My internet is nice and fast (220ish down, 50ish up), but I pay a $20/mo base and $0.20 for each gig used.

Some months it's great and cheap, other months not so much...

As a small business owner that lives in a small town in the middle of nowhere, that $80 a year makes perfect sense.

Being able to order computer parts with free two day shipping is a huge boon. I can't buy them locally (as in, they don't exist in a 130 mile radius), less downtime makes my customers happy, and free shipping increases my margins.

I place anywhere from two to ten orders a week with Amazon. First name basis with my UPS and FedEx drivers AND their backups. Amazon Prime has been tremendously helpful to getting my business going.

Sure, if you live in a metro area surrounded by Best Buys and WalMarts it makes less sense, but many of us don't.

Amen to this.

The only downside would be having to buy a joystick again. I haven't needed one in years, but a new X-Wing or TIE Fighter would change that.

Such a dumb name. Anyone that's ever seen one knows they're clearly jackadeer.

1. Geological
2. Meteorological
3. Biological

It's hard to know if this is censorship or if they just violated the terms of service and hatebois are flying off the handle. There are still lots of posts about the consumer reports unrecommendation on discussions.apple.com:

http://discussions.apple.com/search.jspa?search=Go&q=consumer+reports

Still, if it's true it wouldn't be the first time Apple flew off the handle with the censorship (remember the Ulysses app flap?).

Hard working designers like Gloria Vanderbilt and Antoine Bugleboy. These are the people who saw an overcrowded marketplace and said, "Me too!"

The animus toward Apple on Slashdot is striking. It doesn't matter what it is, how useful it is or how big or small the market share is: haters love to hate.

Haters are always looking for the "Apple killer." Whether it's the iPod-killer, Mac Mini-killer, iPhone-killer, Mac Book Air-killer or now iPad-killers. They want to see them all killed.

Also, anyone who uses an Apple anything is obviously a "fan-boy" (haters' favorite slur), who's just falling victim to marketing hype. They couldn't possibly find any simplicity, support or use for their Apple product. If only they knew how stupid they were to be spending their money on X electronic item.

Apple's done a lot of dumb things (refusing the run Flash on the iPhone/iPad, the App Store lock-in, proprietary display/data ports) but credit where credit is due: they embraced Unix, open web standards and H.264. Maybe instead of flying off the handle every time Apple is mentioned, you could RTFA and assess the thing on its merits and faults.

The thing is, Apple's enigmatic frontman doesn't turn up to these geeky WWDC shindigs unless he has something to announce which will get the hyped-up gang of Apple fanboys and girls a-whoopin' and a-hollerin'.

Keep trollin' on, haters.

I like my iPhone a lot, but Apple runs a ridiculously closed, proprietary system. So Steve's criticism of Flash as being closed and proprietary is so obscene as to be ridiculous.

Saying Apple supports open "web standards" is just splitting hairs. They support open standards when it's in their interest (trying to lure users away from competitors) but otherwise they are one of the biggest offenders when it comes to pushing lock-down, proprietary, our-way-or-the-highway systems.

The only reason Apple gets away with it is because of their small market share. If they had the size or influence of Microsoft they'd get their ass slapped with an antitrust suit just the same.

How many of us did a similar "brief animation project" in BASIC on an Apple II, TI-99/4A, or Coleco for a 7th-12th grade project back in the early to mid 80's?

Granted, it wasn't on paper, but still... I did a four minute graphic story on an Apple II in 8th grade back in ... math math years .. 1983ish that this reminded me of.

Not my fault the dirty reds were 15 years ahead of me. These guys were all PhDs and shit.

Still got an A... bah.

Color me naive, but I imagine that things will go bad with EITHER Israel or Iran... one leads to the other. We'd have to REALLY fuck things up for things to go bad with both.

Then again, I still don't fully understand what Obama's got planned...

You'd think this would be well known by now. In order for the network to know how to reach you with a call, your cellphone has to tell the tower where you are. It's just common sense, if you're getting a signal, your whereabouts can be easily determined.

The only way to protect your privacy with a cellphone is to turn it off.

Really, I want to know. I know it's the "American Pasttime" but is the metaphor of "three strikes" even used there?

Wait. You mean Google is taking the data I'm storing for free on their servers mining it for information to use in contextual advertising just like I agreed to in the terms and conditions when I signed up?

And also, I want a pony.