Plenty of time for Steam to seal PCs (possibly even time for Macs to catch up) as the dominating gaming platform then. The current gen consoles are already considerably showing their age compared to PC stuff IMO.

Seems a bit of a foot-shooting exercise that they're dragging their heels so much this time around.

Or at least taking the piss!

I guess it's a neat idea if you're feeling flush.

But I still think it's a bit potty.

Yeah it appears you missed the joke about marketing spin, seems to have gone over a few heads that one.

"Our new Macbooks are so energy efficient, they take even less energy to run than to manufacture them in the first place, making the lifetime energy consumption (% of total) our lowest EVER!"

Well yeah.

Obviously we're a bit of a more savvy audience here, hopefully wise enough to just switch Flash off, but from the sounds of the summary it proves exactly how bad the experience is with it enabled. Everyone would've been piling in at the Genius Bars in droves to return their iPhone because "the browser is really really slow and freezes and crashes a lot"

Having Flash turned on sounds like an awful user experience, not exactly what Apple goes for.

I can't say I miss it very often (never been into Miniclip or whatever) and I certainly don't miss the animated ads.

I love the keyboard, but the trackpad is crippled under Windows. It still has multitouch etc, but has funny issues like right-click taps requiring 3 fingers instead of 2.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with the hardware and in general Windows is often better on a Mac than a PC. But it'd certainly be worth remaining aware of any issues - making your Windows experience superb and smooth is hardly Apple's priority so bugs go on for some time.

Just buy the OEM version. Even Microsoft themselves can't agree on whether it's acceptable or not (http://www.zdnet.com/blog/bott/is-it-ok-to-use-oem-windows-on-your-own-pc-dont-ask-microsoft/1561) but as far as I'm concerned after interpreting the license as best as I could (IANAL etc), it's absolutely fine.

The crap about selling it with a fully assembled system is for when the EULA takes effect: which is when it's been opened. While it remains unopened, PC enthusiast vendors are just selling the package and the agreement doesn't apply yet. It applies to the person who opens it, and if you're the "system builder" (in this case all you have to do to "build" it is er, install the OS?) building for yourself then don't worry about anything it says about the agreement between the builder and the buyer. You can't sue *yourself* :)

The people who speak for Microsoft are mostly call centre droids who don't really know either way.

I believe in David Tenet.

Anyway... yeah I'd say start with the reboot as well, there's some great stuff in there (silly Russell Davies episodes and his farting aliens aside) and it just seems sensible to start with the modern. Indeed you can always go back.

I have tried watching from the very first episode with Hartnell and was bored to tears - plus there were LOADS of episodes as it was a serial with the kind of regularity of Coronation Street.. not like the 13 episodes a year or whatever it is nowadays. It'd take forever.

Go for the popular stuff like the Tom Baker episodes maybe if you want to geek out a bit, but I'd concentrate on the modern day version.

Apart from that it's really obvious to the boss anyway when he walks in and instead of looking up and saying hello you go wide eyed and stab at your keyboard. Many bosses seem to pretend not to notice - until they need ammunition...

To be pedantic I wouldn't say mine is unlocked as there is no lock to lock or unlock. It's "SIM Free". :)

Perhaps a more modern problem is software locking, and yes it's unlocked (jailbroken as people like to call it).

God, number 2

You do right. Translation of the original request: "Learn this software for me, because I can't be bothered".

Happens all the time. Because I "know about computers" I must know exactly how to operate every piece of software ever written, instinctively!

It's probably that we can stay calm and rational and think logically instead of going "OMG PANIC DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO, DURRR", it just blows the mind that this is so difficult for so many people. Sit someone in front of a computer - all willingness to learn goes out of the window.

I'd be curious to know if they've tested this out on anyone who's unfamiliar with computers. My gut feeling that icons like:

_ [ ] X

even in ASCII, would be discovered quicker than double-clicking on the title bar. That trick has been around in Windows for as long as I remember, but it took me a good few years before I noticed it.

Don't think I'd be suckered into buying it, even if I didn't realise it was Blender.

When they use all those caps, bold bits, underlines, yellow highlights, "now YOU can blah" (signed by the director of course) etc all in one big wall of content, unless you're already a known guru who just overdoes this style (Steve Gibson), I will automatically think it's spammy crapware anyway and steer well clear anyway.

Yeah I can't speak for the grandparent but I think he's utilising this thing called "humour"?

Cows are destroying the planet! Better eat more beef! - that sort of thing.

Give or take an hour. But I'd say you can't have seen what many programmers get away with scot free...