One big thing that nobody seems to be mentioning is the resurgence in cryptocurrency mining that happened just as the first newer VR sets were arriving on the scene.

I already had a pretty good GPU that could just handle VR (970) fortunately, but was interested in getting an even better one when I get my VR set.

But right at that time, cryptocurrency mining had a big resurgence and suddenly I found that I couldn’t even get my own graphics card, that I already had for a little while at that point, for what I had paid for it. And anything that was an improvement was just insanely expensive.

I really think that cryptocurrency mining driving up the prices of the GPUs required for VR just as VR was trying to take off put a huge dent in VR.

My understanding is that there is some really questionable pricing/gouging for phone calls from prisons.

I'm really wondering if calls from prisons are included as part of their numbers here.

You are right on this. The only other changes that I've made beyond upgrading the graphics card have been to add an extra hard drive, as well as adding in an SSD.

Well, more than that, they seem to have stalled in terms of getting much better. 4.5 years ago I built an i7 system. I've been used to getting a new computer every 2-3 years that blows the old one out of the water. This time however, there just hasn't really been much to upgrade to. The CPU specs are still competitive. We're still at quad cores. We've gone from tri-channel memory on the i7's to dual channel. I've upgraded the graphics card though.

In the past, people would buy new computers because their old ones were made obsolete by new ones (so not necessarily because their old ones stopped working). This hasn't happened in a while, so why would people buy new computers that aren't an upgrade, if their old ones are still working?

With so much in such a small space/size and an unusual factor as well, I have a very bad feeling about your ability to upgrade practically any parts in this thing.

Take a look at Archaeology magazine as well (http://www.archaeology.org/issues).

You should also check out Archaeology (http://www.archaeology.org/issues). Only 6 issues a year, but it's a good magazine. It's a periodical put out by the Archaeological Institute of America that is aimed at the wider public. It reminds me of National Geographic, but without the modern stuff.

I like the iPad for casual stuff, reading, websurfing, light games, but there are times when it just feels limited. You're out somewhere with it and have some time, but can't really work on your programming projects. Depending on the battery life/power economy when not running hardcore games, it could be a good platform, not so much for games, but for straddling the line between a casual platform and a serious work platform. You can do reading/websurfing on it one moment, but switch into a regular IDE as needed and continue with your projects (and not look strange since tablets have become so socially acceptable). You could have it attached to a monitor/keyboard/mouse at home to act as a regular computer.

2 years ago I decided that I wanted to view stuff through the BBC's iPlayer, forgetting that most of the good stuff from the BBC makes it here, and what doesn't make it here tends to be the dregs. Anyway, I found an open proxy in the UK and was barely able to get video across it. That was just the starting point. From there I looked at all of the HTTP communications (with Live HTTP Headers) and using FoxyProxy was able to just have certain pieces of data going through the proxy. I narrowed it down to just a few small HTTP communications that were being checked for location, and just proxied those. I got good streaming video after that because the actual video was being served up by Akamai. I wound up being served BBC video content from a server in Arizona.

Given that BBC America has most of the better stuff from the BBC, I haven't bothered messing with that kind of thing in several years.

This kind of thing may not work now, but it's worth checking to see just how much data really does have to be proxied/vpned if you are doing that kind of thing.

The house analogy is much closer to open source. If you find a flaw in the design, such as that thieves figured out how to pry open the windows, then you can't go back and sue the builders. You can however get new locks, add on new security to the house.

Adobe though is more like a landlord who is anal about you making any, even tiny repairs. You aren't allowed to make any changes to the house itself. You find out that thieves have figured out how to pry open the windows. You report this to your landlord, expecting them to make appropriate repairs. They refuse to make reasonable repairs, but tell you that they have a different property for rent, with better secured windows, if you are willing to pay higher rent.

The issue is that since they do not give you the source code to even allow you to make repairs, they should be obligated to make repairs themselves for a decent amount of time.

They initially did try to make the caps really low:
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/mar2009/tc20090331_726397.htm

Traffic from Netflix has surpassed traffic from piracy:
http://consumerist.com/2011/05/study-shows-netflix-surpasses-piracy-in-online-traffic.html

After initial public reaction to really low caps, the cable companies did raise the caps to what are currently reasonable rates. But they've also shown no sign of changing those caps. As the quality of the video improves in coming years, it's also going to take up more and more bandwidth. So the higher caps got the public off their back for now, and isn't hurting Netflix at the moment, but it's pretty obvious how this will play out in a few years time.

There are a couple of problems.

Cable companies used to simply be mechanisms to get content created by other companies to users, and they did so through the TV.

As time progressed, the cable companies also began providing Internet access over the cable lines.

The cable companies also changed from simply being mechanisms for transferring the content that others have created, to owning some of those content creating companies as well.

New companies sprung up (such as Netflix) which realized that they could serve content through the internet, and serve it to more devices than just TVs.

This tends to drag on the profitability of Cable TV if people start feeling they have a better costing, reasonable alternative, so customers started dropping cable. Meanwhile, content creating companies not owned by the Cable companies were given a new outlet for distribution, not having to rely essentially on their competitors (the Cable companies) for distribution, possibly at unfair terms.

So around the time that the Netflix user base was really exploding, the Cable companies started putting caps on their Internet service, along with creating their own clones of the services provided by other websites that were now serving up content.

The problem now is that the cable companies seem to be unfairly using the arm of their company that provides internet access in order to artificially help it's Cable TV and content creation arms. By keeping the caps artificially low, they keep people from being able to use the Internet to get their content, pushing people towards their Cable TV. Now, by allowing their own sites to not count towards the cap, they are telling people that they can go back to getting content from the Internet again, but only if it's provided by them.

This is compounded by cable companies being granted local monopolies, so many people don't have a choice than to use these Companies that are trying to limit what content they can receive.

Imagine Walmart buying out USPS/UPS/FedEx. People have to go through Walmart to get anything sent to them. Now imagine Walmart saying that you are now limited to receiving 3 packages per month. This would be terrible for Amazon, a competitor in getting a good number of things to customers. This is now the equivalent of Walmart saying, "You are limited to 3 packages per month, but any packages you receive from us won't count, so order from us!". This has a chilling effect then beyond simply winding up costing customers more. A student is studying WWII. They want to read Mein Kampf. Walmart doesn't like it, so doesn't sell it. They've killed Amazon. You can't get it.

TL;DR- So the issue is that because the Cable companies are controlling several parts of the entertainment business, this is monopolistic behavior that will cost customers more and limit customer options.

The issue is that NASA has become quite politicized. It's suffering because projects are not being decided based upon what are the best engineering options, but by the pork provided. So far, the commercial development has been making large strides, and doing so far more efficiently.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Launch_System#Criticism

I find that with Slashdot, the key to getting a high score really has everything to do with posting shortly after a submission is out. Wait until there are more than a handful of comments and your score will likely to be pretty low. This also happens on Reddit, but it doesn't seem like quite to the extent of Slashdot.

Reddit on the other hand tends to suffer more from being more of an echo chamber. On Slashdot, you can more often voice a dissenting opinion and still get modded up, opening up more discussion. On Reddit, you just get downvoted and then ignored. What is really needed is two separate controls: one for giving points for a good, well reasoned or stated (non-troll) post and another for whether you agree with the post or not.