What are you talking about? Free markets are irrelevant when it comes to copyrights. Copyrights create a monopoly over a piece of work. That's what they do. That's how they're defined. Even without the RIAA or any middlemen, if copyrights work at all, there is no competition for a particular piece of art. The artist gets to set whatever price they want. People can choose if they want to buy it. Even if you're arguing that by forming an alliance, the RIAA controls too much art, I don't see how this is a big deal. IT'S ART. IT'S OPTIONAL. If you don't want to pay what the artists are asking, don't. Find something else you like or make your own.

I had a friend that had a 5.25" drive about 10 years ago and it was absolute trash. I think Maxtor made it. Everything that is good about a SSD is terrible about a drive with huge platters like that. First, you can't spin them very fast -- his was 3600 rpm. Second, slow rotation + long distances traveled by the read/write arm = horrific latency. His computer took forever to boot up and word might take a minute to start. Be glad they're gone.

What are you talking about? Your post is full of decisions you made. You may not feel you have a choice, but in fact you just don't like the other choice. You job moved to the city, you chose to move with it rather than quit. You already have a house, you chose to stay in it rather than move to "ghettotropolis". I'm not saying that I would choose differently (I commute 30 miles myself), but to say you had no choice is wrong.