Zediva tried something like this - they actually put physical dvds in a player and rented you output of the player exclusively. The studios got a judge to shut them down. As you say, it's price discrimination - studios want more money for streaming rights because they can, and they've gotten the law on their side.

As speeds have increased, data caps have decreased. What good does gigabit do you on a 250GB/month data cap? You'll just blow your data cap streaming 4k.

It's so true about the power supplies! My friend got a new computer and gave me his 5-year-old one (cuz I fix them up for relatives), and it's an HP. It has a Core 2 E-something (2ghz low power chip), and the power supply was a really old style 250W Bestec. It makes this grinding thumping sound like old machinery used to, and has no no sata power cables, so they used sata adapters for the hard drive and burner. So there you have it - 5 years ago HP was selling 3-year-old tech with a power supply from the last century. Sure, it saves costs, but consumers eventually figure out you're selling crap. I put in a power supply that didn't sound like cows were being grinded up and a SSD and gave it to my parents, but seriously, when it comes to computers, you are so much better building your own. Even Apple only uses slightly better parts, not the best, and they totally gouge you on the price of those iMacs, my god.

From ZDI advisory:
Vendor Contact Timeline:
10/11/2013 - Case disclosed to vendor
02/10/2014 - Vendor confirmed reproduction
04/09/2014 - Original predicted disclosure (180 days)
05/08/2014 - ZDI notified the vendor of the intent to publicly disclose
05/21/2014 - ZDI publicly disclosed

Took them 3 months to reproduce and then, even after confirmation, they just ignored ZDI!

Not to mention that if your PC was built in the last 7 years, you can probably just slide in a new $150 graphics card, and you'll be ahead of XB1/PS4 again.

Also, OUYA's failure doesn't translate to PC. The PC is an existing platform with a huge library and continued developer support. Did you notice how most big Xbox 360/PS3 publishers shunned PC in the early years, citing piracy concerns? We had the exact situation you're describing with indie titles and pretty much no AAA support for many years, and PC gaming just kept growing. I think the success of Steam single-handedly made all the big players turn their heads and realize they were missing out on huge profits by ignoring PC, and the piracy concerns were overblown. Now we see almost every big game get simultaneous Xbox/PS/PC release.

"... land missiles mostly operated by amateurs ..."
rofl, my driver's license doesn't make me pro?

Why would you want to do that? That's going to get him p0wned by the guy with metal helmet again.

Reading the reviews from developers who bought and used Google Glass, most of them say the same thing - it's not ready. You need an Android phone, and it's sort of an awkward extension of the phone. There aren't any killer apps for it because the APIs are not ready (it's mostly just popping text messages on the glass). I don't have Google Glass, but that's what I gleamed from the descriptions. The major reasons to get it seem to be for: 1) developers to get a head start on developer (on the belief that it will hit it big on a future rev) 2) journalists so that they can write about it 3) people with $1500 burning a hole in their pocket 4) people who want to brag to their friends (or brag to anonymous people on the Internet because we all know what a great satisfaction that is)

$500 only? That's not even enough for 10% of the stipend given to a single women's advocacy intern, and GNOME needs to sponsor 17 of 'em. You need to dig deeper!

Years before they redesigned the part, they also sent key covers and service announcements to all the dealerships, although they made it seem like a minor thing, so the key cover distribution was sort of spotty. I'm sure this was the work of these two guys also. Uh-huh. And then you have to ask, how did these two guys know it was faulty and seriously so in the first place? Most likely, warranty repair reports. The key cover was the quick fix. When they got more reports, they redesigned it. Who handles the warranty and repair reporting? And when they get reports, I'm sure they try to test and repro - you wouldn't send out key covers to all dealerships w/o testing it at all, right? - who handles testing reported parts defects and the quick fixes (like key covers) to them? And when something spans this many departments, I do not see any way there are not at least some high level managers, possibly VPs or even higher, involved to direct the effort and approve the expenditures.

Same as if you're using that 1970s car to transport that kidney or as a electric generator for your nuclear power station - you sign a support contract w/ the manufacturer to cover that, or you're out in the cold.

But realistically speaking, you could just keep using XP. If you're not surfing the 'net on IE w/ it, then most of those security updates don't even do anything for you.

Personally, I think Microsoft should let anyone who wants to buy extended support do so. They're trying to get ppl to go to a subscription model for software (Office 360), and here they have a bunch of ppl that don't even need convincing - they are asking for it with open arms. It's not like they make money on computer hardware sales, so this seems much better for them. It's okay, I think, to just make tons of money, rather than try to be like the cool kids.

BUT if they don't want to, they totally have the right not to. A lot of those posts sound like they're written by communists, not freedom lovers. We tell people to chose free software - that's freedom. To force people to use free software, to force businesses to open source - that is not freedom. That's forcing your ideology onto others, like the communists found they had to do because people weren't being selfless by themselves. Freedom is letting this thing go end of life if that's what MS wants and letting the people chose again - this time, hopefully, they will chose better.

Problem is - it's government. Every proprietary app they need is going to cost them 10x as much as any normal enterprise business, suck 10 times as bad, and require massive re-training. Someone above gave a great example where the manufacturer requires you buy a whole new set of medical equipment on upgrade, not just replace the software on the controlling PC or firmware. In the US, they spent like $70 million on healthcare.gov and look how they turned out. They should have required Open Source from the beginning, but since they didn't, I'd reckon L5.5M/year is a total bargain. They'd probably love to keep extending it every year it if Microsoft lets them.

Very good idea actually. Unlike Apple, they make no money off hardware, so $20/year for every copy of WinXP is good money. Unfortunately, Microsoft had been sort of obsessed with chasing the greener grass on the other side of the field rather than use what they are actually good at. Of course, they did sign this contract, and they said they are fixing Win8 for desktop users, so maybe the new CEO sees the light. We will see! In any case, if they don't charge a $20 subscription, they would be stupid since now people have a source from which to obtain illegal updates.

Come up with an algorithm only you know, that is generally different for each system you use, and for added security contains some personal thoughts about the site that make it hard to figure out your algorithm (although that last one might stump yourself too, lol). The problem is when you're forced to change your password, but it's usually some regular cycle, so I'm sure you could figure something out for that too.