There's a difference between memory used by an application to cache data (which can't easily be reclaimed by the OS) and memory used by the OS itself to cache file data (which it can easily throw away). That's presumably what the OP was talking about when he said "cached images and icons so that the interface can be quicker and more responsive".

From what I've heard, the vulnerability was in a library which was used by a piece of middleware which Sony relied on.

Sony should have tracked vulnerabilities in indirect dependencies more carefully, but I'll bet that dozens of other companies which invest millions of dollars in security have similar issues. It takes a ridiculous amount of money and sacrificed features to harden a non-trivial setup against truly determined attackers. Sony had both a lot of valuable credit-card data and a lot of wrath from the tech world, and that's a dangerous combination.

So you're mad that Canonical decided you weren't its target audience? Do you also complain that Mexican soap operas aren't very understandable to people who don't speak Spanish?

I'm guessing a lot of those same people also need something more customizable and hackable than an iPhone. Guess that's a disaster too, eh?

I agree, out of that list I gave, none are really great writers of prose. Niven is downright awful, especially the later stuff when his editors evidently became timid. Clarke is the only one whose writing still holds up for me. Imperial Earth is a great story with a remarkable background. I love how he fleshes out a detailed portrait of how interplanetary travel will rely on Titan for hydrogen because it's the easiest place to get it, and then sets his story at the time when technology is about to make fusion drives obsolete. That's good storytelling on top of good science-fiction.

I was mostly pointing out that when defending your position you switched the phrase "tend to be" for "may be". I can't really disagree that people who would say "I love literature" tend to be snobbier than people who say "I love books". What I disagree with is the idea that people who love literature would ignore a superbly written sci-fi book out of pure snobbery.

I've read pretty much everything by Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein, and Niven, so I've certainly read a lot of good hard sci-fi. Of your list, I've only read Mieville, and I'll agree with you that he's a very good writer. I wouldn't be surprised to find him on the 2012 BBC Book Night list. In fact, it's funny that you mention him since he gets a lot of credit with the elitist literary critics you dislike so much.

“I’m not trying to distance myself from the genre I came out of, but it makes me really happy when people who don’t read genre fiction normally say that they really like my books." http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/24/books/24mieville.html

All right, I'll backtrack on that, and say that "any book which did deserve that praise would be literature as well as science-fiction" and thus be subject to the very same snobbery that the OP was deriding. The qualities which make a good genre novel are not the same as those which make a good literary novel, and it's extremely rare to find one with both.

"I was merely pointing out that if you do A instead of B, you may be an elitist snob"

I'll merely point out that you said "tend to be elitist snobs" not "may be elitist snobs". I'll merely add that people who make a negative generalization about another group and then defend it with "I merely said they may be that way" are generally assholes. I don't know you personally so I can't say whether you fall into that group, or just near it.

the genre includes some of the most beautiful and mature artistic works ever published

I love science fiction, but this is a statement I just can't get behind.

In fact I think that any book which did deserve that praise wouldn't be part of the science-fiction genre, in the same way that while there is something of a mystery at the heart of Hamlet, but it's not part of the mystery genre. Science-fiction isn't just stories set in futuristic or fantastic settings, it's stories designed to stimulate the thought of futuristic and fantastic locations and how people and civilization would be different in those locations. In the same way, a mystery isn't just a story with a murderer, it's a story designed to reveal the murderer in a way where the reader receives their own clues and can guess at the solution. Genres have their own great writers, but they're just not the same as literature.

It's just as short-sighted to turn your nose up at great literary novel as it is to turn your nose up at a great genre novel. But the two are still very different things.

The other interesting thing about that scene is that Vizzini does his own clever trick. He switches the cups and waits to see if Wesley is comfortable drinking (what he thinks is) his cup. Since he is, and Vizzini has Wesley's original cup, he feels safe drinking it. Which is perfectly rational and a good way to beat the game if you assume there is poison in exactly one cup.

When I was in England (which has strict gun-control laws), I saw a report on the nightly news of someone being killed with a knife. I could not (and still cannot) remember a similar news report in the US. Here, people always use guns.

I would much, much prefer criminals to be restricted to knives. You may think people are safer if everyone owns guns, but saying they're equivalent to knives is just lunacy.

I didn't say it wouldn't impact users. I said it would generate revenue while impacting users the least. That's good business. It will certainly make some users go elsewhere, but not many. I was contrasting with the dumb decisions Sony and other companies make, where they severely limit what users can do in the hopes of increasing revenue, and end up killing the technology because nobody wants it with those restrictions (c.f. Minidisc). That's bad business.

Whether this is good for consumers in general, or for you or me in particular, is an entirely different question.

Apple is better than anyone at getting the most revenue out of a product or service while impacting users the least. Sony is one of the worst--look at the crap they tried to do with MiniDiscs. Apple knows where to get money where it won't irritate people to the point of cutting into their market share, and they know where NOT to get money. Good or bad depends on your point of view, but nobody can milk a cash cow like Apple.

You know, this is why I still read Slashdot. For one out of every 100 opinions, someone will step up with an obscure but useful bit of knowledge or experience.