I've had a CD-ROM Emulator on my Saturn with no modchip for quite some time now: There are a pair of devices called Rhea and Phoebe. You unplug the CD drive and plug this in it's place, insert an SD card loaded with disc images and that's it.

This .... 1000x this... I refuse to donate, contribute or other wise support Wikipedia until this is fixed. Contributing even well reference factual information on non-controversial topics is next to impossible because of so many editors claiming "ownership" of pages and refusing to accept edits that they don't personally approve.

I think the point being that "the rich" is most ordinary Americans. at least by comparison to the world population as a whole.

Not a "fast lane", more like a "toll free" lane. The problem here isn't about speed, and I don't believe that's what net-netrality is about either. Anti-Net-Neutrality practices identify the content going through the data stream and treat some packets differently than others based on that content. Net-neutrality is about treating all packets equally, not just in terms of speed, but in terms of cost, or any other factor.

WOOOOOSH

Most things with CD tried to be backwards compatibility, most things with cartridges not so much.

That's not really accurate. Sure the Playstation line was Backwards compatible up until half way through the PS3's life span but none of the Sega Disc based consoles were BC. However Sega's Genesis could play Master system games with the appropriate adapter. (the adapter was really only there for the slot to accept the cartridges). Also the Atari 5200 and 7800 could play 2600 games. The gameboy's were almost all backwards compatible through that entire lineage and now the DSs are are almost all backward compatible through their lineage. And those are all cart based. The Wii could play GC games but the WiiU could play Wii games but NOT GC games. All of Microsoft's consoles were only semi-backwards compatible since it's really just emulation and support was added on a game by game basis. Then you have other weird stuff like the Super Nintendo could play Game Boy games and the GameCube could play GameBoy Advanced games.

My point being that there's no general rule when it comes to this stuff, the compatibility from generation to generation is inconsistent since support just comes down to a cost-benefit analysis for whoever made the console.

I was hoping they continue releasing an English language version ;)

Looking around there are basically two operating systems (Linux/Unix and Windows) that hold much interest in the marketplace or in mind-share. Unix is over 40. Linux and Windows are both over 20 years old. Most hardware vendors are focused on building better boxes to run Linux or Windows based on one processor architecture. Some operating systems died because they were tightly tied to their hardware (like the PDP based operating systems), others seem to be holding on to dear life because their customers seem trapped. I think of other technologies, like automobile engines, where there was an initial flurry of innovation (including steam and electric), but for around 100 years you had your choice of gasoline or diesel. Are we done with major operating system innovation? Is it now going to be about a slightly better scheduler or maybe a better filesystem? Are the days of a company putting out a new operating system and a novel hardware platform dead?

This, 1000x THIS. Realistically if you know how to search and do research you can find the information you need to do whatever else it is that you're trying to do. This has been true since before computers but now this is primarily an electronic task. knowing how to effectively use a search engine is one aspect but to goes beyond that into being able to quickly identify which resources are useful or not useful or how to use information collected from one search to aid in narrowing down your next search.

I used to feel exactly the way you do, but I've read a few arguments that changed my mind and led me to switch to spaces (typically whatever IDE I'm using is setup such that when I push the tab key it inserts spaces instead so there was really no significant change to how I do things). I don't recall the exact articles that changed my mind but a good break down of why you might choose one over the other can be found here.

The final nail in the coffin is that SEGA's first party development teams were just kind of bad at their jobs.

I beg to differ, Segas 1st party titles during the Dreamcast era were at the top of their game and produced titles and franchises that are STILL making them money re-selling on different platforms as many of them have become cult-classics. Crazy Taxi, House of the Dead 2, Jet Set Radio, Panzer Dragoon, Virtual On OT, Space Channel 5, Chu Chu Rocket, Shenmue, etc. Even their flagship driving game Metropolis Street Racer when on to spawn 4 sequels in the Form of Project Gotham Racing and was the Xbox's flagship driving game until Microsoft introduced Forza.

The Sonic games released on the Dreamcast were actually rated fairly well and fairly well received by fans. Most consider them to be the first 3D Sonic titles made by Sega that didn't suck.
Sonic Adventure on GameRankings scores an 86: http://www.gamerankings.com/dr...
Sonic Adventure 2 scores an 89 on MetaCritic: http://www.metacritic.com/game...

it's an xkcd reference: http://xkcd.com/325/

I don't know where you came up with that figure. The device is designed to run FLAC files. CDs converted to FLAC format take up about 3 CDs worth of music per GB. Given a digital albums cost at around $10... that's only $3840 worth of music.

I wouldn't call ethanol "a mediocre fuel". Lots of people who are into performance tuning cars are going out of their way to run E85 because it's better than normal fuel by most measures. I'd love to run it just for the performance benefits but sadly there isn't a station in my state that sells the stuff.

your example of car modifications is bad because:
1. Many MANY people already heavily modify their cars and historically this has not been problematic to the safety of other drivers or pedestrians.
2. There are already safegards for this in place such as annual safety and emissions inspectsion. Granted not every state requires this, but I see nothing wrong with a law that states "your car must meet these safety parameter to be driven on public roads". which could include (an in many states already does include) a sanity check on the engine control module.