Having seen both NBC's "coverage" and BBC's feeds, I would *gladly* have paid the BBC for access to their vastly superior offering.

Heck, I enjoy enough BBC shows that I'd most likely be willing to pay monthly for access to the *real* BBC lineup (as opposed to the watered down, commercial-ridden BBCA, which cuts significant portions of shows like Top Gear).

Nah, hold out for the Super 3DSi XL 64 Turbo Hyperfighting EX Plus Alpha 3rd Strike Championship Arcade Edition 2012 Lite ...which will obviously be the definitive competitive platform, at least until they release DLC.

First they need the IBN 5100.

El Psy Congroo

...has to somehow obtain a valid signature for their kernel (whether directly from Verisign/Microsoft or signed by Red Hat or some other organization that dealt with Microsoft).

Why should any linux distribution be beholden to MS (a direct competitor, and holder of a monopoly on the PC OS market) for the right to install on commodity hardware?

IMHO this sets a very, very dangerous precedent.

Barring this, you can disable secure boot or (if your motherboard supports it) install your own root key.

And if you do convince a user to do that, they lose the ability to dual-boot back into Windows. Without that "safety net", many users won't give linux a chance.

Geeks will of course be fine with installing their own keys, or enabling/disabling UEFI Secure Boot - but regular users *won't*.

MS's monopoly, combined with requiring UEFI Secure Boot for Windows to boot, and MS in control of who else gets to boot? That sounds like a *bad* recipe to me.

There is no reason people using 500GB should be paying the same as you and using 100x as much, just so you can "not worry".

From an embracement of technology perspective, yes, there is a psychological reason. If you're not limited, you'll embrace and use whatever services you find useful. If you're limited, there's a mental drain involved in assessing limits *constantly*. This slows uptake of new, disruptive, potentially bandwidth-intensive services, since users are far less likely to use their limited resources, for fear of using them up (or getting horrific overage charges, as is usually the case for cellular).

Fact of the matter is the cellular companies see the future, and it scares the hell out of them. Voice is merely data. Text is merely data. They're being taken out of the equation by data-based services that cut off their cash cows (VOIP, iMessage, etc...) - so they're doing everything they can to slow uptake of those services, while increasing charges for data to compensate It's a losing battle, and they know it, but they're bound and determined to kick and scream (at our expense) all the way.

I really think you should ask yourself why you are paying for a service with limitations.

In many areas of the US, there's very little choice when it comes to broadband 'net access. A single provider has a "local monopoly". In my case, that's Comcast. Unless you're lucky enough to have had Verizon lay fiber to your area before they halted their rollout, there just isn't another high-speed option available.

And all of them are capped. =(

They actually had him on the local morning radio last week (or was it the week before?) plugging his new album, and they asked him about it.

He basically said that he's aware of the trope, but that he doesn't feel like he talks like that. Whether that was a canned response for the radio, the honest truth, or something in between is open for debate =)

Solution: Seal off singleplayer characters from interacting with anything outside the sandbox. Don't allow the characters to be used in multiplayer games of any sort. No access to the multiplayer/RMT AH. That character is confined to his/her little sandbox world.

Want access to those things? That's what Battle.net is for. The price you pay for that is needing a connection.

Protects the online game economy, and lets me play on my laptop wherever I might be, whenever I might be there, with or without available (and consistent) wireless.

Heck, a singleplayer-locked Hardcore character would be the *toughest* way to play (assuming no cheats/savehacks), as you'd be limited to whatever items dropped for you, and you wouldn't be able to get help of any kind, nor XP boosts for having multiple players in the game. Combine that with Hardcore's perma-death, and you've got a pretty unforgiving environment.

Or, set up a local VM with the exact same software loadout you have on your production server, and as close to the production configs as you can manage locally.

Develop under OSX, pushing to your VM development server.

When you're ready to deploy, have a script sync from your development VM to the production server.

This isn't about linux. It never was. This is about getting what you paid for, and keeping it.

Let's say you bought a fairly expensive item - like a car. Let's also, for the sake of simplicity, say you paid for it in full. You are the owner of the car.

Included in the price you paid, there are a bunch of features - some you'll use, others you won't. Regardless of whether you use them, you paid for them. Moonroof, heated seats, air conditioning, etc...

Let's say one of those features is free maintenance every 6 months, at the manufacturer's dealership. You bring in the car, and they change the oil, fill the fluids, check the air in your tires, replace the windshield wipers, etc...

Now, a year after you bought the car, you bring it in for service. When you get it back, the heated seats have been replaced with physically-identical un-heated seats.

This may not upset you too much if you never actually used the heated seats. However, was it right for the manufacturer to remove them?

The next time you bring it in for maintenance, you ask what they plan to do. In addition to the usual stuff, they tell you they intend to remove your air conditioner - not because there's a problem with it, but because the manufacturer has decided they don't want to support air conditioners anymore. You protest - you paid for the air conditioner, and it's something you use. You don't want to lose it. The dealership says "OK, take the car and leave then. We're not working on it unless you let us remove the air conditioner. Oh, and you won't be able to play any new CDs in your CD player until you let us remove the AC."

This is what Sony's already done. This is what folks are complaining about - and what they have a right and duty to complain about.

What Sony's doing now is equivalent to the dealership saying: "We can come in the middle of the night and remove your AC if we so choose, without telling you or giving you the right to refuse".

Who owns that car again?

Who owns your PS3?

Is it wrong that I'm a little dismayed at this? IMHO these belong in the National Archives, or at the Smithsonian's Air & Space museum, not in the hands of the highest bidder. They're a part of our space program's history, and deserve to be preserved.

The iPhone isn't really a "phone", though. It's a small touchscreen computer (as many smartphones are) that happens to have a cell radio (or two) inside, and software to operate it.

Case in point, the iPod Touch is largely the same device without those radios.

The OS was made to run a small touchscreen computer. The iPad is just a little less small ;P

I'm in about the same boat, with about the same contract timing, just a bit south of you in MA. AT&T's coverage is half-decent, but their reliability for both voice and data has been *horrible* over the past three years (1 year on an unsubsidized 2G iPhone, 2 years on the 3G).

I don't hear the same complaints from the Verizon smartphone users I know. FWIW, I've never heard a single one complain about "not talking and surfing at the same time", as AT&Ts ads would have you believe. They complain about Verizon's prices and their shitty customer service, but never about the network, reliability, or general ability to do stuff.

This is why we need to force carriers to unlock phones upon request, once any subsidizing contract is terminated. We need to be able to take our phones to another carrier who's willing to treat us like customers, and not as the enemy.

There really should be enforcable consumer-protection laws against re-defining terms to mean their opposite. Unlimited should mean Unlimited, fine print or not. It should not, under any circumstances, mean "Limited".