Audi's A1 - built on the same base as the Polo has a 1.6 TDI option that will do 69 miles to the US gallon. Similarly it's not available in the US. It can do 0-60 in 10.2 seconds.

Sacrifice some fuel economy and take the 2.0 TDI and you'll only get 65 miles per US gallon but can do 0-60 in 7.9 seconds. Again, not available in the US.

Funny, I was reading your post thinking I'm exactly the same and was about to recommend Rocksmith. It alone has prevented me regretting the PS3 purchase. I've never played a guitar in my life yet now enjoy it immensely. I wouldn't even describe myself as good, but it's a heck of a lot of fun.

I'm in total agreement, in my younger days I could spend hours learning a game. Now I need to be able to pick up and play for 30-60 minutes then move on. My day is busy and time is precious.

I also have Little Big Planet - it's not hard to learn, and is level based so you can pick it up and play for a short while then come back to it later. You might want to try that out if you haven't already.

In the United States it's the norm to pay to receive both calls and text messages on your cell phone.

It primarily stems from cell phones adopting standard local numbers, and therefore calls to cell phones have never been charged at a premium like in Europe. So the cell phone owner has to pay rather than the caller pays model you might be more familar with.

Of course this makes things like spam SMS much much more annoying.

That's the nice thing about iMessage: it'll fall back to SMS if the recipient doesn't have an Apple device. If you trade your iPhone in for an Android phone, my iMessages to you become regular SMS messages with no intervention on my part.

It still just works.

Except you could be paying 20 cents per message if your iPhone were running on a prepaid tariff. And your friend might now be paying 20 cents per message to receive them. Yet that charge would be needless if Apple had simply made it a free and open standard.

The majority of people with a prepaid plan are paying 20 cents per message in the US - to send and receive.

Everyone else is paying too, the cost is just bundled into a big monthly so you can't identify what any one part of it costs. That makes it much harder to shop around for other deals that might leave you better off, since you're likely to seek the safety of unlimited everything rather than buying what you need.

I hate to yet again give Apple credit but building the imessage system into the iphone is brilliant and I sincerely hope Google copy the concept with far far better Google talk integration into the Android OS (frankly, I'm surprised it hasn't been patched in NOW)

The reason SMS remains popular is because it just works. I can text someone in Kansas or Kenya and the message gets there, whatever brand of phone the end user is holding.

Why credit Apple for another move at vendor lock-in. Apple have enough sway with their iPhone that they could have made their messaging system an open and interoperable standard.

Thanks - I forgot to mention the instant on factor.

Try using a CFL as a porch light in winter. It's okay, it'll reach full brightness by March.

I think the primay advantages are supposed to be color temperature (2700K so very similar to the light from an incandescent) and lifespan. It's also dimmable which is still quite a big issue with CFL bulbs.

All in all, it's fairly expensive but does address what are probably the three biggest complaints about CFLs for use in the home.

That's a bit like claiming storage solutions before S3 were a shell for Maxtor or Seagate.

S3 simply provided a technology that enabled a small company to offer massive storage and scale smoothly as demand increased. It's not like S3 was selling storage aimed directly at consumers. Development of things like dropbox was exactly why Amazon created S3 - as a way to monetize their capacity and infrastructure.

This is a pretty obscure outcome of the recent Quantitative Easing of the Fed and the Bank of England, and a little confusing as Microsoft is a US company.

You have to remember that Microsoft's main European headquarters is in Dublin in Ireland, and hence operates in Euros. The quantitative easing of the pound means that the UK goods become cheaper to export, and that conversely, it becomes more expensive for UK-ians to import good from abroad. In this case, it has become 33% more expensive for them to import MS software from Ireland.

I'm not sure I follow. The Euro has hardly been outperforming Sterling

Indeed over the past three years there pound has been steadily recovering its value against the Euro, which should make imports from the Eurozone more affordable, not less.

Now, compared to the US Dollar, the pound is well below where it was pre 1999, but has been quite stable for some time now. It seems very strange to be blaming 29% price changes on currency fluctuations that are no-where close to 29%

So, Texas has a tax on articles exported from another state?

No, they have a tax on items imported from another state and then kept within the state of Texas and used by a resident.

Many if not most states have a similar tax.

Texas hardly has a reputation for being profligate in its spending, and this does not increase the tax burden on anyone in the state. Texas already has a use tax set at an equal rate to sales tax and payable on purchases brought into the state, such as those from Amazon.

It's a lot easier for states to stay in their budget if they can make sure every taxpayer is picking up his or her own share.

If your argument is that taxes should be lower, that's a separate issue altogether and one for the political process to resolve. If Texans would prefer fewer services in return for lower taxes, I'm pretty sure they have the option of voting for that.

Too stingy yo pay for your media?

Let me tell you about my first Kindle purchase. I paid $12 for a novel that retailed on Amazon at $13.

I read the book, thoroughly enjoyed it and told a friend a couple of days later. She responded by saying she'd love to borrow it. I had to explain that wasn't possible.

So, I saved a dollar.

The publisher saved the cost of printing a paperback book, physically transporting it to Amazon. Amazon saved having the physically store the book in a warehouse and didn't have to pay UPS to deliver it to me.

Once I had read the book, I couldn't lend it or sell it. The bits were used and might as werll be deleted. The publisher and Amazon win again, as there's no second hand market for that purchase.

I have made Kindle purchases since, but I'm much more selective. Typically I'll only do it where I need a book now, or I can be sure it's a book I won't want to share.

It's not because I'm too stingly - I'm still buying books. What I don't want is to lose the rights I have through the first sale doctrine simply because I purchased bits and bytes rather than tree pulp.

I have to wonder about the Siemens issue here. Sounds like this could rapidly move into the hands of lawyers unless the CERT communications were disclosed during the transaction.

RuggedCom's management held $55.8 million (CAD) worth of stock, so pocketed handsomely from this takeover. Would RuggedCom still be worth $33/share this morning?

Also, it's just USB.
Use any phone charger (most phones has USB outlets these days).

That's the point - plain USB chargers won't charge a PS3 accessory. They demand a proper USB negotiation before they'll charge, i.e. they need to see something with a 'brain'. Simply connecting them to a powered hub, or a simple wall charger doesn't do anything.