More like they sold you an all you can eat buffet, and then when they started running out of food replaced the dinner plates with saucers.

The 1500 is the successor to the 510 which, likewise, was the successor to the 500. The "m" denotes the Mac version (same scanner, different bundled software). Each (AFAIK) includes a bundled copy Adobe Acrobat Standard. I guess this is good or bad depending on your opinion of Acrobat (personally I hate it, but it's a necessary evil if you have other applications that only have Acrobat plugins available). No problems with portability or dependability either - I have auditors hauling 30+ all over hell's half acre without a single problem in the past 5 years or so.

We have have highly credible reports that Farmville is planning a sneak attack on Washington. Air Force One is fueled and ready.

All over the place. There's still a great many widely used software packages that evolved from and still use DOS/8.3 file naming. One example: Peachtree Accounting (in various flavors).

IMHO, subsidized phones ought to go away. Hiding the true price of the phones behind carrier subsidies frees the phone manufacturers from having to price their phones openly and competitively.

Imagine if there were no subsidized phones. Would we still have iPhones, Samsung Galaxies, HTC whatchamacallits and whatever else? I think so. Would they cost $500 or more? I doubt it - I think market competition would drive the prices down. Plus we might actually have some reasonably priced contract terms for service.

Instead we have manufacturers who set whatever exorbitant price they like and conspire with the carriers to hide that price into locked-in contracts. PT Barnum, wherever he is, must be smiling!

Nope. The most stolen cars are the ones that have the best market for stripped parts or are most likely to have fencable goods inside. The Olds Cutlass led the list for many years simply because most of its parts were interchangeable between most GM brands.

You don't steal cars to own, so affordability is irrelevant. You steal cars for parts. Or for joyriding.

The only MS products I buy are ones that I feel I have to - a copy of Windows (for gaming) and a copy of Office (like it or not, it is something of a standard). Other than that I don't HAVE to have and certainly don't WANT anything from Microsoft -- especially not a smartphone OS.

Oops - 60+ FEET not meters. Still awfully long.

Nope. Look at the web page, click on the link at the top for HDMI cables, then sort price from highest to lowest. There's a slew of cables in the $500-$1000 price range. At least some of them are rather long -- like 60+ meters -- didn't realize the specs permitted such lengths (but my attention span is far too short to look up the actual limits). Still kinda spendy even with the extended lengths.