Just give me a basic 42-50 inch monitor with speakers, a few HDMI ports and an ATSC tuner. If I want internet functionality, video conferencing or other features, I'll get my own add-on box. And when the software is no longer supported (what makes you think these TV manufacturers want to support this stuff for long), I can dump the box and get a newer one for much less than the cost of a brand new "smart" TV. To me, the only truly smart TV is one that divorces the advanced functionality from the TV.

Don't forget the tiny hard drives. Time Warner's best DVR as of a few years ago only had 120GB of space. I bought a TiVo, and promptly dropped in a 2TB drive. I have multiple seasons of multiple shows on my DVR in HD, and it isn't even close to full. I love it.

Just a thought... I still wish Cannonical would have put its resources towards helping make Gnome Shell better as opposed to taking its ball and going home.

Thinking longer term helps you understand the difference between a necessity and a basic human right. 100 years ago, freedom of speech was a basic human right. 100 years from now freedom of speech will be a basic human right. 100 years ago mobile broadband was not a basic human right, and who is to say it will be around (in current form anyway) in 100 years. I suppose we could have labeled the telegraph a basic human right 100 years ago, but that would be considered preposterous today.

And guess that AT&T and Verizon manage to get about 290MHz of the 300MHz. At least after this they'll be rasing their data caps to 2.1GB.

Will it contain blackjack and hookers?

Of course Straight Talk still is beholden to AT&T's limitations (you can't tether without an extra fee on AT&T = you can't tether on Straight Talk, you can't use FaceTime over 3G on AT&T without an extra fee = you can't use FaceTime over 3G on Straight Talk).

Doesn't striping increase the latency? In other words, your burst transfer speeds (like copying large files) will compare favorably to an SSD, but don't the other tasks that require reading lots of smaller files (like booting) still perform slowly? I only have a 2 drive stripe, and it's quick on some tasks, but doesn't compare to any of my laptops with a first gen SSD.

I'm kind of miffed that a state with the second largest population, located centrally within the south, with 3 of the 10 largest cities in the US and deep ties to NASA (Texas) didn't get one of the 4 shuttles. Then again, we kind of did get Columbia...

Doubt it. They can choose to support or not support whatever they want. They just can't actively use their current monopoly position to harm competition in another market (operating systems). If they put in some special instructions that actively sabotage the Linux kernel from running, that would be one thing. From what it sounds like though, they are merely not providing drivers/source code for Linux for some of the CPU features for this platform. Of course since a lot of geeks will try to get Linux running on a toaster for the lulz, I expect this to only be a short-term hindrance.

...rather than simply a layout revision. While I like my rPi currently, I'd love to have more RAM, a faster processor, and a better graphics chip. Of course doing so would probably cause the price to blow past the current $35. Maybe they can add a revision "C" to their lineup?

I want to use AT&T's LTE network, I just don't want to deal with AT&T (or pay their ridiculous markup).

I thought from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly, timey wimey stuff.

Did it not occur to you that perhaps this is what the larger firms want? By setting up this confusing system in such a manner, it makes it nearly impossible for smaller companies to innovate. That ensures they do not have to face nearly as much disruptive technology as they otherwise would, and their revenue streams remain secure.

You can by a SIM from www.straighttalksim.com for $15, and then a 30 day plan that includes unlimited talk, text and data for $45. I currently use one in my iPhone; if your phone doesn't allow you to change your APN settings manually you'll have to jump through a single hoop (download a new carrier profile from some website) in order to get the data to work.