While I know some people love search boxes on everything, I personally use them as a last resort. Inevitably it takes me more times and more interfacing (mouse or key clicks) to accomplish the exact same thing that a well written menu can do.

The argument that they present for why the HUD is great is exactly the reason why it is a poor replacement for menus. Menus are more than triggers for functions. They tell the story of what the software can do. For example, I use a lot of different graphics programs. Some have certain filters that others don't. Some filters are named differently in different programs. Sometimes there are brand new filters that I am just beginning to learn the names of. Sometimes I see a filter in a menu that I have never used and say "oh, let's see what this does". In all of these cases, a menu system beats a search box every single time - and the same is applicable to other kinds of functions in software.

If a solution requires someone to know the first letter of a command, then why not teach them to better use keyboard commands? Or perhaps come up with a way to better organize keyboard commands in a way that easier for a regular users to understand? Search boxes have their place, but they are not the best at being a primary point of accessing functions from a finite, predefined list.

I dropped cable for streaming + antenna 2 years ago and though that I would miss DVR. As it turns out, I don't miss it at all. If I want to see a show that was previously broadcast, I find a way to stream it online. In the rare case when it isn't available, I have been surprised at how easy I find it to wait for the DVDs (as I did with Walking Dead), or just not care to watch it ever. The simple fact is that I have access to so much high quality entertainment that I can watch on my own schedule, that I don't miss the stuff that isn't available. If it is something that I really care about and need it now, I'll make time to watch it on broadcast TV or pay for a subscription to that specific programming.

Streaming + antenna is an entirely different experience to DVR + cable/dish. It took switching for me to realize just how different it is. In addition to not needing a DVR, another strange thing I experienced was that streaming made it much harder for me to veg in front of the TV. I was always able to watch something that I found interesting, so getting some work done on my laptop with the TV in the background became much more difficult.

There is streaming technology for the Super Bowl: an antenna. It's in HD and looks better than over-compressed cable. This same radical streaming technology can be used to watch many other timely TV shows as well, like the Oscars or Monday Night Football.

Have you ever been to Best Buy? Apple is not the only company that sells over priced adaptors. In fact, look around you... aside from the electronics, chances are that a majority of everything on your desk and that you wearing was produced for a tiny fraction of what you paid for it (when you don't include the cost of executives and ad agencies).

As much as commenters on /. would like to think otherwise, Apple doesn't have a monopoly on evil. I know that reality can be hard to discern when you spend all your time being dizzy from rolling your eyes.

If it were just a concern of the pervasiveness of CB radios, then most trucking companies would have already banned their use by their employees. In that case, the percentage of CB users (drivers for the trucking company) would be close to 100%. If the logic of a cellphone ban also applies to talking on any electronic device, then any large trucking company that pays attention to its bottom line (insurance costs, getting the loads there on time, etc.) would have banned them.

My guess is that it comes down to the judgement of the user. The choices made by a trucker with a CB radio is different than the choices made by a teenager on a cellphone. In the 70s, the general population used CB radios, so clearly there is the ability for an average person to learn responsible use of the device in a moving vehicle. Perhaps it just comes down to teaching people that it is ok to have a slower exchange and pauses during a phone conversation while in the car to make driving the priority.

When I was a kid in the 70s, nearly everyone I knew had a CB radio in their cars and trucks (I grew up in a family of truckers in the country). So how are hands-free phones different than CB radios? Actually, CBs aren't even hands free. Is there something different behind the mentality of using a CB radio vs a cellphone? Or was using a CB always dangerous and just not used by as many people? I can't remember any conversations ever about the possible dangers of using a CB radio.

Suppose I put my phone on speaker and then pugged in a mic that had a curly wire and button I pressed to talk, making it basically function like a CB radio. Would the danger level of using it decrease (when compared to using it entirely hands free)?

Does your mom have this choice? I know mine would have no clue. The most tech-savvy of the population aren't the ones we should be concerned about. The people that this affects the most are the ones that receive a device that is set to log their keystrokes and never really know to ask about it.

The open source community, of which I am part of, expresses the benefits of using of open source software, but when something like this negatively affects the masses, their answer is always one that is not readily known and/or available to the masses. The simple fact is that secret default key logging in inexcusable in any consumer software, open source or not. For those that really care about promoting the use of their favorite software, instead of making excuses for it or offering complicated fixes, you should be raising holy hell.

Back in the day, I remember a setting on iBrowse (Amiga) that caused the browser to ask before accepting each and every cookie. I don't see that setting on my current browsers, though I may just be overlooking it. Surely the better solution is at the browser level. Default it on to ask, give the user a way to turn it off. Or, default it to not ask, but show the user information about cookies and instructions to change the setting the first time they run their browser.

Education is an amazing thing. Web developers should not be subject to laws that are open to interpretation just because some people don't want to learn how to use something they are operating. Imagine if we applied the same philosophy to driving a car -- all owners of buildings need to post warnings that running into the building with your car can cause harm.

Yes, going on the internet takes a tiny bit of responsibility on the user's part. If the user is not smart enough to exercise responsibility with cookies when educated about them, imagine what they are doing with facebook, four square, hook-up dating sites, and so on.

By definition, this malware is 3rd party software. Users have to enter their admin password to install it. Just like any other third party software, I am not sure why people think that Apple should provide any support for it. For example, if I install some 3rd party shareware program that turns my pointer into a naked girl with bouncy boobs and it causes conflicts with other software or eats up system resources or sends out emails on my behalf, then I have zero expectation for Apple to supply support for the situation I got myself into.

Just because Apple sells both the hardware and OS doesn't mean they have to provide support for or have their staff trained to deal with every piece of software that could possibly run on that machine. The same is true of any computer with any OS. If you are typing in your password to install something, know what you are installing first. Duh.

Is there any chance at all that Slashdot might make a tiny amount of effort to report about Apple and Google in the same tone when they are sitting side by side talking about essentially the exact same stuff?

When you present a story like this in such an slanted way, it begins to reek of the technics used by right-wing radio hosts about stuff they consider liberal. There are plenty of legitimate things to criticize Apple for, that you don't have to reconstruct reality to create new ones.