T-Mobile just started offering discounts for bringing your own devices. It's pretty compelling from a price perspective, but I'm still not sure if they get decent coverage where I live.

There are some fantastic add-ons that do this, but I agree, it would be great to have this in the core functionality of Firefox.

As an off-again-on-again linux user since the early days of Redhat and Caldera, I would have historically agreed with the need for a relatively long-use release. However, I think Ubuntu has become very easy to use for the installation of new programs. Apt-get is a huge win. This helps eliminate the difficulty of setting up a new environment when you reinstall the OS. For the few applications that aren't available via apt-get, I'm willing to spend some extra time (although installing the latest version of ruby/gems/somewhat rarely used gems/rails on my last ubuntu install was a bit brutal).

That said, I probably will stick with the next long-term release for an extended time period for many of the reasons you mention compounded by my general laziness.

I think the actions of building an atomic bomb or a biological weapon should be illegal for the public good. It's too late to prosecute someone for "blowing something up" with a highly-destructive device. As for possessing explosive material - what about ammonium nitrate? It's a high explosive with legitimate uses as a fertilizer. The "act of fiddling" with it is what makes it dangerous, not the inherently useful materials to begin with.

I understand your argument and where you're trying to go with it, but there are many shades of grey here that aren't handled. I'd tend to argue that the cops may be doing something correct by arresting someone who is modding consoles solely for the purpose of copyright violation (which I'd be shocked if he wasn't), but I'd say the main error here is that the potential penalty is too draconian. Furthermore, if they apply DMCA to more legitimate practices, such as modifying the PS3 to run home-made programs that you couldn't otherwise run, the cops should take it on the nose. I haven't heard of that happening; although as crappy as the DMCA is, I won't be surprised to hear it.

Sorry, apparently I'm completely incompetent at using a browser; here's what I actually meant to say (and this time not anonymously).

I couldn't disagree with this statement more. I spent my school years learning Spanish. I believe I should be treated well even if I go to China or France, places where I have little-to-no language ability. That said, the French people I met in Paris and Nice when I visited seemed quite nice to me. All this is predicated on the traveler treating the locals respectfully

I find this statement to be mis-leading. While locked-down out-of-the-box, t-mobile has far and away the best policy when it comes to unlocking the phone. If you're a customer for over 90 days, in good standing, they'll unlock the phone. At AT&T, you can only get that if you have a nice store rep. At Sprint and Verizon, dream on.

Has Windows Mobile improved dramatically? WinMo 5 is the worst operating system I've ever used:

• Phone locked up
• Needed to go into memory to close open apps on a regular basis - the UI for this was quite poor
• Doesn't update the signal strength properly
• Frequently sends calls to voicemail when clicking the answer key
• Must remove the battery to properly restart the phone
• The interface with my bluetooth randomly decides to disconnect/reconnect

I could go on listing issues all day, but it suffices to say, the OS is terrible. I'm willing to believe that M$ can improve this product, but they have so far to go from my original Moto Q. Also, any copy paste support yet? I don't get why Apple and MS didn't have those working out of the gates.

Several points:

• In a car, road, wind, and other external noises will eliminate any ability to hear the difference between most lossy and lossless formats.
• Many recordings and/or masterings of recordings are not of sufficient quality for anyone to be able to tell the difference between FLAC, MP3, etc.
• High quality recorded and mastered music with a high quality stereo is the only time a consumer would typically be able to discern any difference.
• Professional and semi-professional musicians and recording engineers spend enough time listening to almost indecipherable sound nuances through top notch equipment that they probably do notice and care what formats they listen to in a professional environment.

Well thought out position, but I'd have to give them a more even ranking on most merits.

HL2 Highlights:

• Modified Gravity Gun during the end-game
• Entry into Ravenhome - I'm a sucker for pseudo-horror
• Alyx Vance - better companion than Cortana

Halo Highlights (from 1 and 2, unfortunately don't have a 360):

• Introduction of the Flood in the first game (good foreshadowing)
• Arbiter invisibility - this created some fantastic stealth opportunities
• Covenant sword
• Creative level design - the outdoor environments were very cool

I would tend to give Halo the edge due to multiplayer being so fantastic, but I haven't given the HL2 partner games a fair shake - CS or TF2.

I'm running 8.10 on a Dell Latitude D620, and the default settings already have one of the workarounds implemented. The laptop-mode-tools package workaround mentioned at Ubuntu's wiki has already been implemented. Lower the FUD meters.

I'm only going to be happy with DLC if I get to play as Liberty Prime.

I recently had a discussion with a friend who works at Id. He says that their new engine has virtually identical quality on both the PS3 and 360, which fixes one huge issue with the Unreal engine that so many companies have been using. So, hopefully, as more games come out using Id tech, there will be greater parity between the consoles. For Id's latest game, the DVD capacity vs Bluray capacity supposedly hurts the 360 graphics relative to the PS3.

Totally agree. I've used HDMI and component inputs to connect a PS3 and an Xbox to my 1080p 46" Samsung. I get no noticeable lag, even in FPS games where I might notice it. It also has a "game mode" which I don't use because I don't have noticeable lag to need it.