All these comparisons with Netflix fail to address one critical point: video quality

I can stream the same movie on Netflix and Hulu on the same device (Roku), at the same time, on the same internet connection. If I stream that movie on Netflix, the stream doesn't fully-utilize my internet connection and is noticeably poor. If I cancel, then immediately start streaming the same movie on Amazon Prime, same device, just moments later, it saturates my internet connection and looks considerably better. I can switch back and forth and the results are consistent. I can also recreate this with other movies available on both. I've done this on multiple different nights... the test results are always the same.

Not to say that if Amazon ups the price of Prime that we'll keep it... I'm not a big fan of streaming in-general. But to compare Netflix and Amazon one really needs to take into account the video quality. Netflix quality is absolutely HORRIBLE and I can't stand watching content off it, and choose Amazon or Hulu whenever possible. Of course, in this day and age people seem content with Youtube level of over-compressed shit so it's probably a lost cause...

If you're paying $30/blu-ray disc you're either impatient or doing it wrong. I don't feel a burning need to watch a movie within some arbitrarily-short timeframe after its release just so I can keep up with the Joneses. As a result of that and buying things on sales/deals, I average $5-$10 per blu-ray movie, even very popular blockbuster releases. My movie collection now spans over 400 movies, most of which are blu-ray. And I know friends and family with more.

One might point out that if I had taken all that money, I could have instead paid for 25 years or more of Netflix or what have you. The issue there is that then I'm at the mercy of whatever movies the streaming provide decides I can watch today, and maybe will pull tomorrow, as well as the condition of my internet connection. I've already had maybe a 10% success rate searching Hulu Plus/Netflix/Amazon Prime for a given movie we want to watch, as well has seen frightening lists of what movies Netflix decides to "discontinue" from time to time.

No thanks. I'll keep my physical media, thank you.

"Also, you can't buy a new computer with Windows 7"

Very much NOT true. Where I work we buy plenty of Dell computers with Win7 all the time. Just placed another large order this past Friday in fact.

I'm still trying to figure out why the Wii (not Wii U, original Wii) and the Roku use the exact same sound effects in the UI.

My main use of Google Reader these days is to consolidate the RSS feeds from several specific news sources of my choosing. Then I pass this RSS list to the Google Reader Android ticker widget which is the best of its class. This allows me a nice, clean rotating news widget with the specific news sources I want. Not only that, but I can manage the feeds used from my desktop.

I have not found anything else that can do this, or looks as good, let alone both. I have no alternative once Google Reader goes away. :(

Agreed about the batteries and MicroSD card. This is 2013. There's no excuse for lacking these features. All my cell phones have had removable batteries back to my original Nokia candybar. On Android a single battery can't get you through a full day of use if you're a serious user, and not everyone can get to a charging source constantly. Keeping spare charged batteries is critical. Plus not everyone wants to replace their whole phone just because the original battery (a $5 part) only holds 50% of its original capacity now, when the phone is otherwise sufficient.

And expandable storage isn't just about running out of what is built-in to the device. It's critical for backups should something happen to the phone hardware (failure, damage, etc). Pop the memory card into a replacement phone, restore from Titanium Backup, and you're back up and running in short order. No other solution via the "cloud" or PC backup comes close to being as flexible, convenient or powerful. I have my phone set to automatically back up to itself (external MicroSD card) nightly, no user intervention required.

All my cell phones back to early 2000s (when it was still called "Transflash") have had expandable storage. I'm not going to start giving that up just because some manufacturers are assholes and are trying to push consumers into being conditioned/brainwashed to not expect/want that anymore.

This is 2013. Anyone trying to market a phone needs to stop pulling an Apple, insulting consumers and treating us like imbeciles. Stop gluing the case together and taking away critical options. If we wanted a stupid i-device we'd go buy a fucking iPhone. But we won't: we want Android, which normally COMES with all this. Get with the program or GTFO of the marketplace. Samsung, now HTC. It's fucking infuriating. No removable battery, or no expandable storage = no sale. Period.

I love G+ and hate FB, but it's not surprising G+ is having trouble gaining traction. For example, it's missing some pretty critical features, such as "events" and the ability to exclude individuals when posting something (there are times when I want to post something visible to all my friends except 1 or 2, just for the sake of this comment and not enough to give them their own circle, thereby breaking their permissions on everything else I posted). Considering Google already has a slick calendar, their lack of any sort of event feature is mindblowing. Arranging events is one of the main reasons I used FB in the first place.

Umm, I buy my American, rBGH-free milk for $2.77/gallon, thank you very much. You might want to do more research before incorrectly claiming that all American milk is produced with hormones. I'd hazard to say that most of what I see in the grocery store states quite clearly on the container that it's rBGH-free. If you can't find it here, you're not looking very hard.

Until their reception doesn't suck to the point of uselessness, they're far from "winning". Not everyone lives in a big city and doesn't travel outside a 3-square-mile radius.

Well, by your definition, every 12yo kid who installed AIM on his desktop computer is a "hacker". ;)

Look, I'm not saying that the stock client shouldn't be able to move messages between folders. I just don't get why if you have such an aversion to installing apps that you'd get a smartphone. My old dumbphone had 100 things that it didn't do right, or didn't do at all, and there wasn't a damn thing I could do about it. Part of the reason we all love our smartphones is because they give us the ability to install different, or better, apps in order to make them suit our needs.

I guess your comment about how you being concerned how your spend your time doesn't really mesh with your previous comment about lamenting for months/years that you couldn't do a specific task on your Android phone... when for the sake of a few seconds to download a free app and put in your email info in the same manner you did to set up the stock client, you could've had that exact functionality (and much, much more).

I've been doing this for ages on Android using K-9. Android is about choice... make use of it. ;)

The main reason I watch so little TV? All these crap "reality" shows. They're like an infection. Started by MTV, and now they've taken over Sci-Fi (oh, excuse me... "SyFy" *barf*), Food Network, Discovery Channel and even the History Channel. That last one is especially infuriating... what on earth do all these crap, modern reality shows have to do with "history"? Even their new slogan tries to get them off the hook: "History: Made every day". In other words, "since anything ultimately becomes 'history' eventually, it means we can show whatever we'd like".

Put something worth watching on, and I'll watch more TV. Until then, I'll "suffer" with the bare-minimum satellite package and watch mostly movies.

I live in an extremely rural, low-populated area and AT&T (GSM) gets far-better coverage than Verizon, to the point where my unfortunate Verizon-using friends are always asking to use my phone because they're getting no signal.

Why don't they just switch to AT&T, you may ask? Simple: Verizon's slimey marketing scheme which turns all their customers into unpaid salespeople. Because their plans offer "free texting (but only to other Verizon customers)" and other underhanded BS like that, it encourages lock-in and viral marketing... not for their own virtues, but on the sole basis of "all your friends are using it"

Well I have had imo and Trillian on my phone for ages and never needed the official Skype there. I was using imo well before Trillian. So there have indeed been other clients for a while.

Pidgin, Trillian, imo... you didn't look very hard.