No shit dude. I have a fucking 32GB phone of which I'm using about 3GB. The thing I use more than anything is Google Maps. If it's downloaded something, why does it ever delete it? I can cache apparently unlimited 10 mile squares (100 square miles?), but I can't say "Just fucking download the entire state of Iowa" (because, really, who would want to?).

But I suppose they're getting there. Slowly.

I'm curious what these old peripherals are that you need old PCs to support.

A friend of mine claims his PC based firewall does something superior to my Linksys router with alternative firmware. Sure it's more powerful but it also uses more power, generates more heat, and takes up more space and time managing it. My router is small, silent, and I never have to touch it. It routes my packets and protects my network. And I don't see the point of having and old PC for web browsing if you have a better computer at your disposal. It's either the primary computer for some user in the house, provides a specific purpose that can not be provided by the primary computer of some user in the house, or it's trash.

Using a PC as a NAS is definitely preferable, in my opinion, to a consumer NAS. Those things are invariably featureless and fail if you look at them funny. But if there's less than a handful of PCs on the network you might as well just throw a huge f'ing hard drive in one of the workstations and share it to the network. That's all your "PC NAS" is anyway.

In my house:

Primary workstation shared by my wife and I, and an occasional overnight guest
Also serves as file server, print server, and gaming PC
Printer/Scanner attached by USB
Roughly 2TB of storage

TV PC for video playback and rare gaming sessions, attached to TV
Loads files from workstation

Old laptop on a custom shelf in front of the treadmill for video playback
Loads files from workstation

Router/Access point with DDWRT (need to look into other options, but it works so why bother)

We each have a smart phone that talks on our wireless network.

I have a work laptop that I bring home for gaming and general surfing (and occasional work, hate to admit).

What do you do on your home network that I can't do? Honestly - I want to know. I have three computers and a router for two people.

The young geek me used to hoard. It was scary. At one point I had more than a dozen large CRT monitors at the house.

Then I realized it was just a bunch of junk. I identified two or three complete computers and adequate networking gear to support them that I wanted to keep and anytime someone came over I let them take anything that wasn't turned on. After a couple months of that I loaded up what I thought was still useful and donated it. What was left I trashed.

Since then I only acquire what I need, and use it until it no longer functions, at which point I trash it.

The hoarding stage is all about learning about electronics. Once you think you've got a good understanding of the gambit of electronics that can be had for cheap or free there's little reason to keep any of it around.

Absolutely. Some of the RDP connections I make are over 256kbit VSAT connections with greater than five seconds of latency at times. Drop the resolution and color depth and it's usable. But I what I'm saying is that from my experience 2mbit and reasonable latency of 100ms RDP can *seem* like using a 'local OS'. Maybe just a bit sluggish PC ;) But in turn, some aspects can be far superior. Like disk I/O, for example, if you are running an RDP session on a 32 core system with SAN access and want to compress a 3GB folder into a ZIP file, it'll happen a bit quicker than if you were trying to do the same thing on even a fantastic local PC. And 100 users could all be working on that RDP server at the same time. At which point it starts to become really financially beneficial to use this arrangement.

Honestly the only gripe I see with their specs is the relatively low resolution display. My primary display is 23" 1920x1080 and it bugs the shit out of me. Spreadsheets need more pixels. Configuration windows also need more room.

I think breaking it down to daily is a bit too fine grained. A poll like this should have been weekly. I play a few games, but I don't play anything for HOURS every day. I might binge one night and play for seven hours, though. Last night I played StarCraft 2 for about five hours straight, but didn't play anything the preceding five days.

If it's a thin client doing RDP or such the speed to the thin client is negligible. I use RDP clients over 2mbit internet connections nearly everyday and it works fine - even with the increased latency. Keep in mind all the file access and disk I/O is taking place on the RDP server, not the thin client. The only data going to and from the thin client is information about how to render the video output. You could even use Photoshop effectively through this.

Yes, of course it will! That's how they sell ads!

That just looks like a hodgepodge of cheap consumer crap he picked up at Home Depot and literally taped to the walls and ceiling of the dorm room. He even runs free apps on his Apple products to control that stuff.

Where's the fit and finish of quality hackery? Practically any geek with a spare couple of weekends could throw this together.

"Will searching the Internet become less useful in the future, when people have small personal chochkies that know all of their personal preferences, their habits, location and can give them exactly what they want, instead of 400 things that might be, interspersed with dozens of ads."

If you use Google Search while logged in with a Google account they're doing the same thing for you.

The difference between Siri and what this author is referencing as "Google" is query entry by voice or query entry by keyboard.

*** News flash, you can enter your query in Google Search with your voice as well. ***

"... the collecting society would not get an annual lump sum for the contested videos, but a fixed fee each time copyright-protected videos are watched ..."

And then start paying people to watch the videos.

Profit!