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Hardly a surprise since theoldreader was set up when Google dropped the social side of Reader (in favour of G+ integration).

But they are different kinds of conversation.

Here's something that happens to me a lot. I get an IM asking me a question, in order to answer it I need a bit more information so I ask a question. I wait. Just at the point where I think there's no reply coming and I can re-focus on whatever I was doing before I get an answer. I reply, adding a further request for information. Repeat a couple of times until I finally say "Send me an email".

If that was a phone conversation the person would generally answer immediately or at least I would know what was happening. Silence on IM might mean they're thinking about my question, or it might mean they've been distracted by an email.

The problem with IM for me is that it's somewhere between email and phone in terms of being "live". It can come across as passive agressive because it demands attention right now but the person at the other end can more easily split their attention across other things. A phonecall would require both my and the other person's attention equally. An email requires my attention but I can prioritise when I reply.

And he was STROKING them?!

Use Calibre to convert it.

A digital camcorder that fits in your pocket in 1994? They'd go crazy for it.

Picasa, 500px and "surely it would cost Microsoft less than the price of Yahoo! to develop their own", I'd say.

The knowledge is shared. The only reason Samsung know that a device nobody other than a handful of journalists have held in their hands outside Apple is because it's impossible to implement standards without doing so. Those standards state that Samsung have to offer a licence under RAND principles to Apple, however, and they haven't done so.

Samsung have just pulled their pants down before challenging Apple to a "kicking each other in the balls" contest; not very wise.

Because some of us are planning on dumping it on cheapo netbooks, at least while it's just the pre-release Developer version?

It's not perfect, but from what I see he's not removing the big heatsink / fan assembly from the PS3, which encases the whole motherboard in a metal shell. So I don't think it's going to be much of an issue.

Kids these days. We played 4-player Asteroids on an Atari 400 and a 15" telly, and WE LIKED IT.

Fair enough on the PC to TV thing, I suppose. If others find it difficult, they find it difficult. Possibly because I'm a sad git, I've never bought a HDTV that couldn't take the VGA output from my Dreamcast, if nothing else. But it's still easier than getting good performance out of an emulator, which is what the grandparent was discussing.

21" monitors seem to be fairly standard for desktops these days, yes. Most decent-sized HDTVs have a VGA input. Most decent-quality graphics cards and gaming laptops have HDMI outputs, as well.

Hooking up a PC to a big telly is a piece of cake.

One of my TVs has 4 inputs, the other 1. Although I've got an auto-switching HDMI box to go with that one, anyway.

However, such a box would have been a trivial, and sensible, addition to the build I'd have said.

Well, quite. The crop factor on Canon DSLRs is 1.6, so a 200mm would be equivalent to 320mm on a Full Frame.

Umm, maybe I'm missing something. But given that iTunes is the application for syncing your iPhone with your computer, why were you (a) uninstalling in the first place, and then (b) suprised when you couldn't sync?

There are apps you can't remove under iOS - basically anything that comes pre-installed to the first screenful of stuff. App Store, iTunes (meaning the store, not your music), Game Center, Weather, Stocks, Face Time and YouTube all strike me as apps that not everyone would want, but can't be removed.

However, two ways that these are vastly better than the Sony instance is that none of them are running in the background stealing your CPU cycles and memory, and that all of them can be tucked away in an "undeletable crap" folder if their icons offend you.