That's why it's called an estimate.

I have been writing software for many years now, been involved in the design and planning stages of lots of projects big and small. People who are not in the software industry find it hard to believe how expensive it is to write software. It takes lots of hours, lots of skills and lots of coffee. The programmers/designers/analysts/grapics artists all have to be paid for their time (it's called a salary). Then there is office space, electricity, furniture, computers, servers, etc. A top end server to run a popular website can cost millions, and they are usually in a server farm so there is more than one. Some of the bigger projects take years to complete, even with a large team. Credits in games now run like credits in a movie (long ass list). Pay for your software, it costs money to make it (yes even crazy birds) and the people who make it should be compensated for their time and effort. Sure I pirate the odd program and game, but only for programs I am going to use once and then never use again, which does not make my pirating right, it does make me a thief, no matter how you try to rationalize it.

Unless the real artist is Metallica that is.

I couldn't agree more, now that the driver issue is sorted out (mostly - some legacy crap still won't run). I was an early adopter of Vista and liked it a lot. I do agree though that it was more of a resource hog than xp, but I have always maintained a decent gaming rig and did not really notice any performance issues when changing to Vista.

Fvck that, downloading pron at 28.8k sucked.

At least you CAN buy the books - I'm stuck in the ass end of Africa, I had to rent a server in the states just so that I could buy e-books! I can buy the physical book and they will mail it to me, why can't I buy the e-book? Whats with the restrictions to other countries? Global village my ass.

The very fact that it uses platinum at all makes it costly - regardless of the amount. There is very little platinum in catalytic converters but that does not stop people from stealing them off of cars/trucks. At the time of writing this platinum was selling at 1761.00 a troy ounce.

It IS a general purpose computer! Just because the manufacturer/vendor/whatever chooses to lock it down does not suddenly make it a paperweight. Linux on the PS3 ring any bells?

The computer I learnt to code on was an 8088 - if memory serves me right it's clock speed was 4.7khz (with turbo), it had a whopping 640k of memory and a humongous 20mb harddrive. It was a huge beige box which was heavy enough to use for cover when under automatic weapons fire. My current phone runs at 1ghz, has 768 mb of ram and 16gb of storage. It also fits in my pocket and is not suitable for cover under any weapon fire (including potatoe guns). How is the first one a computer and not the second? I think you need to wipe the shiit out of your eyes and take another look at the world around you.