out to a renewable supplier, the electricity coming in to my house would still be the same electricity as if I had stayed with the bogymans coal powered generator. Its not as though they come and rewire your house to a different source is it? I can't really claim that 100% of MY electricity comes from renewable sources (unless I have solar panels and off grid) but I can claim that I support a supplier who invests 100% in renewable energy on my national grid. Which isnt a bad thing unless it costs me twice as much.

You have to think of the longer term returns, We Brits once sent our unwanted criminals off to a far flung inhospitable red land. Eventually they sent back Fosters Lager and Neigbours on TV. hmmm