There will surely be some OEMs who do survive. They might be selling ChromeOS or Android laptops. But these will be stop gap measures at best until Microsoft gets their act back together for the next version of Windows. Neither OS has the critical mass necessary to compete with windows in the next few years. Perhaps in the future though.

Capitalists wouldn't need massive armies. Just competing private security companies. I do agree there would be a practical limit to how much property one person could reasonably defend. Therefore we would generally have a more egalitarian distribution of wealth than under the state.

State capitalism and state socialism are just different forms of a planned economy. There is a clear difference between state capitalism and liberal, laissez-faire capitalism.

Nonsense. Capitalism is not a structure of governing law. It is a way to determine who owns the means of production. Capitalism = private ownership. Government = public ownership. Capitalism is fundamentally opposed to government.

Microsoft can survive more than two bombs in a row, and they really do have the cash to do it. However, I don't think there will be another bomb. Windows 7 was a decent recovery from the Vista debacle.

I have no need to purchase a set top box. My Android smartphone with hdmi cable and bluetooth trackpad is good enough to watch pretty much any content I want from my living room couch. The one thing I wish I could do is somehow turn my Android phone into a Clear QAM tuner and use it to watch the free tv channels from my internet cable with an Android based XMBC app. I know there are usb tuner cards out there, maybe someone could make these work with an Android micro usb port.

I do realize there are a steadily shrinking minority of a few people who don't already have a recent smartphone or tablet with hdmi capability. I guess they must be the ones who are targeted by the set top box market.

I have a Verizon LTE iPad and a galaxy s3. I put my iPad's sim card in the s3 for LTE service on my phone. Calls do work but VZW charges 25c per minute. I rarely make calls, so I still end up paying less than getting a regular voice plan. And I use google voice for free texting.

How many good programmers actually exist who are capable of writing secure code in C++? And out of them, how many will still make simple errors like an occasional buffer overrun? Even if you're a "good" programmer there will be lapses in judgement or things that are just overlooked.

I do largely agree with your comment about keeping it out of the browsers though.

Profite motive? Really? Private education is virtually non-existent, except for a handful of church-run schools. The vast majority of people go to a publicly funded primary and secondary education, then attend a publicly funded university, underwritten by loans which are mostly provided by the government itself or government-backed institutions. It's hard to imagine how much more funded by The People it could get.

Unfortunately there are very few Christians who actually follow that advice. The vast majority of them have no problem occupying and bombing middle eastern countries, for one small example.

Why not buy it used? I usually get the itch to upgrade when prices start to drop around or below $300. Then sell my older phone. Recently I just found someone to trade my galaxy nexus + $75 for an almost new galaxy s3. So now I have a more recent phone without being stuck on a new contract.

I rarely use more than 2GB. Most of the time I need the internet I'm at home or work. If they are gonna raise prices, I would rather them do it on the heavier users.

Could we just give the OP the benefit of the doubt that he simply just misspoke? It seems like he has a legitimate question, and instead the discussion is getting lost in a bunch of crap posts all saying the same thing about the 16GB. Jeebus, people.

I use my android phone, a galaxy s3 that I recently picked up used off contract, as my media device. Before that it was my galaxy nexus that I also got second hand. When I get home from work I plug it right in to my tv with hdmi. With my bluetooth keyboard and trackpad I'm good to go. I don't need to use the phone as a remote when I have a trackpad.

IF you primarily use it as a media device, and you already own a fairly recent smartphone, there is no need for a Pi or Apple TV or anything else. If you want to build robots and circuit boards in your spare time, then go with a Pi.

I've never had a virus on my Android phone. I think as long as you don't install shady stuff from the play store or random apks from the web I think you should be ok.

While I agree with your frustrations about PC gaming, I'm curious why you throw in mobile devices at the end there? I have a galaxy nexus and an iPad, both have some decent games on them, and they work great over hdmi. Admittedly, I only play games very occasionally though.