I absolutely love Windows Media Center on Windows 7.

I have a quad tuner Win7 Media Center machine with a dedicated remote, and it's difficult to beat the DVR experience. I'd take it over DirectTV and FiOS's DVRs any day. But as great as it was (and still is), it was a flop with consumers. The dedicated media center extender hardware products were killed off, and the MCE laptops from Dell and HP disappeared (built-in tuners, remotes, dedicated button for "TV"), and they eventually just killed WMC altogether. Too bad, I think it really worked well.

The XBOX has one thing going for it.. it's already located in family rumpas room and connected to a big display, but I don't think was going to be enough for it to get traction. In my experience trying to use an XBOX 360 to watch TV, the menus are a mess, and it's difficult to fight past the ads, the tiles, the recommendations, the apps, settings, required XBOX account sign-in, forced software updates and restarts that take 5 minutes.

Average consumers need a dedicated DVR, and I salute MS for recognizing that.

No thanks. It was fun for about two weeks, then I made friends with people I actually wanted to spend time with, and they weren't my dorm mates.

Remember the 1990s, before everyone had a cell phone, and hotels charged around $2.00 for a local call, and $2.00 + $2.00/minute for domestic long distance?

I do, I was a hotel general manager at the time, and it was common to see a $25, $50, even $100 dollars in long distance calls on a guest room folio. If the guest complained, we'd give them a 50% discount, and still make out like bandits. I say bandits, because we were practically robbing the guests. I hated it, but had no control over the company-wide phone contracts and required fees.

Relax, I didn't say that I don't *think* they're gaming the system, but given the facts, it's conjecture, not fact. There is a big difference, and that's my point.

There is clear evidence of engineering intent in the VW case. There is no evidence for the other auto manufacturers at this point.

Am I wrong?

"This provides clear evidence that the automotive industry is designing its cars to follow the letter of the law (passing tests), but not the spirit (actually reducing pollution)."

While that statement could be true, it's a bit presumptive.

I think the facts as presented show clear evidence that cars are emitting significantly more pollution in realistic driving conditions than when being tested, but I don't think it proves that the automotive industry is designing cars to do so (with the exception of VW).

It could be any number of things. Maybe the testing methodology doesn't reflect realistic driving conditions. Maybe only new cars are tested, but emissions change over time. There are many possible causes, and at this point, there aren't enough facts for the other makes to know. The cause for VW is known. Don't apply that assumption to the other makes until you know.

The DallasNews story makes Ahmed look really innocent, and the school officials / police look really islamophobic. I admit, there is a good chance that's the case here (and if so, heads should roll at the school, ISD, police department, and possibly even the city), I can't help but think there is more to the story. It doesn't feel unbiased.

I need more information from all sides before I judge.

I'm also skeptical because no school administrators or teachers, nor anyone in the police organization tapped the brakes on the arrest, handcuffs, search, and demand for the written admission. My kids would have gone to MacArthur High School (we since moved to a different community), and at that school, this kid wouldn't stand out at all due to his name or skin color.

Finally, the "Yup. That’s who I thought it was" comment makes me wonder if the police already knew who Ahmed was for other reasons.

I couldn't care less about the Caps Lock. I rarely use it, but it doesn't bother me.

My frustration is when I use different keyboards, and the Home, End, PgUp, PgDown, and Delete keys are in different places, or are shaped differently (double height delete key, for example). The same goes for arrow keys.

I use the HELL out of the Right Click Context key on my keyboard. I've noticed that Logitech has been replacing that key with a FN key to switch the purpose of F1-F12 to other stupid things no one cares about.

I also use the crap out of the Windows key to start searches or enter UNC paths to get to network resources quickly. Though if it wasn't there, I would learn and use it's alternative shortcut key.

On my families primary machine (an AiO in the kitchen): Not for at least six months, and maybe never. It currently works fine as is, and a new OS would be disruptive.

On our secondary machine (a recently purchased cheapo Toshiba laptop that is used for gmail / basic surfing only)? Sure, why not? I understand that Windows 10 runs well on low specd hardware, plus it will give my kids experience to yet another OS.

"People just don't use it as much as anticipated"

That may be true of 2014, the future of mobile pay was shaky to say the least, with high profile retailers Best Buy and 7-Eleven pulling out (they're back in now), but with Apple pushing mobile payments, new tap to pay checkout devices are showing up on the counters of retailers every day, and I expect it to be the norm by the end of this year.

I currently use tap to pay 7+ times per week, and expect that to double by January. I love how fast it is, and that I don't have to hand my CC over.

I'm not worried about speaker placement, camera specs, removable battery (assuming the battery is of sufficient mah), or removable flash storage, but no NFC will makes this device a non-starter for me.

It's not like they're going around blocks to accomplish this. That's too simplified.

Think of it as making the routes more clockwise shaped than counter-cockwise when possible (all other things being equal).

I missed the part of the story that endorses gun deaths. I guess that as long as NYC has crime (a city of 8.5 million), it's unacceptable to

Aw, never mind.

Exactly.

I doubt this will come as a surprise to the nav nerds at Google, this is their business. This seems like a productive request, and hopefully meets with healthy dialog.

Chrome has a "Data Saver" feature in settngs; enable that.

I think it compresses and/or down-scales images on a proxy before sending them to your device.

My Data Saver reports that it has saved me 32% in the last 30 days sample.

What a coincidense, Tumblr is forcing me to reset my password due to suspicious activity, and I want to use my generic low security password, which len = 9, and includes both numbers and lower case letters,. It's not strong enough for them though, "Please choose a stronger password." Give me a break.

If only you were kidding. I think they call it Exa-Gouge, and ORCL sales weasels sell the shit out of it.

My Oracle Support will be another fun experience for Micros admins.