I used to work at an ISP and honestly, as much as it would annoy me as a consumer, Comcast has a reasonable base to exempt their own streaming data while not exempting an external service.

Simply put ... Comcast, like anyone else, has costs involved with pumping data from the outside to their customers. On the other hand, with a good data distribution/caching system, they can pump data full-time from their own network to their customers attached to that network for virtually nothing.

Does that make this 100% fair? No. But it most definitely gives a reason to their madness. Sorry to disappoint folks who grew up thinking bandwidth was free ... but it isn't ... it is actually big business. Technologies like broadband multicast have the capability to alleviate this somewhat ... and yeah, Comcast and their like are going to resist any such change ... but the realities of today should still be factored in.

People who didn't have access before this won't magically get access immediately. You'll get an option to be notified when it is available for your account.

In other words: nice try, but wrong. You just got lucky that you already had been activated.

We are able to care for the infirm and disabled FAR better than ever before. This also has a big influence on evolution.

As a telecommuting business professional I've gone from BB (Pearl, for 2 years) to iPhone 3 (for 2 years) and have now been on Android (for 1.5 years). Each move was the right one for its time, and I have never once looked back.

I played with a BB Storm ... hated it. 100%.

Was iPhone ready for my business before v3? Nope. BB was the right place.

Was Android ready for my business before v2.1? Nope. iPhone was doing it better.

Now? I have multiple Android devices: 2.2, 2.3, 3.1 and 4.0 ... and I'll be having more.

I'm not a hipster (I'm way to old to even pretend) ... if I was I'd have had an iPhone instead of my Pearl. And based on the ones I do know I'd still have an iPhone instead of my Android. NONE of the pro-geeks (coders included) I know want iOS right now on their phone. Some want an iPad and stick with their iPhones for interop. But the tablet story is starting to shift, too.

(the above was just a hint to you: if you thought most hipsters at university use Android now ... maybe they finally clued in)

So you're saying, with the exception of fake accounts and zynga, Facebook = /.?

Donaldson tried to tackle this in his Gap series. While no one will get it perfect, he hit on a lot of points (trajectories, small masses at high velocities) that most authors have neglected. Not the best scifi series in the world, but one that didn't get as much respect as it deserved.

Hard to give a concise answer without knowing what OS the tablet is running. Is this an iPad tablet, Adroid tablet, Windows tablet PC, Linux tablet PC ... ? In this case, it would be easier to do on a non-iPad/non-Android.

Whatever OS it is, google that OS + "kiosk mode" and you'll likely get pointed in the right direction. For example ... for Linux you would want to tell X that the browser is your window manager.

I'm a tech geek, but am getting older. I -like- the larger phones, so this really doesn't bother me at all. In fact, my ideal phone would be a 5" phone (ie, slightly larger than my wife's 4.5" Skyrocket). I've even pondered a world where I carry around a 7" 'phone' (ie, a tablet with all of the phone functions, not just data) ... and I think I'd go for it. Easier on my eyes, easier on my hands.

PS. Get off my lawn.

I switched to Chrome awhile back and JavaScript performance was pretty much none of the reason why I did it. And it certainly isn't going to get me to go back. Chrome is, overall, simply a better user experience. The only thing I currently dislike in Chrome is bookmark management ... and it is "ok" enough to not be too worried about.

This isn't about RUNNING Firefox, but compiling/linking it. I guarantee Skyrim takes more than 500GB under that context.

However, yes, Firefox has become exceedingly bloated.

+1 to this, and I was a Firefox / Mozilla / Netscape user since the days of beta 14 (ie, 1994/1995).

Chrome simply does what I want faster and better.

Thanks to the Mozilla-heads for so many years of goodness. I'll even look at you again some day ... but not under the current direction.

While I buy the "search is faster" argument for the giant inboxes we all have, folders still serve a purpose. There are old conversations that I want to keep ... that when I get around to needing them I may not remember the right keyword.

Perhaps I have a thread from Customer1 that turns out to be highly relevant to ProductA even though it doesn't mention that product anywhere in the email. I want it in a folder.

Labels can be considered folders in this case.

Point being is that JUST searching is not adequate, either, once you are moving to long-term archival instead of on-going conversation. Very few things make it to my folders ... but those things that do belong there.

I'm not affiliated with any dating site. I hate most of them. But OKC deserves a shout-out.

I was a member of OKC back before they had any dating functions. I filled out tests and questions mostly out of a random way to log my psyche.

After they started the dating functions I met 2 long-term dating partners from OKC over the years. Eventually I found myself single and got back on the site. Within a few months I was seeing to wonderful chick who a year later I would marry. That was a year ago.

I know of at least 3 other successful match ups on OKC (not all married, not all should).

Changing yourself to find someone is DESTINED to fail. That's why OKC seems to work well ... as long as you "be yourself" you find someone similar. It also seems to do a better job of pulling descriptions out of otherwise introverted people.

I think OKC may work better in SMALLER communities where sites like Match.com just don't work. Match.com, Eharmony and others seem to work based on critical mass where you date scattershot until you find someone that actually is who they said they were online.Their personality profiles and other things just aren't detailed enough.

Someone who has answered 500+ questions on OKC is likely NOT modifying their answers. Someone who has no questions (or very few) answered and no significant profile is probably just looking for someone and likely is biasing their profile significantly. Those are things that are MUCH harder to judge on other sites. Do people scan over others based on personal judgements? Sure. That's going to happen EVERYWHERE. It's called life.

PS. OKC working for me, even in smaller cities, doesn't mean I was lucky or a catch. I'm 40 now, overweight, and have as much personal baggage as anyone else. But it let me point out my good points while realistically acknowledging my faults. Honestly ... it is the best mix I've seen yet for any site like this.

I

You wouldn't run Eclipse on this. You'd run your phone, internal IM, email, calendar, etc on this.

Your Eclipse/emacs/vim/whatever box would still sit under your desk.

You'd be able to pick your "phone" tablet/etc up and carry it around with you so that you can keep in touch when not at your desk.

Cisco (disclaimer: I work for Cisco but not with the group making the tablet) doesn't want this to become your development machine. They want to merge your current messaging platform with a tablet to add other benefits.

While you may do both dev and messaging on the same machine, MOST places I've seen going back to the late 90s had their developers using multiple boxes. This at some level consolidates 2 to 3 of those boxes (conferencing phone, cell phone, messaging computer). For some of us that would be a huge boon.

That AC isn't making more shit up ... you, Mr. AC, are just too lazy to Google. A quick Google of "angry birds android ad revenue" pulled up a PAGES full of results similar to this one:

http://www.intomobile.com/2010/12/03/angry-birds-android-1-million-ad-revenue/

Is that black bomb egg on your face, or is it from a flock of blues?