Iâ(TM)ve been asking for paper menus since the QR code fad started, and Iâ(TM)ve left at least one place that had no backup solution. Iâ(TM)ve noticed more paper menus coming back and credit people like me for making that happen.

It doesn't bother me either. The buzz of the stadium lends excitement and dramatic tension to the match.

If you're referring to this Goldeneye, it's clearly a case of a game based on the movie and not the reverse.

I am constantly whining for smaller federal government, and no I don't want any of those things you listed. Could it be that not everyone who disagrees with you is a hypocrite?

Values upon which the nation was founded is another way of saying the rule of law that was put down on paper and agreed to in the forming of the nation. Mainly the debate was over whether slaves were people (and thus created equal as per the Declaration), or property (and thus protected by property laws). Slavery had been a staple of civilization since ancient times, but was quickly being obviated by the industrial revolution. Just because change can potentially be affected more quickly by trampling the founding principles, doesn't mean it should be.

I am a software engineer who has a degree in CS as well as a background in networking and IT (yes, mostly Windows). I use Apple stuff almost exclusively for my own needs. It's just less trouble and more satisfying to use. Denigrate them all you want, but a lot of other "technologically illiterate" people like me agree.

If everyone thinks they can cheat the system, that just causes the cost of insuring these devices to continually rise in response. Nice work geniuses.

It is more convenient, to at least the majority of computer users, to have those keys default to actually performing a predefined function rather than nothing.

This is a curious comparison given that once you reach adulthood, your appetite remains essentially the same. Maybe the same thing is true of economies...

Writing software is also art to some degree. Failure to recognize this leads to terrible software.

Nicely put.

Are you still talking about CD burning? The GP correctly pointed out that OSX can natively burn CDs without the need for a commercial CD-authoring suite like Toast.

Also, the way the music is organized on an iPod is totally separate from the way it is organized in iTunes. Your rant about the iPod not being a generic external storage volume is totally irrelevant to the merits of iTunes.

I shouldn't feed the trolls, but isn't it obvious that there is no need to inefficiently organize the files on a device's internal storage that are intended to be managed completely via a software application? Why put in the faster hardware and extra engineering effort required to do that? Clearly they did so in iTunes, which does store the files human-readably, because there is a greater need to interact with them outside of iTunes.

Huh, I always thought the purpose of including advanced math in CS coursework is to impart a high level of abstract problem-solving, and on a more practical level some experience with solving problems that occasionally fall under the purview of engineering—software and otherwise.

Because everything you are allowed to think, say and do are privileges granted to you by your generous and benevolent government.

It would be great for everyone to be compelled to conform to your secular ideals under threat of force wouldn't it? You are exactly like those you claim to be more enlightened than.

Certainly there are now more simple PDF readers out there, for instance OSX Preview can show basic PDFs, but there isn't really a drop-in replacement for Flash Player yet. There are competitors like Microsoft's own Silverlight, which they would love for you to use instead, and HTML5's impending <video> tag, but mainly you are stuck with Flash Player for many web sites out there.