I once bought an out-of-contract LG phone, whose screen broke a week after purchase. No, I didn't drop it. Neither AT&T nor LG would repair/replace it, so I went online and searched around and found that this model phone (the Neon) had a notoriously fragile screen, and that no one was able to get repairs for it, so I ended up chucking my useless $80 hunk of plastic in the trash.

After this twenty minutes of googling, I was plagued by LG Neon ads for weeks. Every third or fourth website I visited had an ad trying to sell me the very phone that broke on me. It made me more and more angry every time I saw it. Without the constant reminder of my wasted money, I may have eventually forgotten about it, but now I will never, ever purchase anything by LG again, and I tell people who are looking for a new phone to get something - anything - else.

Yeah, the new rule is pretty limited.

If you can get the ebook legally from Amazon, B&N, and iBooks, but only iBooks has TTS enabled, but you only have a Kindle, then breaking the DRM would technically be illegal, even though the only TTS-enabled copy won't run on your device.

I'd think it's because Apple is a scarier target. They were able to bully Amazon, but Apple has a top-notch legal team and a demonstrated disinclination to budge when pressures like this are applied.

What parent fails to mention is that since Japanese verbs are so regular, the language is incredibly resistant to forming new verbs at all. Instead, they borrow the noun and add the verb for "to do" on the end. The fact that "guguru" made it to verb status is due to both luck (it ends in an u) and the sheer force of Google's influence.

Now, my Japanese is far too rusty to figure this one out, but which form would you use to get the meaning "Here, let me Google that for you..." gugusaserareru?

Just a bit of empirical data here: On an iPhone 4 with the oleophobic coating, I traced an android-style unlock pattern with my thumb, and an oil trail was visible on the screen that showed me exactly the pattern I traced.

This makes sense, since oleophobic coatings do not prevent your fingers from secreting oils, nor from depositing those oils on nice glass surfaces. They only make it easier to wipe the oil away. It looks like this study took into account that smudges may be obscured due to phones generally living in pants pockets. I duplicated that part of the experiment as well, and the smudges were still clearly visible after a trip into and out of my pocket, so it's obviously not that much better at repelling oil.

Randomizing the points does sound like it would be a better lock system. You'd memorize a PIN, and have to trace from one number to the next, but the numbers would be in difference places each time. That would make it difficult to guess from either smudges or by glancing at someone entering the password (on the iPhone's lock screen, you can make a good guess at the PIN even if the person is holding the phone so you can't see the screen, just by watching their thumb.)

They do let you play with one of the Enigmas at Ft. Meade, and even have a pad of notepaper next to write down your plaintext and encoded messages.

What they don't let you play with is the limited run Japanese enigma machine, with kana printed on the keys. Apparently the Germans made a couple for the Japanese, but it didn't really catch on and they were never really used.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Japanese-enigma.jpg

If you happen to live near a public university with a good music school, you should be able to at least listen to the music at the library, even if you can't check anything out. You won't be able to rip it, though, since it's likely they'll put it in a player behind the desk and direct you to a listening station. /worked at the music library in college

How is that more impressive than the amount of people who coughed up $25 for a block of sliced wood pulp?

I always figured people were paying for a good story, regardless of the material upon which it's printed or displayed.

There are little Bluetooth GPS receivers you can get, that pair with software on your laptop/netbook. 3G isn't really necessary if you have a good Map/POI database loaded on the computer. My mom had a setup like this 6 or so years ago, when standalone TomTom-type devices were new and expensive.

However, the difficulty of mounting a netbook on your dash is probably the #1 reason why this didn't catch on. You may have a navigation device, but you still need someone riding shotgun to use the device while you drive.

Your job is to keep his copy of Microsoft Office working, not to tell him that he should switch to OpenOffice.

In my limited workplace experience, if you answer "Fix my software" with "Use this other software instead," you will either be ignored or fired. (I found myself ignored, but instilled with a profound desire to not attempt to be helpful again.)

I have an iPhone 4 myself, and I've talked to 3 other iPhone 4 owners I've happened to meet. None of us have actually had any reception problems. Two of us can reproduce the error, but only when actually trying to - normal usage does not produce it.

If I did have a problem, I would have returned it and gone back to my trusty 3G. However, no problems, no returns.

The only irritating thing about the phone is that every idiot on the street who sees me pull out my phone asks about the reception.

It is in many states, but you could easily pass on the expensive insurance that covers every ding on your car and downgrade to the minimum liability insurance required by the state.

If there are no girls on the internet now, there won't be any ever once this goes into effect.

There's no quicker way to be harassed, stalked, and otherwise massively annoyed by EVERYONE than to reveal that you are in possession of TWO X chromosomes, instead of the internet norm XY configuration.

And the absolute last thing I want is random assholes that I've pissed off on my server to Google my name, of which the first result is the staff listing on my current employer's website, and then start sending nasty emails to my boss.

Keep in mind who you're dealing with here: guys who build heat rays in their backyards for fun.

To them, setting things on fire is fun. Making things explode is AWESOME.

Try driving an SUV while listening to the Halo soundtrack. THAT'S dangerous.