Does this mean developers might actually implement 'MUTE', 'FORCE STOP', or 'RESTART' context menu items for shockwave apps? I despise going to read a page with ads and other shockwave sidebar widgets that make noise or chew up CPU cycles and have no way to pause/mute/stop them. It also bugs that you must reload the entire page to get a flash app to restart.

It's beyond me why Macromedia/Adobe never wanted us to have those essential controls. The only thing we get, in some rare cases, are the ability to prevent the app/player from looping, or to turn down rendering quality.

I think that until _all_ TVs have 16:9 screens and _all_ studios broadcast unmodified/uncropped/un-letterboxed content, we'll have the following two problems:

The disparity in video formats and whether they "letterbox" a high-def program for standard-definition channels is frustrating. Most modern studios and news stations in the US are recording in HD, then either letterboxing it for SD broadcast (adding black bars on top and bottom to make it 4:3 aspect ratio), or cropping the left and right side of the image to get the 4:3 image. The former is horrible for people with HD sets that can't overscan (scale up the side of the image so it fills the screen, eliminating the black bars) and you lose effective image resolution... I wish someone would drill it into their heads that letterboxing HD content is BAD for SD broadcasts. Your camera crew should try to capture actors and action within the central 4:3 area of the image so you can crop and scale your HD content for people with SD TVs or receiving SD channels.

Even more frustrating is when I go to a public place with widescreen TVs showing standard-def channels (in 4:3 format), S-T-R-E-T-C-H-E-D to 16:9, so everyone looks fat and square-shaped graphics become rectangles. Half the widescreen "HD" TVs sold now are able to overscan properly, and the other half can't at all (they just stretch the image). A few good brands can do a "panorama" transform, which is a compromise, but makes diagonal lines look curved. There really is no legitimate reason for a TV to stretch a broadcast image horizontally, yet everyone thinks they NEED to do it to "fill" their wide screens with a 4:3 SD image. It boggles me that so many people purposely distort the image just so it can appear "widescreen".

mod up, please!

Can a state elect to locally invalidate the federal mandate that states that bills issued by the US Treasury are "Legal tender for all debts public and private"?
This may be something that can be easily challenged in federal court, and I truly hope someone does challenge it.

The worst part of this state bill is that every transaction, along with the verified identity of both parties, be recorded and submitted to law enforcement on demand.

When Android became decent: When more than 5 major players in the mobile communications market realized they have a strong, extensible, customizable platform to build a phone on (Samsung, Motorola, LJ, HTC, Sony-Ericsson, etc)
When Android became stable: From personal experience, I've only had to hard-reset my phone twice in the last year. The OS has a few minor inconsistencies, but they're specific to my model and Sprint-customized release of the OS, thus caused by something other than just "being Android"

When Android became something people desire on their phones: Years ago when people realized they could buy a very capable smart phone with features Apple doesn't offer, and not be locked into one carrier or one manufacturer.

Crappy screens: You must have only experienced a small screen on an old phone. At least half the Android phones sold now have resolution and screen size equivalent or better than iPhone's, and some even offer 3D (Which I've played with, and is quite cool)

Netflix must have taken "years" because, like many other vendors, Netflix may have had an exclusivity agreement with Apple for a while, or they're just a slow adopter of technology that's outside of their primary distribution path (Personal computers). I don't remember having any problem using Netflix from within my web browser, anyway, so it's not like the system was completely unreachable from Android users.

5% of the games available for iOS? This is quite subjective. iOS may have 20 times as many games on the iTunes store, but there are still only 50 or so games that dominate both markets, the other 10,000 games get buried in the noise and never take off, so your point is moot.

Most Androids have talk times of 2 hours? [Citation Needed] I've experienced talk time over 3.5 hours on my Samsung, because I was close to a cell tower and had GPS/Bluetooth/WiFi disabled. Conversely, I've known people who've complained that their iPhones had short call times, due to either old batteries that they've been unable to replace, or due to being far from the cell tower. "Most Androids" is subjective and depends on the experiences you've exposed yourself to.

The back button on the Android has completely random behaviour because you must have been using an app that randomly changed its function. In my experience, and the experience of most Android users, the back button does what it needs to do. At worst, it serves exactly three functions: 1) Previous screen within an app, 2) previous page in the web browser, or 3) previous page in a settings dialog. If that's too many functions for you to handle in one button, I'm sorry.

Any changes in behavior caused by the vendor is something you should bring up with the vendor. I happen to enjoy having the choice of what vendor to buy from or what OS version to use. Last I heard, if something in iOS didn't do what you liked or what you expected, you have absolutely no choice to change it or choose another OS vendor. Sorry that you're so bitter about this.

Why the hell would iToonz require a system reboot?

What the hell is it tying itself into? Kernel drivers? OS integration?

I don't remember having to reboot at all after installing or updating any of the following: Microsoft Security Essentials, KLite Codec Pack, Wireshark, Photoshop, VNC, all of which integrate with the OS in some way. What the hell is iTunes doing to my computer?

Why did Apple take so long to do this, after Android has been doing it for years?

They're not glass. They're usually highly polished aluminum alloy or ceramic plates deposited with the magnetic material. The ceramic platters still wont shatter unless they experience over 1000G of shock.

He should stick to farming and leave the radio vs radiation science up to the smart people.

Someone go point him to the definitions of "Microwave Radiation" and "Ionizing Radiation"

Whoever did this must have willfully wanted to destroy the website and its content. Deleting data in this manner is far beyond vandalism or criminal mischief.

I hope the perps get served by a judge who recognizes just how severely malicious this was, and that enough of the people who used the site can provide the files back to the owners and the community.