I'd say greedy is luring in customers by advertising unlimited access, requiring them to pay $30 every month for two years for that access whether they need unlimited or not, and then deciding that they're using too much of their "unlimited" connection. I still don't understand how it's not illegal to advertise something as unlimited, and then limit it.

I've been on Facebook for 9 months now, and haven't gotten a single spam friend request. The only request I've gotten from someone I didn't know was from someone whose blog post I had responded to, and he assumed I was someone he knew since only his friends and family knew about his blog (I found it through a google search). I can only assume that you are using some game or other application that is sharing your info or something.

That's my justification for running SETI/Folding@Home. I only run them in the winter, and I almost never have to turn on the heat in my apartment.

A computer with dual quad core Xeons could easily draw 450w+ under load.

[citation needed]

I call BS. Just because you don't die when you crash in a video game, it doesn't mean someone who started out in a driving simulator would't know the risks of crashing. Also, to get the best lap times in Gran Turismo, as in real driving, you can't drive too aggressively and slide off the road, bump rails, etc. Even if he had no fear of injury (which I think is a stupid assumption), he'd be avoiding wrecks to get the best time anyway.

That's a bit different though. People went from downloading illegally to downloading legally because downloading is more convenient than going to the music store and buying a CD, then ripping it to your computer, and the legal download sites allow previews of the songs before you buy. I think modding hardware, downloading DVD ISOs, and then burning the DVDs is less convenient than buying the game, and in some cases, full games can just be downloaded on PSN or XBox Live these days.

There is also no way to rent most music, so it's basically either buy or don't buy. Most games have demos you can download, and if not, most games can be rented for a few dollars a night.

I think the person who downloads an MP3 out of convenience, and someone who goes out of their way to get something for free are two entirely different people. The latter can't really make an argument for convenience or one for "try before you buy."

You really think so? The "backups" that most people use in their modded XBoxes are backups from some guy on a torrent site who himself probably only rented the game. How are these people their best customers? They probably play more games and have higher gamer scores, and might even pay for XBox Live Gold, but MS still isn't making as much from them as someone who buys only a few games a year.

I meant that it picks up that I like that, not that I thought it analyzed the song and determined that.

I've found a lot of songs/bands I had never heard of thanks to Pandora. I started a station based on "Panic Attack" by Dream Theater, and it's interesting to look at "why was this song selected" for new songs. The current song I'm listening to says "we're playing this track because it features a subtle use of paired vocal harmony, varying tempo and time signatures, chromatic harmonic structure and demanding instrumental part writing." I could have said that I like varying tempo and time signatures, and demanding instrumental parts, but it's neat that it can pick up on things like chromatic harmonic structure and paired vocal harmony.

While I agree that it does seem like this will do little, from the article you posted, it sounds like nitrogen can normally only be absorbed by the roots of plants, and only by means of nitrifying bacteria. The article says the plants can absorb nitrogen oxides directly through the leaves. I'm no botanist, but I think that's the key to the article, not that they can metabolize nitrogen.

The App Store is a store, not a bazaar. They approve/deny products just as any store would. You don't see people complaining that they can't just open up a booth to sell their own CDs in the local record store. I'm a supporter of net neutrality, but why does everything that uses the internet have to be neutral? I take net neutrality to mean everyone has equal access to the internet, not that developers can sell apps on the App Store without going through the current process of getting approved.

That will work if you're going from A to B, and have the route planned already. If you're already lost at X, where they don't have 3G, when you decide you need to use the GPS app, you're out of luck.

I personally still wouldn't get a standalone GPS though. For the times when I'm really lost, I still have an atlas in my car. Hopefully Google will update the iPhone map app to allow turn-by-turn as well. Currently it almost requires a copilot to use, but it's still better than having to print directions beforehand.

It sounds like the maps will still only be hosted by Google, rather than stored on the device as with standalone GPSs. As long as that's the case, there will probably still be standalone units.

Why service it when you can just reprint it for pennies?

I don't know. These days, the only thing that makes my computer feel slow is the hard drive. The capacity of hard drives has been keeping up with or exceeding demand, but the speed seems to be increasing much more slowly.

I'm not sure why we're talking about a 250GB drive in 2020 anyway. SSDs are already that big (and bigger). They just cost a lot right now. While I will probably keep a disk based drive for storage for many years to come, my next boot drive will almost certainly be an SSD. The random access rate of my Raptor not only seems slow, but is very loud. I welcome the extra speed and silence of an SSD, even if it's more expensive.

Like you said, the price basically stays the same. The point that TimeOday was trying to make wasn't that 250GB SSDs would be available in 2020, but that they would be the commodity keychain drives that 4GB flash drives are today, and could be had for $20. Today 256GB SSDs cost $600 or so. In two years, 256GB will probably be under $200, and 512GB and 1TB drives will be $400 and $600 or so...maybe less. The point he was making is that flash drives have the capacity to be reduced much lower in price than hard drives can, because they don't need the complicated mechanical parts in a disk based drive.