Concerned taxpaying patriot citizens should opt in to helping the NSA on a volunteer basis.

NSA should provide a spec for device driver writers to make alternative null devices, such that machines which opt to use this driver, anything written to the null device would be automatically sent to NSA. Then all software could be changed to divert a copy of all streams to the null device. For people who don't opt in, there's no privacy risk. For concerned taxpaying patriots who wish to share with NSA, they just run the new null device. For performance-nut patriots, you could have a special hardware null device to reduce the load on your machine and its own network connection. And for performance-nut privacy-nuts, your hardware null device would .. um .. well, certainly be faster than our lame software-emulated null devices.

And of course, if you're a real performance nut, then whether you're a patriot or an al Qaida sympathizer, you have several hardware null devices, striped.

The reason a phone should be different, is that it is technologically and functionally different. A wallet, cash, watch, TV(*) etc do not broadcast. Those things do not "write" to the world, saying "here I am." Phones do.

(*) Well, ok, you're old TV. Actually, I don't think it would be insane for us to have different expectations about next-gen TVs. Well, I mean, yes, it's insane that they'll talk to the world, but given the fact that they will, we ought to expect them to be recoverable. Sanity within the insanity. ;-)

Someone cutting off one of your ISPs isn't quite the same as someone bricking your PC.

The only thing they did right.. [some UI thing]

No. Let's not forget Chrome's real claim to fame: it's multi-process. Different web pages don't need to be browsed in the same process. Give 'em some credit for that. Plenty of browsers still do the wrong thing here, Firefox being one of them.

Safari 6 has a bug like that. I think Safari is overall a fine browser, and I use to be very happy to use it as an alternative to Firefox's slow pokey waitiness. But it has a one-two combination of Amazing Stupidity, which make it virtually unusable for me.

1) It removes the protocol from the URL bar, so that entering (or clicking a link to) "http://example" becomes "example" in the URL bar. That's unnecessary and could never possibly be useful, but nevertheless, alone it would be mostly harmless.

2) It asks some search engine what the things in the URL bar mean, if you don't enter a protocol. That's unnecessary and not very useful, but alone it would be mostly harmless.

Together, they add up to lethal unusability.

If I go to "http://example?foo=bar1" then it works. But if I then I change bar1 to bar2 and hit enter, it goes to something like "http://google.com/?q=example%3Ffoo=bar2"

Stupid, stupid, stupid. (And Safari 4 didn't have this bug. Never tried 5.) This one thing, switched me to Chrome at work. And it discourages firing up Safari to test things. Guess what that means for run-of-the-mill users. I really hope someone at Apple got fired over this staggering incompetence. If not, then in a few years, Mac OS will be about as useful as iOS, i.e. not at all.

The companies who competed with Amazon, said they did. If I shop at Store X to pay $n, whereas the same item at store Y costs me $n*1.1, store Y's assertion that they have a .1 tax rate, really isn't something they made up, pulled out of their ass. You might be right in saying they don't "pay" the .1 tax, but oh, it's there and it matters in a major way as a market force. It's just as if they were paying it.

Please name any other industry where you feel you have a right to essentially make an ultimatum: "change things to suit my whims or I won't buy your product?"

All of them. There are some exceptions with utilities (e.g. local water company) but even those are less exceptional than the video industry thinks they are.

I think it's supposed to go like:

"cower in my shadow behind your chosen pseudonym some more, feeb.

i am michael kristopeit.

you are NOTHING."

Is that an African or a European Drone?

Seems legit. I really have no idea.

Cool, available on Youtube. Thanks for the heads up.

I think the release schedule reflects the fact that more and more people watch shows like you do. I actually prefer that myself, particularly for complex shows. GF and I find outselves leaving stuff on the DVR until we have multiple episodes to watch.

One curious thing with season 4 of AD: you can watch almost any of the episodes in almost any order. The stories are really only covering a short time frame and a few events, but they are covered from a dozen points of view. It's actually some of the most impressive writing and directing I've seen in a while.

Much of the greatness of that movie was due to Marcia and the other editors (whose names sadly escape me now).

Being a member of the ACLU and the NRA; it's more common than you think.

There's a good chance that other countries would refuse you admittance with a felony in your history.