2010 really is the year of Linux on the desktop!

I'd also like to nominate A(dot)ngstrom and the Pandora, the most powerful portable gaming system (or, the most game-friendly portable full-featured computer) yet created. It should be out Real Soon Now. I'd say "Order yours today!" but I want them all to myself.

If only. That sentence means that any videos with ads will display with the usual flash player, even if you opt in to the beta.

You see no benefits to using XHTML. I agree that many of its outlandish promises failed to materialize.

I see no drawbacks to using XHTML. I hope you agree that it is and will always be valid HTML5, which is The Future(tm).

Let us be as one mind and one people.

...which supports XHTML syntax and the application/XHTML+XML mimetype. XHTML syntax is still quite alive and well, and usable by anyone who feels like using it, like myself (I find the rigor makes things easier to read and write). Perhaps you don't like its strictures, but luckily there's room for both of our syntactical preferences in the W3C tent.

I think the (monetary) value of your time is whatever you are or could be getting paid for it. In the example of the contractor you gave, if the contractor could have done billable work for another project in the extra three hours (though perhaps that's unlikely), then regardless of what you did or didn't pay, the hours were worth whatever he could have got for them. He sacrificed their monetary value in order to gain what he thought was a superior value in client goodwill (avoiding leaving mistakes in, appearing forthright and not greedy, etc).

Other commenters have noted that the auteur is a well-known publicity director, so presumably time that he spent making this video could have been spent on other things, and thus has non-zero value.

...I design your camera! Isn't it bad luck to name any advanced electronic device after a renegade robot from a work of science fiction? I wouldn't shave with an ED-209, or drive a Lexus Bolo.

Apples which sometimes "are really" oranges perhaps should be given a closer comparative examination.

I've seen precisely two sensible arguments for Google-mistrust.

One is from a perspective of generalized mistrust: stated in the strongest terms, no one besides you should have access to any of your data.

The other is from a perspective over the long-term: there is a real chances that, in one's lifetime, either due to individual breaches or a shift to corporate evil, Google will cease to be entirely trustworthy.

To me personally, they both seem tiresome, and not worth the effort, but I understand why people with stronger commitments to privacy or safety would make those arguments.