It certainly sounds like grounds for a class action lawsuit by Sony shareholders to me, does anyone here have some shares and a lawyer's phone number?

Whoever thought of that name was probably praised by management for their mr blue sky thinking.

Wouldn't it make more sense to buy a non-hard drive based player that takes SD cards, now that SD cards are available with larger capacities?

While I agree with the general premise, you manage to give Catan both too much and too little credit. It was definitely not the first game in the genre, though it was probably the one that brought it to mainstream attention. But I don't agree with your statement that it is deeply flawed. I still find the basic game a lot of fun to play.

That's why the particular bit of research in TFA is really important, there is now proof of a military application for graphene - which means the US will throw money it the problem of making it in bulk.

Not the obvious choice, but if you are prioritising looks and quietness over price, stick Windows on it and it's got everything you're looking for - it's virtually silent, has twin graphics cards, SSD and it doesn't 'look like a computer'.

I'll confess immediately that I didn't read TFA. I just want to drop this link to a nice Isaac Asimov essay, back from 1962:
Not as We Know it – The Chemistry of Life

Remember that Asimov was a professor of biochemistry. In the article, he investigates alternatives to the chemistry of life as we know it. He comes up with the following list:

[H]ere, then, is my list of life chemistries, spanning the temperature range from near red heat down to near absolute zero:
1. fluorosilicone in fluorosilicone
2. fluorocarbon in sulfur
3.*nucleic acid/protein (O) in water
4. nucleic acid/protein (N) in ammonia
5. lipid in methane
6. lipid in hydrogen
Of this half dozen, the third only is life-as-we-know-it. Lest you miss it, I've marked it with an asterisk.

When you read the article, you may want to skip the first bit and start from about the paragraph "Well, that's what I want to discuss."

Life is life.

Na-naaa naa-na-na.

For those of you who don't know Bob the Builder, here in the Britain he appears on TV all the time, is inexplicably popular with people who have had barely any education, implements large scale infrastructure projects with no regard to their actual cost, and often repeats the catchphrase "Yes we can".

Do you have something similar in the USA?

Presumably because it's a quotation.

Sell dealerships, complete with 1 'demo model', for the price of 1 car.

While the traditional London Underground has drivers, that's pretty much just because the powerful union in charge won't let them be upgraded to be driverless. We've had reliable, safe driverless trains for over 25 years on the 45-station Docklands Light Railway in the East of London.

People who run out of memory are more likely to upgrade when the next iPhone comes out.

"Windows got a lock on the desktop because people liked it"

Really?

Windows got a lock on the desktop because it was next to f***ing impossible not to buy it every time you bought a PC, and the only alternatives were Dos or throwing out all your computers and software to switch to Macs.

You could always try the RICO Act.

Net neutrality is what ought to prevent racketeering in the digital age. In the old days the Mafia turned up on your doorstep and said "nice warehouse you have here, it would be a shame if it 'burned down', give us some money and we can make sure that doesn't happen." Without net neutrality, Comcast can turn up on your doorstep and say "Nice website you've got here, it would be a shame if it 'slowed down', give us some money and we can make sure that doesn't happen."