While it leaves many (mostly technical) questions unanswered, I found the this article to be an interesting and informative description of what happened.

One lesson that comes to mind is that you shouldn't refer to your website's participants as "peasants".

"If you are not paying for it, you're not the customer; you're the product being sold." - blue_beetle (quotation taken from here)

I would gladly submit to detention and interrogation for five hours if I were guaranteed some ice cream and a blow job in return. Given that fact, much like liberty and safety, I probably don't deserve either.

A solution I don't want to a problem I don't have from a company I don't trust. Great.

In regards to the unending Android vs. iPhone debate, this story made me think of Eric S. Raymond's The Cathedral and the Bazaar. As a long time user and proponent of open systems I surprised myself when I realized that I while I'd rather my computers be bazaar, I prefer my phone to be a little more cathedral. I wonder how many others are comfortably embracing this dichotomy?

I thought the current estimates of Russian military spending were inflated.

It appears Lucas is trying to give the White Album a run for its money...

My car gets 40 rods to the hogshead and that's the way I likes it.

I don't know about sending you back a USB flash drive but Floppydisk.com offers a service to transfer the contents of floppy disks to CD (see here). Unfortunately the procedure is expensive, prohibitively so in my opinion ($55 USD for the recovery of 10 floppy disks). Luckily there is a more affordable alternative. The FC5025 is a device that adapts a standard 5.25" floppy disk drive mechanism to USB and comes with software for Windows XP, Mac OS X and Linux. It costs $55.25 USD. Given that you already have a 5.25" mechanism, which aren't easy to find these days, the FC5025 is an affordable solution to your problem.

My primary Amiga (a 1000) does not have a hard disk so floppies are necessary for everything, even to boot Kickstart. I could use a more capable Amiga but my usage is entirely a nostalgic pursuit so I eschew convenience for authenticity. As for WHDLoad, it's a fantastic program but there are some limitations. It's impractical to use WHDLoad on an unaccelerated Amiga without RAM expansion and mass storage which immediately disqualifies the majority of Amigas (my 1000 included) and there are no 'slaves' (WHDLoad's term for game install bundles) for the majority of Amiga games.

Some jokester will probably respond and say it can, if you "sudo apt-get install print-money"

I'm a classic computer enthusiast and I purchase 3.5" disks for use with my various Amiga computers. I know many others who do the same although it seems unlikely that our purchases add up to millions. Honestly, I wasn't sure what all the fuss regarding Sony's discontinuation of the 3.5" floppy was about because there are other manufacturers. One of the larger ones is ATHANA International, Inc. who still make and sell 3.5", 5.25" and even 8" floppy disks.

I agree. I actually held off on buying a backpack recently because the "add to cart" price seemed *too* good. Turns out the manufacturer had started enforcing the Minimum Advertised Price forcing smaller webshops to hide the price, this was also the reason that eBags.com had suddenly increased their price beyond the MSRP. This way eBags perpetual 20% off coupons don't run afoul of the MAP.

Thanks US Supreme Court... :(

I wholeheartedly agree that current immigration policy punishes the people that take the time, spend the money and have the ethics to immigrate legally. My wife is a legal immigrant and we absolutely hate it when we hear stories about amnesty, or in-state tuition.

Think about it this way, legal immigrants and have to utilize some of his own resources (time/money) and have some sort of ethics and desire to do it legally. I don't know abut you guys, but being an Citizen of the US, I'd rather have immigrants that display some moral fiber and real desire to be here.

On the other hand, illegals know full well what they are doing is illegal. It is not like they can say "Sorry, I didn't know. I must have immigrated by accident" They by, definition, display no respect for our country or our laws.