It always strikes me as odd that some can't realize the reality of the situation where many people are participatory in the government (ie, the House and Senate) and how many corporations can use their capital to influence these politicians. The benefit of the republic system we have is that, in theory, we can elect people who seem to represent out interests and replace them when they fall out of representing the peoples interests. It's not a perfect system, but none are, and it tends to work out at least reasonably well with the tension created by the two parties. Yes, the Republicans and Democrats both pander to their donors, but at least the tend to have different, conflicting. donors, and the odd politician that actually cares about the people.. I'm not sure where the religious zealot view comes from. As an American (and you, going by your post, are not) I can say the the idea of "crazed religous zealots" is highly overblown by the media and anyone who acts in that manner in the Senate or House are generally fringe candidates and make up the vast minority of the governmental population.

As soon as the little guy goes out of business, prices raise again. No one wants to invest in new entries because they know that this will happen. This is also neglecting the huge start up costs of oil drilling in particular, and the difficulty of breaking into an already saturated (by the monopoly company) market.

Here's the problem with your theory. Even if you can make your way onto the market, the monopoly institution lowers prices again to below the market price you can afford, drives you out of business, then raises the prices again. Once they raise their prices, they're not fixed.

Pressing 'alt' shows all the keyboard shortcuts (for the items shown) and walks you through selecting them.

You're points (i) and (ii) are 100% wrong.

(i) Right click on ANY WHERE on the Ribbon. There's an option, specifically titled, "Customize Ribbon" with an extensive UI offering every option (literally, every option) that will let you put it on any bar anywhere in the Ribbon, let you hide anything on the Ribbon, and let you change anything already on the Ribbon. You could have 100% customized Ribbons if you so choose.

(ii) See (i). You can take commands from anywhere (on the Ribbon or not on the Ribbon) and put them on any menu on the Ribbon, or even create entire new tabs.

Then wouldn't it not matter what the menu interface is, you're using the keyboard anyway?

They showed at the end of the video that the current shading only allowed for two colors of shadows. Basically SHADOW or NOSHADOW. The video claims that, after they completed making the demonstration they showed, they had enabled gradient shading but they were still testing it out. And even if it can't be animated, it could at least allow for much more detailed static environments, which is most of games anyway.

Never underestimate a powerful brand like Google attached to music and a unified shopping system. Many people don't know what Jamendo is (Hell, I don't), and being able to use one system for all music buying allows consumers to stop worrying about finding new sites and signing up for all kinds of pay-for services, which they might be inclined against. There's a huge demand for DRM free music in the consumer, rather than pirate space. The success of the Amazon MP3 store, eMusic, iTunes DRM Free, and Zune Pass w/ 10 MP3/mo +Subscription are evidence of this. The music labels are simply asking for a much higher price than many are willing to pay, whether the music is better or not.

For many people being told a story IS fun. I enjoy watching a heavy movie from time to time because it's thought provoking and the emotional pull is a nice experience (from time to time). I read books because of the thrilling events captured in words. Games don't have to lack a story to be fun. Uncharted 2 has won many awards for its storytelling and has been reviewed very highly, having great game play that is entertaining to the player. You brought up Final Fantasy... have you ever played any of them? They have some of the deeper stories in videogaming. Try telling a Final Fantasy VIII fan that the story isn't "grown up". Final Fantasy X had many far reaching philosophical elements regarding death, reality, companionship, love, destruction, all wrapped up in an entertaining experience that brings you closer to the characters. Just because you shoot someone, or kill some ravenous bird every 25 steps, doesn't mean it's an emotionally empty game.

I believe tampering with the GPS tracking would be insurance fraud, which is also illegal. It's illegal either way.

From what I remember, the Zune pass allows you access to anything in the Zune store library as long as you pay the subscription. Removed from the library? Can't listen to the music. Stop paying? Can't listen to the music. You are not purchasing any music, you are paying money to access a library. The Zune marketplace is a completely different service than outright purchasing music. I believe they give you 10 un-DRM'd downloads per month along with the subscription, so you can see they do see the fact that their customers want DRM-free tracks.

That would be an abuse of monopoly. A company can have a monopoly on a market by having the vast majority of business. A monopoly isn't inherently bad. If a company is simply the best in the market and everybody decides to use their product, then good for them! It's still a monopoly. When that same company starts using their monopoly to force competitors out of the market, or keep people from switching, then they are leveraging their monopoly to corner the market, which is the illegal part.

You clearly have not seen Up.

The point of this format is that it's backwards-compatible with existing MP3 players.

Well, the article states that the ripped mp3HD was 5MB bigger than the comparable FLAC rip, while the original, regular MP3 was 14.6MB. Using a little bit of maths, it looks like it's about 9.4MB less than a FLAC+MP3.