While I respect the EFF and don't doubt their intentions, it sounds like this Carpathia Hosting company got itself a PR-out that it needed. The way I understood things, it sounded like MU's assets were frozen and it was assumed that since they couldn't pay Carpathia, the hosting company was going to clear out the data at the stroke of midnight (slight exaggeration, but you get the idea). I'm sure that MegaUpload users were hoping that the hosting company would wait until a trial to delete or not delete out of the goodness of their hearts, but that isn't fair to them. On the other hand, from the comment on the EFF page, it sounds like Carpathia can not get users their data, either for technical or contractual reasons, at the moment.

By giving a small grace period and supporting the EFF here, Carpathia has really put themselves out of "Bad Guy" range. I don't think they would have deserved the label to begin with, but you know some disgruntled users would have bad mouthed the hosting company once their data was lost.

They kinda downplayed what the search does... a lot. I did a search yesterday and got an actual google+ post from someone I follow (and no facebook, it wasn't the top rated result, it was on page 4 or 5). If Facebook and Twitter want level playing in the results, they have to let google in. Yes, it was "already indexed" in the very narrow results they demonstrated, but that won't be good enough in the future.

So lets suppose everyone decides to play nice and google gets to display everyone's results. Fine. Give me some check-boxes, please. I deleted my facebook account for a reason. First, I don't care what facebook's relevant results are. I've been so-far decently pleased with what G+'s results have been. Don't care about MySpace or Twitter either. Let me turn them off.

Also... I don't believe for a second that if google starts pulling data down from facebook, facebook is not going to be, in turn, storing up those search terms to sell off themselves. As I said, I left facebook for a reason, so do not make me help them. Let me turn them off.

*Slow claps* That's really, really sad... yet amusing.

It depends on the subject. I am retaking an accounting class, and that text book is on a update schedule of every year and a half to two years. Now what exactly has changed that much in the practice of accounting? Much of accounting, I will remind everyone, is dictated by the IRS. So again, how much has changed? Catch is that they change the workbook problems at the end of each chapter, so you will be buying it.

For the most part, professors let the publishers go nuts. I had *one* professor that talked directly with the publishers in the last 5 years, and got two $45 books, by different authors, from completely different series, packaged together and sold for $55.

I don't care for Apple in the slightest, but if they can do something to throw the racket that is textbooks into turmoil, I would give them a slow clap. I don't see it happening. I've seen several textbook publishers begin offering ebook solutions already (although not widely advertised). The price difference isn't worth it. $110 instead of $135 with no way of getting any money back? Yeah, no.

Although it seems to me professors do not fight for a better price, they do put a good bit of effort into researching the textbooks they use (at least from what I gather from the day-1 speeches). I'm not sure the professors are going to be thrilled by the idea of going to some lower brand, potentially lesser quality, book from their usual, often departmentally agreed upon, and familiar big publisher textbook that they've used for years when the big publishers tell Apple to go straight to hell when Apple tries to both get in on the publishers' action and push the prices lower. I doubt Apple will fight them on price at all... that might work for them. Otherwise, this new platform might work out for professors wanting to self-publish a book for their classrooms, but that's about it. I don't expect much to come of this.

There's lots to watch... and my Google TV puts it all together for me. Did I miss some promise where by getting my Revue, I was magically supposed to double the amount of "premium" and mainstream content I previously had access to?

It is a middleman device between my cable box and my TV. Instead of using the 5+ year old, unresponsive, slow, and rather unattractive cable box guide to find something to watch, I can use this device to search for something to watch by name, genre, and a few other factors (and for some special functions like On-Demand, I can still fall back to the cable box without the Revue caring at all). It also tells me if the program that has caught my interest is available on Netflix streaming, or available to stream from Amazon, which also means I have a relatively low power device to use those services with (and it is very nice not having to fire up the harrier jump-jet that is my roommate's Xbox360 for Netflix).

In addition, have you ever seen a group of people gathered around a small laptop while someone looks up a product, or watches a YouTube video? That can be done in my living room with other people comfortably seated and minimal personal space being violated.

No one that has seen it, techy and non-techy alike, has not thought it was a impressive little device in my home. The issue comes up for 'if only I had a TV that was new enough to support it' or 'I don't have the extra money to spend on one and my cable box & Xbox/PC works for now...' as far as not buying one themselves. That is the problem, in my opinion. What people currently have is good enough, and they don't *really* need Google TV. Start building the product into TVs, as they are now doing, and I don't see any more problems with the product taking off.

That being said, I can see where those that paid $300 for the Revue thought they should get free Starz or something. That price point was kind of a joke. I am aware of what you are referring to in that a few choice channels block their web player when detecting Google TV... for some stupid reason. Most of whatever they are blocking is in the free On-Demand list of my cable provider anyway. Check the screenshots for the new Vizio devices and the remote has a Vudu button, so it seems that is coming soon. I am a happy Google TV consumer, and will probably look for the logo when I upgrade my bedroom TV in the next year or so.

Wow, I didn't know about the font size accessibility issue. I would say that's a pretty big mistake as well. Considering native and non-native resolutions, dropping the screen resolution and degrading the, reportedly, crisp experience of using a Mac for accessibility reasons seems to be a very poor solution.

I think Vuze/Azureus is a good comparison for Apple, but I'm not sure about how you went about making the comparison. Vuze started, as Azureus as mentioned, as a program for downloading using a new protocol. The use of said program usually required that a person first find a way to log into their router, find advanced port settings, open the port, and find a way to forward it. This is assuming the router properly supported these options. There was an entire website dedicated to documenting and archiving step by step instructions to do this for each model of router. Asking a user that could accomplish that to learn what settings do what and provide a full range of options to perform the most minute tweaks wasn't that heavy of a request. Most of their early users probably wanted to learn what those options did and were for (I know I did). Things changed. Routers got web interfaces, and even got the ability, with supporting software like Vuze, to auto-magically forward ports. Vuze changed and became simplified by default, not showing the advanced options and statistics that the average web surfer doesn't care about. I don't know if I would say that now the average computer user can comfortably use Vuze yet, but it is more accessible. But for the power users it started with that still want to perform those tiny networking tweaks still, there is the advanced options and classic views. I know lots of people dropped Vuze for other torrent programs over the years, but I don't think I've ever seen "too many options" cited as a reason (usually it was 'Java is too slow' or 'Java is too much of a hog').

How did Apple start? They made personal computer kits that were pre-assembled for hobbyists to make their own programs. You wanted your Apple to do something, you had to figure out how to make it do it. Personal computing got better through hardware and software improvements (a chuck of this progress credited to Apple). Apple adapted, and makes computers that "everyone" can use today. Where Apple differs is that if one of their users wants to do something now, Apple has to have figured out how to do it and made it an option.

I reiterate all this to show the other side of the coin. Alienation. I don't believe Vuze has alienated the power-user group of people. If Apple does indeed follow the side of the coin you described, they are and will continue to alienate power-users. Why couldn't Apple make an option to put OSX into 'Genius Mode' and make everything configurable? I theorize they could, but the second Grandma clicks the wrong thing and her easy computer becomes hard, Apple's reputation takes a hit they don't want.

Things are more clear if you take it from more of a business perspective. You see there is nothing wrong with either side of the coin. It isn't a fully black and white issue, so a coin is probably a bad analogy. When you start limiting options and functionality though, you are really choosing a market. I think Apple has chosen theirs, and they remain strong despite limiting themselves. It's actually one of their strengths to do something and do it well. However, to go more the other way and providing more options, functions, or flexibility isn't bad software engineering by any means. One is just broadening or choosing a different market.

When has sub-standard ever stopped Microsoft before? It's the policy of many not to touch a new Windows, the flagship of the company, for a service pack or two... Though quite a lot of companies seem to be of the 'release it now and patch it later' mindset.

... that around 90~95 I would be going to a new seniors' retreat that they call "Carrousel".

In response to your 'welfare' side of things sentence there, from what I saw they got the same "hot" lunch that everyone else got up till middle school, then it was just no ala-cart stuff. No kid now should be shamed by food stamps where I'm from. Ignoring the small population who are taught by their parents to be stupid baby makers so the government takes care of them, if you see two people in line at the store buying Doritos and mt. dew, and you see both of them swipe a card to pay, you'd have to look very close to know which of the two is using food stamps (and manage not to get punched for trying to steal debit card pins). They give out cards to swipe now, and there is no real restriction on what food items can be bought with the things.

+1 to you sir!

It's very true that one can obtain a Blu-ray for relatively cheap considering the benefit of it. The movies are also becoming much more reasonable (I have personally been buying the combo packs for movies I desire, as they are usually only another $3-$5 to get the Blu-ray and DVD). The deal breaker is that 800$ HDTV you need to grab for it to be worth it.

This was posted a month or two ago on slashdot, and it is worth sharing again. A chart for screen-size/viewing distance and when the resolutions become apparent.

http://carltonbale.com/1080p-does-matter

Another point to consider is also portables. My parents got a new big screen HDTV and blu-ray player. They enjoy the blu-ray and how crisp it is on the tv, but it doesn't dictate their movie buying habits really. It really comes down to the criteria of if the movie is something my Mom would watch on her portable dvd player. If no, then blu-ray usually wins. If yes, then they buy a combo pack (if available) or the DVD version. Portable DVD players are pretty cheap ($80-$120), but a portable blu-ray player is usually almost double the price of its DVD counter-part. I'm sure there are a lot of people that feel if they can't watch their new movie in every room and portable device in the house, then why bother to upgrade any of the devices. The other choice is to buy the movie twice (not consumer friendly), or rip the blu-ray movie, re-encode it, and burn it to dvd (not anybody friendly considering studios don't want you to be able to rip the movies at all). I'm sure most slashdotters could do the latter, but even to us it would get old.