I think you take a very reasonable position on commenting on organisational matters. Orth should know better and it's inconceivable to me that Microsoft (which takes an extremely reserved stance on public commentary as a matter of course) wouldn't have briefed Orth on its policy. At the very least it indicates a troubling ignorance to the internet ecosystem coupled with losing control of himself in a fit of childish spite. Someone who represents an entire creative dev team (who probably shouldn't actually be involved in determining DRM issues anyway) should know not to grossly antagonise half of his company's North American customer base (and more of Microsoft's overseas customer base).

This guy should have learned from Paul Christoforo and I can't help but think he should be canned for an unapologetic reel of spiteful crap directed at consumers.

Defending a business direction is one thing. Lashing out at customers is another. Guy deserves his career to be crucified because that's just stupid and unacceptable behaviour for a corporation to allow. The DRM issue is totally irrelevant to the problem.

Yep, Halo: CE made an apperance. Couldn't tell if it was Anniversary, but it was specifically Master Chief in the campaign to the original Halo: Combat Evolved, I think in Assault on the Control Room.

Who the hell decided that it would be an appropriate use of public funding to hold a trial for some asshole who said something racist on the internets? Because seriously, if they wanted to uphold that for every birt who does, they'd be broke within a week. Also, they'd run out of prison space real quick and need a new country... hey, this is sounding really familiar.

1. Make mountable earpiece with technician one-ear headset.
2. Link lens to single eyepiece.
3. HUD app.
4. Make deliberately fragile and cheap.
5. Infinite business as geeks the world over keep buying them to crush while screaming that it's over 9000.

A reason not to buy Windows 8? How about the fact that Win 7 is just now picking up real steam, works great and doesn't need an Ubuntu-style Metro layer over the top of it to make it an excellent OS?

Yeah, retrospectively my joke post about him being an idiot would have worked a little better if I'd replied to the right comment. The irony adds a nice twist, though.

Where exactly did you pluck that statistic from, and what relevance does it have to a comment made by someone who hasn't directly stated their nationality? In case you haven't noticed, reality TV isn't exclusive to the US. For instance, China seems to be having a rash of it. I challenge both your uncited statistic and your reason for a reference to one specific nation, sir. You are justifying unscholarly personal assertions with pseudo-intellectualism and I'll have none of it.

In essence, they just patented a concept of deciding that thin employees get paid more and fat employees get paid less, and indeed judging their personal lives? Sounds like they're cornering the supermodel engineer market.

This judgement delivered by JudgeBuddy for iPad. This is ridiculous. Singling out 5-10 patents which Apple Claims Samsung's infringing on, which are guaranteed to be covered by "prior art" with the hope of delaying a rival product until it's no longer saleable. Antitrust much?

iPhone is good. Android is also good, but much cheaper. Android market share > iPhone market share. Apple market share > any other smartphone vendor market share. One truly killer device = Apple in trouble.

Starbucks and McDonalds have the means and cause to defend themselves against such ludicrous litigation, and they'll make face while they're at it for not a whole lot of capital. The patent troll isn't going to dare take on anyone who can adequately defend themselves and have good reason to.

“Everybody knows that the Internet is the ultimate unkillable beast,” he said. (Walker)

That's pretty much the entertainment industry's view on the internet. It's this big scary beast which steals profit from them, and they should make no attempt to reconcile that by making property available at a rate which people will pay for. There's no good faith here, and there's no good will. Australia's the obvious target because the companies are smaller and the law is less geared towards the people. Nice little test site to set an international precedent, no?

Is anyone else missing the elephant in the room of these ipads being given out to improve low test scores in small children?

Seriously, this shit is getting ridiculous. Has anyone stopped to wonder if putting so much pressure on young children to perform at some standard designated by a bunch of people older and more obsessed with themselves might be contributing to the problem? I sure remember the moment I lost interest in reading: when it became a fucking chore.

Maybe instead of distributing expensive objects no-one in their right mind would trust a kindergartener with to kindergarteners, they should reach out and try to change their apparently-shitty teaching methods.

It probably helps to some extent that we're seeing something of a shift towards devices which join multiple technologies in the one object. Our phones are also our daily cameras, our music players, our portable gaming consoles, etc. Instead of charging a crapton of different things, we're charging one little smartphone. Same goes for TV's, especially as they're working on energy efficiency pretty heavily lately.