What an understatement.

Well said.

Except everything you are saying here is not nearly as absurd and ridiculous as you hope it would be.

The USA is engaged in warrantless spying to such an extent, that it's not even something targeted, but rather, it's a data mining operation of the highest order. And yes, cell phone data is mined, you can be sure of it. So yes, your cell phone is in all likelihood spying on you as we speak. It's spying on you for the benefit of the government and also for the benefit of the corporations.

Read this and think again about your cell phone:

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/05/23/110523fa_fact_mayer

Forget about shoulds and look at reality. I'm talking about responsibility and how it works.

For example, I think that the water should be dry, and when I step into it, I am not responsible for getting wet on the account of my "should" thinking. Does it work like that in reality? No, it does not.

Ask yourself: can customer behavior patterns influence the direction of Sony as a corporation? For example, can a boycott influence Sony's attitude at the executive levels? I think the answer is that a real boycott does have such an ability. So to the extent customers have the ability to influence corporate behaviors, the customers become responsible for exercising that ability with due diligence.

At the same time, does Sony need to wait to get boycotted in order to improve their behavior? Of course not. What does this mean? It means Sony holds a primary proximate responsibility for their own behaviors. Sony executives have more influence over what Sony does than do all the Sony customers put together. At the same time, the amount of influence the Sony customers have is not zero.

So this is a correct and balanced way to understand responsibility. Responsibility is always commensurate with the power you have to influence something. The more power, the more responsibility you have. And our or your power can get as low as epsilon, but never absolute 0. So we always have some responsibility for everything, however tiny it may be.

So it's not "all like this" or "all like that." The reality is somewhere between what you're talking about and what your opponent is talking about. I would say Sony has about 70% responsibility to govern its own behaviors in a moral way and all the customers put together have about 30%, roughly. You can even see it as a 50/50 split, but you have to remember that the customer side of the 50 is shared out among all the customers, while the Sony side is concentrated in the hands of the very few powerful executives.

LOL

You're doing the same thing.

If the sales number are the only indicator of the success, then yes, the iPad is a success and so is Wii.

Nerd? Are you jumping to conclusions? Should I call your sensibilities "jock sensibilities"? Perhaps you're a nerd who thinks by praising iPad you can distance yourself from your nerdly past? And you're projecting this psychological flaw onto everyone you meet?

And yes, I do think people are suckered by the hype. In Wii's case people are also suckered by nostalgia. (How many adults have a warm glowy feelings about Nintendo based on their childhood Mario memories?) I think that hype actually works is a fact. Sad, but true.

Really? How do you know this?

People play minefield to pass time at work. That doesn't mean they enjoy playing minefield.

Define "nerd". I have no idea what you're talking about. I am not from USA, btw. I didn't grow up with a nerd concept in my country of origin. Nerd-idea is purely an American thing. I've learned that Nerds and Jocks are supposed to be opposites. That's as far as my knowledge goes. So explain it.

Simulated 3D is different from the real 3D though.

What the fuck is this? Are you blind? Can you read?

I wasn't talking about iOS. I was talking specifically about tablets. I think the phone format is legitimate as a phone + PDA, which is how people use phones these days. Phones are necessary to make phone calls. Making phone calls is a killer app, so phones aren't going anywhere. If you can then tack something more onto a phone and keep it small and comfortable, that's just icing on the cake, and the killer app will carry this type of a mutt forward.

There are roughly 30 mil iPads in circulation. That doesn't mean the whole thing is not a fad. Hell, I am convinced Wii is a fad, even though it has an absurd number of hardware units in circulation. Many Wii owners agree with me (they say it's true that their Wii mostly collects dust). I know what your opinion is, and you're entitled to it. My opinion is that the fad will wear out unless iPads can find something better to do than play games (or get radically better at playing games). iPads suck for games.

Take a look: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olXj_FwJoog

Do you see how hugely and annoying the guy's finger is blocking the view while he's controlling the game? Guess what? I've been playing Nintendo DSi games for a while. Nintendo DSi is made for games. It comes with a stylus. I found that even though stylus is thin compared to a finger (and more accurate), it's still damn annoying in how it blocks the screen and keeps moving around right over the game area, constantly blocking different parts of the screen. Now, in Nintendo's case, they have two screens. So sometimes it doesn't matter, depending on the game. If the main content is on the top screen, then it's not so bad. If the main content is on the bottom screen, then it's bad. Not to mention using stylus is just annoying in and of itself, and using a greasy finger is even more annoying. Using your finger is an option with Nintendo DSi. I've used it that way plenty to know that I think it sucks, that it's an inferior mode of control.

Other people don't have my experience. Many of them are buying a touch-screen device for the first time. They've heard the hype but have never used touch-screens seriously. They'll get a chance to use them now and they'll soon make up their minds if they like it or not, and just how serious of games can be played on the device.

And yes, it's my opinion. I'm sorry you don't like it. Oh wait. No, I am not. I don't like your opinion either. Not to mention your blinding hypocrisy and bullshit.

That's because each new device is great for playing games (with a great game library). The iPad sucks for playing games. I am a gamer. I know. I don't even like using stylus on Nintendo DSi. Just think how much I would "enjoy" using my smudgy greasy fingers on a screen, blocking the view of the game while controlling it? No thanks.

That's right. Most people are not game connoisseurs like yours truly. :) So when I talk about gaming, I actually somewhat know what I am talking about. I have years of experience on many devises with many input methods.

Gosh... this is idiotic. I am not here to tell others how to live their lives. I am just saying that in my opinion the tablets will generally fail in the market like they did the first time (remember all the tablet hype years ago?). I think the tablets might succeed if they abandon the "walled garden" philosophy and become extensible and configurable general purpose devices, but I don't see that happening yet. In this hypothetical scenario what will carry the tablets is not their form factor (which is OK) or input method (which sucks very badly), but the open nature.

I'm a huge gamer. Now tell me why I should play on an iPad. What will make me ditch my PC, PS3, xbox360, PSP and Nintendo DSi, and pick up iPad when I want to play some games?

PC were great for gaming. They were both open and very flexible devices in terms of both input and output.

If gaming is their primary use, then tablet is doomed because the general purpose computers, game consoles and portable game consoles are all much, much better for playing games. It's not a good sign if the device's primary use involves a function it sucks at.

The tablets failed to take off in the past and I think they'll fail again. They just don't fill a credible niche. They're largely useless. Maybe doctors and nurses will use them in hospitals to keep the patient notes, or maybe tablets can fill some other super-specialized industrial niche like that. But tablets suck as general purpose devices, and they suck as gaming devices as well.

Fuck innovation. I would settle for just any good non-dummified game that doesn't try to target the lowest common denominator. There just aren't any quality games around, period. Every game company is working hard to increase the poly count, to make everything voiced over and motion captures, and fuck the gameplay. Everything is made simpler and simpler. Ridiculous. I wish we could go back to the days of text bubbles when superior gameplay was the only way to stand out from the crowd.

Of course bad, boring, unoriginal and soulless music can't possibly be the problem. Trying to charge too much money can't be the problem either. Treating your customers as if they are thieves can't be the problem, nope... Suing innocent moms and pops for infringement and demanding 10 million dollars for each downloaded song can't possibly be the problem either.

Oh right, it's Pandora's fault!

Programmers already rule the world.

"The Code Is the Law" --Lessig

Some programmers know that they rule the world. Some don't. That's the only difference.