heh. or we just wait for M31 to come to us...

but:

video and music: redundant server storage with cifs/smb access and a front end like Media Portal (i use a windows home server box with about 12 TB on it and Media Portal on a nearly silent media pc connected to my tv via hdmi and my A/V Reciever and to the server via HomePlug networking- and yeah, i know xbmc will run on linux, but i find MP easier to use and keep working and aesthetically pleasing - XBMC is running as a toy on my classic xbox). Just for fun, I have StreamtoMe set up on my server to allow me to watch stuff on the go with my iPad or iPod, but this doesn't really help with the organization part too much.

comics: redundant server storage and ComicRack

Photos: redundant server storage and either Picasa, Adobe Photoshop Elements or Media Portal

and books i keep on my iTunes (ipod and ipad) or Kindle.

Use the stuff that a lot of people have already put a lot of thought into before you try to innovate, at least until you determine that their solutions are inadequate for your needs.

essentially what you need is some kind of fault tolerant network storage and a robust purpose built, database based front-end to handle the organization, access and presentation.

Easy-peasy. The hard part is finding all this stuff, and buying the necessary hardware... Google is your friend here.

it's not like this is rocket science or anything...

oh, wait a minute... what?

to hell with playing games. I want to know why my sneakers can't microwave my dinner. Who's working on that?

even easier if you spell it right. That's Boxee.

http://www.boxee.tv/

I can second this. MP is really great if you have an extensive collection of video, tv-rips, photos and/or music. Only thing I haven't been able to do with it well is web-streaming (NetFlix, etc.) I use Boxee for that.

Setup and media indexing is pretty simple, if a bit time consuming. There are several good walk-throughs on the MP forums.

I have it running on my HTPC, and even my wife is happy with it in the living room. As far as XBMC goes, MP is a fork from a couple of years ago, so they have a lot in common. I've found that the movie/tv-show handling is better with MP, especially with the Streamed MP skin.

you forgot ICON and Prolog... oh, and I almost forgot that eternal favorite, APL

for 30$/gb/month they are probably using the "outsource the backup to a monastery where teams of monks slave tirelessly, day-and-night, to hand transcribe all your data onto painstakingly hand illuminated parchment made out of the skin of Cashmere goats born during the summer solstice in alternating leap years" backup strategy. It's all a question of quality.

Seriously?

I mean are you really going to rush breathlessly to the defense of a breathless guy with only a tenuous connection to the science and engineering involved in this disaster? One who can't even spell/fact check his own friggin' tag-line? When he's name-dropping? About friggin' astronauts? That his dad supposedly got to the moon?

Or did I miss the legendary but forgotten Apollo astronaut, "NEAL" Armstrong somewhere in all the ridiculous hype around NEIL Alden Armstrong?

Dude, you need to turn in your nerd card.

I was looking for something like this a few years ago when I was working on a carrier-grade scalable multi-tenant CC project. Pretty much the only thing I could find was from SolSoft (which has morphed somehow into LogLogic in the meantime) called "Solsoft Security Change Manager". In the end, we decided to go with the high-paid admin approach so we didn't do any serious testing, but it might be what you are looking for. FWIW, I got the tip for Solsoft from a guy who worked on Netfilter.

http://www.loglogic.com/products/security-change-management/index.php

I think he was paraphrasing Caesar:

"Libenter homines id quod volunt credunt" - Men gladly believe that which they wish for.

damn. I was going to say "Call Woz."

sombody refer this man to the Fast Track CEO Program, STAT!

Lived here since 1989, sometimes you do see them with MP's and shotguns. Like when there was a raid on an Apartment complex near where I live - about 30 cops, heavy artillery, vests and dogs never found out what actually happened - or on patrol in the vicinity of some of the embassies (Turkey, for example).

But the worst thing about german cops is the fact that they get to carry guns, but hardly ever get to actually fire them (something about cost cutting and the cost of ammo and range time). It turns out that they average something like 1 or 2 range days a year. I shoot more than that when I'm on vacation, and I can't hit the broadside of a barn. Every once in a while you hear about an arrest involving the use of a police sidearm. Usually ends up with someone other than the criminal being shot. I.e. the guy who stabbed the egyptian woman in a courtroom in Dresden earlier this year - the cop shot her husband instead of the killer. Or the cop who discharged her gun in the middle of the very crowed Nürnberg train station at rush hour while in pursuit of a suspect (no one was hurt). Or the two cops who shot each other during a traffic stop gone bad, because they positioned themselves on either side of the car, at the front window and then opened fire on the driver.

There are more stories, but the general theme is when you hear about a cop using his gun in germany, it tends to include some mention of which person or object - other than the suspect - was wounded or damaged.