There is no reason people using 500GB should be paying the same as you and using 100x as much, just so you can "not worry".

From an embracement of technology perspective, yes, there is a psychological reason. If you're not limited, you'll embrace and use whatever services you find useful. If you're limited, there's a mental drain involved in assessing limits *constantly*. This slows uptake of new, disruptive, potentially bandwidth-intensive services, since users are far less likely to use their limited resources, for fear of using them up (or getting horrific overage charges, as is usually the case for cellular).

Fact of the matter is the cellular companies see the future, and it scares the hell out of them. Voice is merely data. Text is merely data. They're being taken out of the equation by data-based services that cut off their cash cows (VOIP, iMessage, etc...) - so they're doing everything they can to slow uptake of those services, while increasing charges for data to compensate It's a losing battle, and they know it, but they're bound and determined to kick and scream (at our expense) all the way.

I prefer to make fun of Microsoft for making a big deal about features that Linux has had for years (or Unix has had for decades). It's no less work, but it's still fun.

It's funny, for me every single time WMP said it couldn't recognize the codec and asked if it should look online to download one, it never worked. Ever. Of course, I finally stopped even trying WMP years ago when it became obvious Microsoft's highest priority was seeing how ugly they could make it. Maybe it's better now, but I avoid using anything Microsoft, even when on Windows, whenever possible. And I only run Windows for easy access to games and few other apps.

Let software stand on its own merits.

You say that in a world where 99% of business users have Office installed, and Microsoft uses everything in their huge portfolio of evil to keep it that way?

I agree that the OSS community needs to make better software, and in many cases they already do. But you can't just compete with Microsoft on quality. They will crush you almost every time. Sure, Mozilla has driven IE from its once overwhelming market share, but that isn't slowing down the sales of Windows, or that thorn in the side of all that is good, Office.

It was so cool when the original artists performed the parody.

I never used the mythical Zed-X. Are you telling me it had less than 16x16 resolution? That doesn't seem right.

The TRS-80 could do 128x48.

I first used Apple ][s and wrote a simple game... I think I have the source code printed out somewhere. Later at Virginia Tech in the fall of 1982, I discovered the computer lab in the library that had IBM PCs that only had monochrome cards and for a short while were still running DOS 1. A couple years later the PCs in the labs all had CGA capabilities. At the time I wrote a graphics editor using a hacked text mode with the block characters in the >128 range that you could use to draw in 16 colors (woo!) with a resolution of 160x100. Fun times.

It always amuses me when (U.S.) Americans are completely ignorant of British (and Canadian) spelling of words.

I once worked in a team of 4 developers and one day one of them was reading an article and commented "Hey, they spelled "organization" wrong. They used an 's'." I replied, "No, that just the British spelling." All three of my teammates were utterly amazed that I could know something like that, which itself was even more amazing to me.

I would comment that people should try reading books, but in fact, it occurs to me now that I probably read more non-American English on the web simply because it's so easy to access international content. e.g., A friend of mine here in Virginia blogs about U.S. politics for the Daily Mail.

Anyhow, it just amazes me that these kinds of things get complained about.

Don't laugh... in 10 to 20 years we might be doing just that.

Yeah, I'd feel sorry for poor Flick if he had to use an unheated toilet seat. Yikes!

There is tremendous waste, and yes, fraud, by military contractors but there are plenty of legitimate reasons why military hardware is so expensive.

You deserved a mod for following up your mistake with a good funny.