I haven't figured out why they won't just sell you an HBO Go subscription as a separate entity. They have a digital content distribution system in place. It has support on many different devices. Yet they still require that you buy their channel through a cable/satellite provider and THEN get access to it.

Why not just have an HBO Go subscription for $10/month? They can cut out the middle man (cable companies) and get a lot more customers that only do internet based TV.

Um - I plug a USB stick into my Linux computer and an icon pops up on the desktop named "USB Drive" (or whatever name it has) that I can double click and do whatever I need.

I'm guessing that if you were actually trying to read an honest to goodness floppy disk it was more than a "few years ago". Linux has come a long way. The "year of Linux on the desktop" was 5 years ago for me.

Of course my parents called me to come look at their (Windows) computer a while back because it wasn't acting quite right, and I was reminded of the headache of spyware and malware. I had forgotten such things existed while using Linux.

The mac mini is due a refresh. Mavericks supports multiple monitors, better, that is, you can have a full screen game in one and still use the other at the same time, or so the say.

XCode is free and comes with a simulator for iOS (does not run apps that you do not have the code for).

Well, i hope you get it all the way you want. :)

I just use a Mac now. I'm sorry to say, but i love my mac mini.

I finally gave up on using my Nvidia card in that box.

Wasn't it nvidia that was originally going to release their drivers as open source?

Heh. But this stuff should be really, really basic.

On another note, Going through the effort to write it up here helps me release the want to scream.

XBMC works great for playing random files. I've actually used it in several versions (original Xbox, Apple TV, Raspberry Pi, and Ouya - running on Apple TV was the best - closely followed by Raspberry Pi).

I don't really mind a lot of these devices that want to connect you to services like Netflix, Hulu, etc, but just being able to point the thing to a USB drive or network share and play plain old downloaded files is a must for me.

Not by that much, and honestly I can't say that I care. I downloaded tons of Steam games on my 1Mbps connection but I mostly bought Steam games when they were on sale - I had no desire to play them immediately - I just wanted them for when I got around to it. Buy it, start the download, and then when I'm ready to play the game (which might be weeks later - I'm busy with OTHER games right now) its ready.

Read all the sentences in the post - not just the first. As stated, shipping always needs to be paid for, but shipping on a tablet shouldn't exceed $8 (and realistically will be closer to $5). Over $20 and that's not shipping - that's just moving major parts of the cost from one highly visible line item to another to make something look cheaper.

Thanx for the info.

I might just do the catastrophic with the highest possible dedeuctible.

I only worked in December this year, and only for three weeks (auto companies give off at the end of the year). So, my income is pretty low.

Unless you're downloading from a BBS using ZModem, you can actually do other things while your computer downloads a game.

I've had real maple syrup, and I'll admit that it tastes better, but it certainly doesn't taste better ENOUGH to warrant costing about 16x as much as the cheap stuff.

Regular paperbacks are generally of noticeably higher quality than "Mass Market Paperbacks" (which are the small-ish versions sold in most supermarkets and such).

The Mass Market variety aren't really designed to last. They're meant to be read once or twice (if ever) and if they tear up after that just toss them.

If you're buying a book for a collection you want to buy a higher quality version.

That said - I'm not sure why they charge what they do for the better versions. Barnes and noble puts out very good quality hard-cover versions of some public domain books for less than $10. That's generally less than the price difference between the MMPB and the hardcover version of most books, so you're actually paying a lot more than just the additional materials cost there.

That "$44" tablet has a shipping price of $23.

Granted, shipping usually isn't free (even when listed as such it's built into the price of the item), but a $20+ shipping price is just a lie. They're building most of the item price into the shipping price to make it look cheaper.

Yes the 4.3" device is actually $35 shipped but at that size I consider that a touch screen media player rather than a "tablet".