This, 100%.

When Ubuntu went to Unity is when I went to Mint full time. When Mint went to Gnome 3 is when I went to Mint XFCE full time.

Why is it so hard to understand that the desktop environment is probably about as good as it will get? I probably sound like a stick in the mud, but the biggest annoyance in UI the past few years has been putting the ribbon on everything and tabs on top, at the top. The last one is the single reason I don't use Chrome on a daily basis and the former is the reason that I do any and all .doc and .xls work in OpenOffice.org.

The only interface enhancement that has blown my mind in the past ten years is the way my Apple laptop handles multi-touch in the trackpad. One finger for cursor, two for moving 360* in pages/apps, and three for dragging. There aren't any accidental swipes down or across the page like I have on my Win7 laptop and it's poor implementation of touch-sensitive areas.

For the desktop, I've found Mint XFCE to be a speedy, awesome, no-unneccessary-frills alternative. It's awesome.

That right there is the problem. Not the phone, but the users. As a previous poster stated (and the article mentioned), the only people buying a new Blackberry are the ones that already have an old Blackberry. RIM needs to start thinking about what they can offer to consumers (and business) that no one else does. They don't have the app market, music/video store, or appeal that both Apple and Android have.

What RIM needs to do is go to the carriers and give them whatever cash is left to allow BB phones a 100% truly unlimited-in-ever-sense data plan. A few years ago when I was shopping for data plans, the iPhone "unlimited" was somewhere around $30/mo, and the Blackberry "unlimited" was $50-60/mo. This may be the fault of the carriers, but it hurts RIM nonetheless. If WinMo and RIM want to compete they need to offer what no one else does: unlimited data.

Oh, and they need to stop forcing that sh!tty BB Enterprise Server. We're not paying an extra $60k/year to duplicate the functionality of our current mail server.

Did you follow the eBay link? The remote is $18, not the player.

Yes, if the oil was obtained on U.S. soil.

That is a selfish viewpoint, but I don't expect Iran to look out for us over themselves.

We are all running out of time and these guys are making obscene profits as is. I live in West Texas and see this on a daily basis. Other than safety, there is little account for responsible spending. Example: workers that used to check and maintain the pumpjacks are promoted to "manager" and told to call a consulting/maintenance firm to do any repairs, costing a ton more than just using the person that was hired to do the original job.

If they obtain it from U.S. soil, refine on U.S. soil, and sell on U.S. soil there is no reason for a spike for the U.S. caused by world factors.

I disagree. We are slowly migrating to using iPads (and Android tablets) in the field for many of our users. They still have the ability to use a laptop, but 90% of what they do can be done on an iPad (including printing/scanning). Part of our business involves getting signatures from customers out in the field. Carrying a laptop and signature tablet is more cumbersome than the iPad. They still have laptops, but those are more stationary than anything else these days. I think you are going to see iPads more and more in business, especially for those that hate lugging around a laptop.

I can believe it. When was the last time you went to a theater? Annoying patrons, incredible volume levels, unreasonable prices for food, and ~20 minutes of ads and previews before the show.

Now that I'm pushing toward the middle of life with small children, going to the movie theater is more of a chore than anything else. Very few theaters around my location have anything starting after 5:15pm but before 7:30pm. I'd like to take the wife and kid to go see a movie, but I need to either take off from work and skip dinner, or go to the later showing and have the kid out late. This is just one example, but I know I'm not the only parent that is concerned about their children getting dinner and going to bed on time.

The second issue is cost. My understanding is that the theaters make very little per showing from ticket sales, but make it up with popcorn and sodas. If I were to get tickets, popcorn/snacks, and sodas I would be in about $60 for one evening's entertainment for the family. If we leave the kid with a sitter that can get even more expensive.

Volume levels, annoying patrons, and expensive prices are all what is keeping me from the theater. I don't have an extra $60+ in my budget to spend each weekend. If they can get that down to $20 that is something I would do on a regular basis. Until then it just doesn't make sense.

On the other hand, we are fortunate enough to live where there is still a double-feature drive-in movie theater. They are generally smart about their showings and will place a kid-friendly movie as the first showing and put an adult one second. This works out very well when the kid is asleep in time for the second showing, or we can go home if the weather takes a turn for the worse. $5 per person and I can bring my own food (or buy their reasonably-priced snacks, usually about half what the other theater charges).

This is really only the tip of the iceberg for me, but they have a long way to go before they get my movie theater dollars again.

$12,500? And that's not including walls, seating, and sound control? You overpaid. By a lot.

$750 for the drives
$200 for the server box
$400 for the HTPC front end (Zotac mini-itx with case, memory, and HD. This is a high estimate.)
$500 for the receiver
$1500 for the speakers (I'm going with a high-end speaker since you apparently designed a room around all this)
$100 for cables

I've got $3450 before the TV, not including tax or shipping. If you went with Windows on both you can add another $600 for Windows 7 64-bit Ultimate.

I see an 80" LED from Best Lie is only $5k.

Where did the other $4k go?

For those _specific_ purchases, no. But it isn't about just your purchases or mine. As an earlier poster mentioned, what if you purchased some home theater equipment recently as well as some tickets to Jamaica? Even if those show up as "Recent Best Buy Purchase" and "Vacation Getwaway Package Purchase", it doesn't take long to piece together that you may have bought something and are going away for a weekend or longer.

Yes, this is a reaching argument. But who is allowed access to that data? How can I get a copy of the information being shared about me? Can I opt out of this, and is it opt-out by default?

Maybe some of the stuff I enjoy in my home life doesn't really need to be shared with my co-workers. This may sound silly to most, but I worked at a company that was very "family oriented" (funny, I worked more overtime there than anywhere else). This company frowned upon consuming alcohol, even in our personal lives. If we spoke about drinking over the weekend we generally received shunning and evil-eye stares from those who heard the conversation. What if the advertisements show skimpy girls and deals on liqueur because I visited a bar over the weekend?

This kind of thing meshes all parts of my life together and gives people the ability to know things about me that I don't want them to know about. That's what's wrong about this for me.

I think the part that doesn't make sense is that Bush is responsible for the actions of those under him but Obama isn't. Bush never comes out and says "hey, we've got an open thing going on here!" and then continues to stall or deny FOIA requests. He just never says transparent in the first place and you liken that to them being the problem.

On the flip side of that coin, Obama says "Hey, we're going to make things transparent" and _nothing_ changed. The difference is you think Obama is not responsible for his subordinates but Bush is. Hence, "LOL WUT".

FWIW, I don't like either policy.