No offense, but there's only one product in that list that actually turns a profit. If those were all separate businesses, all but one would be bankrupt.

Because most Xbox's still have the craptastic 20GB HD. Rolling out saving support is additional legal/engineering work and would be a nightmare on a system that probably has less than 3gb free anyways. They'd rather have their customers downloading demos and buying games than watching streaming TV.

The paid-for news/media is already stupid enough. I can't wait until all the semi-talented writers start charging, and 99% of america gets their news and election info from a right-wing or left-wing blog site... or worse.

Seriously, I think the easy availability of respected newspapers such as the NYTimes has helped improved American's awareness of political issues. Whatever my problems with the NYTimes biases are, they're 100x better than the local news.

The problem with flash isn't the technology, it's that it's so easy to develop something with it a lot of people that don't understand it use it. Is that Flash's fault? If it is, we should also throw away PHP for being insecure when you don't sanitize your inputs.

If you want to make a fully customizable UI Flash is currently the very best tool available. Whether it works well or it's slow on buggy depends on your coding skills.

But it does prevent me from buying a legal, used copy at Gamestop. It kills the used game market which is what everyone believes the consoles are going to try to do over the next few years.

Sorry, 99% of games aren't worth $60, which is why I generally only play consoles now. I can get back half of that $60 cost when I get bored of the game.

Step 2 toward productivity: make slashdot redirect to goatse.cx

The problem is that no matter how realistic or how sensitive you make your game to the soldiers who died in WW2/Fallujah/whathaveyou, you're always going to have some kid (or adult) who thinks its fun to shoot his teammates and teabag them. The kids know the obvious - it's a freaking game!

That said, it's pretty hard to "explore the human condition" when you are forced to include respawns, saves, and letting the user actually choose what he/she wants to do. That's what makes games great, btw. You can find things to do in games that the developers never intended.

Usually, someone buys the rights to those products, even if it's only $5. If no one is willing to pay a dollar for it, is it really of any value anyways?

And here I thought that was a real place.

Seeing just what was cut doesn't tell us much. We'd really need to also look at what wasn't cut to see if our tax dollars are being spent intelligently or not. But, the fact that none of what was cut seemed like it was working anyway indicates that there must be tons more fluff that hasn't been cut yet.

It's amazing how many people that know something better than me--say, fixing a car or being a web developer--assume that they know everything better than me and everyone else in the world. Those people are the most dangerous stupid and if they don't have morals will often land in jail.

But, on the other hand if everyone else is giving it away for free, eventually there'll only be a few left. And then they'll be able to charge....

I generally agree with that, but not in this case.

Lots of companies have foreign cash that they've earned that they are unable to bring back into the states (for fear of it being taxed at a high domestic rate). If it's going to be taxed at that high rate anyways, maybe they decide that instead of investing it in some international savings account, they can re-patriate it and invest it in US jobs.

At least that's what would *hopefully* happen. The international tax idea is much better than just raising US domestic earning taxes or income taxes. Seriously, this ain't that bad (and I'm a Republican).

The whole system needs to be blown up.

1) Teachers need to work hours comparable with other full time jobs - 40 per week, 3 weeks vacation.
2) Teachers need to be paid much, much more. This will make it attractive to a wider, more talented pool of individuals.
3) No reliable way to judge individual teachers on a massive scale, so don't do it.
4) Judge districts on performance, rely on district managers to manage out the poor principles/teachers. Give district managers/principles incentive pay based on this and the power to actually do it.

Result: Fewer teachers that work longer, are brighter, and are better paid. I don't think the "small classroom" is as important as a bright, hardworking teacher. Despite popular opinion, we actually invest a whole lot in our education system. The problem is we currently do it very poorly.

Verizon is supposedly rolling out LTE (same as GSM providers) in late 2010-2011. But it will require more towers than the EVDO technology so LTE technology will be spotty if it doesn't also include an EVDO chip (which runs into the CDMA/GSM problem).

So it won't exactly be a $ vs $ comparison. Apple will also have many other choices:
1) Stick with ATT for full LTE/GSM compatibility in countries without 4th Gen?
2) Go with ATT LTE, but have spotty coverage in non-LTE areas around the world and the US? Could hurt iPhone/Apple Brand
3) Go with ATT LTE and have GSM AND CDMA chips, for full coverage? Could be an engineering/battery/royalty nightmare

Either way, there are many factors in place other than just the $ bid.