...my responses are limited; you must ask the right questions.

Blade icing? Cold-weather battery/fuel issues?

...is what happened in 2010 to cause the even larger spike upward, and why did it reverse itself.

I'm glad someone is pushing this topic (finally) and this is the perfect example. It's one thing to protect artists but the never-ending copyright extensions doing nothing of the sort. They ensure the media companies can generate recurring profits but, by and large, provide limit benefit to those actually responsible for the work. Oh wait...corporations are people now too.

It's funny how you snark about the "corporations are people" thing when it comes to this cause. I'm guessing you don't feel the same way about similar application of consequences/requirements when it's going in reverse (e.g. corporate tax rates)?

The IRS/etc. would NEVER use this to disable someone's communications ability because they were doing something the government didn't like. No sirree. Not ever. Pure as the driven snow, this design is.

It's like people can't think past the next episode of their favorite TV show.

...is that voice-to-text software is so remarkably unreliable that nobody uses it without proofreading the output before sending. I think most people could have told you this without an official study.

And just for the obtuse, it isn't that it completely misunderstands everything you say, it's that when you're sending texts, the things it tends to fail to translate properly tend to be things that get your text posted to one of those autocorrect-joke sites. Or get you in trouble with the wife/husband/parents/boss.

[...] platform should and must be clean and clear of any ads whatsoever, because the technology is designed to facilitate internet browsing and other related activities, therefore, the featured podium cannot be used to advertise products as it will cause the user experience to diminish.'

Funny, most of us have been saying that about our computers/browsers for years and Google hasn't listened.

Agreed. My office was primarily an Ubuntu shop for our productivity and development machines. As soon as 11.x hit, everyone who needed to upgrade or rebuilt a machine just jumped ship straight to Mint. A few holdouts are still on Ubuntu 10 LTS but those are machines that really can't change without potentially breaking a bunch of dependencies.

I'll give up mod ability to reply.

Anyone ever heard the phrase "hostile work environment?" If anyone is ultimately to blame here, it's the ambulance-chaser segment of the legal profession. If companies didn't have to worry about getting sued for _not_ taking notice of this, stern looks would have been all that came of this.

Considering how HP has been shedding business groups and teams to China, India and Dell after upper management screwed with their unit managers, I can't believe anyone thinks these people are surprised the rats are fleeing the ship. If HP wants outsourced, bottom-dollar employee costs, they're gonna end up with outsourced, bottom-dollar employees. And when you fuck over people who were saving the company millions of dollars per year and were almost universally respected by colleagues and appreciated by their direct reports, it's no wonder those teams feel marginalized and like they're next of the potential chopping block. 12 straight years of layoffs/outsourcing takes a toll on the best of us.

Microsoft locks people into proprietary licenses because they know that, after a few years of using the OS they buy from them you will need a new computer and a new system, either because your old one broke or because an associate wants to do the same things as you do already. Normally, if you were allowed your natural right to copy things you own, you would just be able to copy the old one and that would work fine.

You are allowed to transfer your license as long as you wipe it from the old machine first. That doesn't mean an old OS will actually work usably on new computers, though. In fact, the odds are against it even being able to boot if the OS is more than a few years old.

My nieces' P67 chipset and NVidia 530 computer that still runs Windows XP (11 year old OS and working quite well, thank you very much) would beg to differ.

...is pretty much what those of us that build our own systems do anytime we upgrade components (RAM/CPU/MB) or experience unexplained errors. It's similar to running the Prime95 torture tests overnight, which also checks calculations in memory against known data sets for expected values.

Good stuff for those that don't already have a knack for QA.

Good point about DLPs being much more "user-serviceable" than current flat-screens. I think the bulb replacement part on my 61" Samsung is down to about $35 now and takes about 5 minutes.

Yeah, as long as you can sit directly in front, they do work pretty great. Had one for years. Too big to haul away, so I sold it with the house when I moved.

Too big to haul away? My 60" DLP was 90 lbs and and about 15" deep at the deepest point. One guy could lift it by himself, although it was a lot less awkward with two.

The average dining room table, love seat, recliner, dresser... is far more difficult to move.

Same here. Even the 83" my parents have isn't a big deal for two people.

As for viewing angles? They were fine; you could sit anywhere in the room and see it just fine. The only bad viewing angle was if you were too high looking at a substantial downward angle which would only be a problem if you sat on a baby's high-chair 2 feet away from it.

Agreed. So far, I have better luck with good off-axis viewing on my DLPs than any LCD I've seen yet. Then again, I didn't buy sucky DLPs. ;)

But its nice to actually be able to see what you are eating and drinking in a Sports Pub these days without them having to dim the lights just so that people can see the rear projections screens mounted like a sword of Damocles over the bar.

For sure, the thin/flat superbright plasmas and LCD/LED screens are far better suited to that mounting arrangement.

Not to mention that most of the DLPs were using bulbs way past their service life and lenses that had been in a smoke-filled bar their entire lives. (Ever seen a lung? Yeah, lenses are worse.) There are some bars up here that have old LCDs and they're worse even than the old DLPs.

Here is your chance to practice what you preach
Pay for your lifestyle

What the hell do you think we did before people got all up in our junk with taxes to support the inner-city welfare state? Here's a hint: counties didn't have road-grade equipment until recently, let alone right-of-way zones. We managed to make it through the industrial revolution with limited support from Washington and lower taxes; funny we can't live without 'em today, isn't it?

Also, guess what? Our fire department (what there is of it) doesn't see a dime from county, state or federal taxes: it's all volunteer. We also don't see a dime of federal money for sewage, water, etc. So, tell me again what my taxes are paying for?