It's not the cooling fan. My xbox 360 is silent. You just have to install the game, it's the optical drive that's loud. Install game -> optical drive never runs.

Used to play FPS on PC. Console is just less of a pain in the ass to keep up to date once you pass puberty. Agree that XBOX is superior to PS3 for FPS as the controller design and response is significantly better. Would still prefer a PC if I didn't have to shell out my own hard earned cash only to find I have to wind down the graphics till the game looks crap 6 months later. The benefit of consoles is that if the game is published for the console, it will run.

Towards the end of last year I bought a Samsung Fascinate on Verizon. It only had the Bing search widget, no Google search widget, even though it's an Android phone. There were plenty of ways to work around that problem (yes, Bing was a problem for me, no matter what MS do their search engines consistently fail to provide me with relevant results, maybe I'm just difficult) like simply adding google.com as a bookmark in the browser. Couple of extra taps but not impossible.

Around the same time a number of my friends bought the same phone. They had the same complaints about Bing and no Google search widget.

A few months ago, Verizon finally pushed the Android 2.2 update to the Fascinate which included the Google search widget. I now don't know a single person who uses the Bing search widget. Attempting to force people to use your products through deals with various vendors is not the way to build market share.

Does anyone else get the impression that Steve Jobs has a tendency to just open his mouth and respond to everything immediately rather than actually checking with somebody in apple that knows more than he does? I mean, sure, it's part of his job to publicly defend apple against malicious rumors, but sometimes it's not just rumor...

gah! typo... "picture quality WOULDN'T be weighted very heavily"

I can think of at least 2 reasons why Blu-ray hasn't succeeded. The first is that research shows that picture quality is less important if you are actually enjoying what you are watching. Interestingly, enjoyment isn't so much linked to the picture quality as the quality of acting/animation, the script, plot, etc... At the end of the day, we don't care that much about whether things are a little less sharp. Heck, that's part of the reason there's such a market for poor quality copies. If it's a good film, you're still going to enjoy the slightly grainy rip you bought from a dodgy guy on the street. If it's a crap film, it doesn't matter how good the picture quality is, it's still a crap film. I can hear people already saying "But you'll enjoy a good film more if the picture is better!" Meh... If I weighted all the factors involved in enjoying a film, picture quality would be weighted very heavily until the quality drops to the point where you can't really see what's going on.

Secondly, Blu-ray appeared at the same time as many of the online streaming services that are now becoming so popular. It's a matter of convenience. I know it's probably good for me to get out, get some sun, while I go to some rental place or shop. However, I have to pay per disc that way, as opposed to the flat rate I can pay Netflix. This also alleviates any thoughts that I may have wasted my money on a film I won't enjoy. Don't like that bad action film you're streaming? Stop it and find another... problem solved. No need to go spend more money and make another trip.

If I write a site and it validates and displays perfectly in every browser other than IE than imo it's IE that's broken. Standards should be defined by the majority and now that IE usage has fallen below 50% across all versions, that should no longer be Microsoft.

I really should have emphasized the sarcasm and personal frustration of "Who told them parenting wasn't hard work?" I agree with everything you've laid out. Too many people don't realize the work required to raise a child. I do infact love that there is a charity that will pay drug an alcohol abusers to be sterilized so that they can't have children. It may be controversial but at least somebody is being proactive about improving this messed up society.

... that parents are buying their children (who clearly aren't yet older enough to understand financial responsibility) expensive pieces of technology so that they don't actually have to parent or spend time with their children. IMO it's becoming far to common place for parents to sit their children in front of a TV or video game so that they don't have to keep them occupied. Who told them parenting wasn't hard work?

I'm not saying Apple hasn't been somewhat irresponsible for making it so easy to run up bills but a class action lawsuit is a little extreme for something that the parents are equally, if not more responsible for.

GrooveShark is an excellent US alternative to spotify and apart from one or two labels who's items don't appear in the library (most notably Pink Floyd) they have legal arrangements with most of the big labels. Certainly you can find any recent hits on there and a significant collection of more classic (and classical if you want) music.

I think some people must have misread the question. I don't seriously believe that anyone would PREFER to listen to music with earbuds...

I agree there are many reasons why Amazon is successful without tax coming into it. That's one of the reasons I feel Amazon doesn't need the extra advantage of not having the charge sales tax. I realize that making Amazon et al. charge state tax won't level the playing field entirely (or even much at all), but it is one step to equalizing opportunity between physical and virtual retailers.

As has been noted by one or two other commenters, if you buy something from a company such as Amazon, you are actually meant to report it on your state tax return (under USE tax) and pay the tax on it. This regulation would simply keep people honest by charging them upfront.

A few points. I am well aware that prices online are cheaper already before tax. However, when you then add the tax at a brick and mortar store, the price difference is even greater making you even less likely to purchase at a physical location. Making online retailers charge sales tax will bring the difference back to the 10-25% you claim rather than ~20-35% for those states with the highest sales tax

You may fill in you USE tax however, why not just make everyone honest by making sure they pay upfront? Sounds like it wouldn't matter to you either way...