Sadly, there are plenty of uninformed "OMG, the latest XBox! Shiny!" types, who don't give a rat's ass about DRM, "First Sale" or used games. They alone will ensure that M$ will make gobs of money. Especially if Sony follows suit with the next Playstation.

Lotus Magellan. Not as old as some of the real oldies like Viscalc, but in the early 90s it was the absolute best file explorer available. Really haven't see the same ability to browse, manage and view file contents (without launching them) again.
Vintage print ad

Haven't read the details of Peer1's trials and tribulations, but the situation reminds me of the Interdictor blog, about keeping DirectNIC running during Hurricane Katrina. That was one of the most thrilling blogs I've ever read.

"So, will you be following the President's lead and shop local this holiday season, or is the siren song of online shopping convenience and savings too hard to resist?"

I think shopping local is great, and I support many local, independent businesses with my hard-earned cash. But during the holiday shopping season, I suspect the President's shopping experience is far different from mine -- considering I don't have a Secret Service detail to scout ahead to the store(s) I want to visit and clear out any other pesky shoppers so I don't have to stand in interminable lines with the unwashed masses.
So yeah -- at holiday season, I go online.

The made a land-line phone that did the same thing automatically. The Telezapper. You put one on your line and when you or your answering machine picked up, the Telezapper would play those tones (SIT Tones) before your message played. I had one and it worked well. Sadly, today's call center software is wily and has figured out that particular exploit.

Now I just don't pick up calls from number I don't recognize. If it's valid and important, they'll leave a message.

A Pentel Energel 0.5 is my usual instrument to overwhelm mighty swords at my desk, but I almost always carry a Fisher SpacePen too, because it's damn convenient and writes anywhere on anything.

Not really. They'll just turn around and publicize how many hits and downloads they've gotten. If they hit their bandwidth cap, I'm sure Pamela Anderson, Sarah Jessica Parker, Drew Barrymore and other easily swayed Hollywood types will pony (hah pun!) up the cash necessary.

I switched to Ting in August.
The "catch" is that you pay retail for the phone. (not subsidized by two year agreements like on most carriers.) You can stop Ting anytime with no penalty. Even "suspend" your account if you don't need it for a while.

So I paid $240 for A Galaxy S2.
With 2 days left till my bill, I have used 101 minutes, sent 287 txts and used 60Mb of data -- so unless I suddenly make 400 minutes of calls, send 700 texts or download 40Mb of data, my bill will be $23.
(Yes, I'm a light user -- and I tend to do most of my surfing/downloading when I've got wi-fi)

I've calculated that when I switch over my wife and daughter too, I will be saving $100+ per month over AT&T. Even with paying full-price on the phones, it'll pay for itself in about 6 months.

The bad thing is that Sprint is not a great choice outside of major metros. Up here in New England, I'm roaming pretty frequently -- no cost for voice on that, but Ting doesn't "roam" data, so access to wi-fi becomes more necessary.

Overall, for $100/month savings, I'm willing to put up with a little aggravation when it comes to signal coverage.

The statement is undoubtedly true, whether or not it is consciously applied.

However, following that trail of logic a little further -- why wouldn't salaries start to equalize once women are past typical child-bearing age? If companies are afraid of lost-productivity in younger women, by age 40 or 45, you'd expect to see women's salaries evening up with mens. But studies show that doesn't happen.

Nicely Done.

He might have confused disk space used for actual file size.
A windows notepad file with a single character takes up 4k on disk even though its actual size is only be 1 byte.

LOL, nice!
But no, L. Ron Hubbard had DC-8's (or DC-9's) in mind when he was making up that religious malarky.

THAT bit of unreality is what offends you? Methinks you're stretching to find fault. It IS of course, Fantasy.
We're talking about a world where faeries, trolls, etc., live inside of the earth (undetected by humans) and utilize high technology the likes of which make us look like cavemen. (And might, at a stretch, explain that the Mpeg video in question DID leave traces of itself...)
I'm reminded of A.C. Clarke:
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

Of course more time would be better. However, nearly everything important can be done in 15 seconds. The really critical things. Like getting the generators at the hospital up to keep the ICU running. Closing gas mains. Taking the scapel out of the guys brain during surgery.

You can't drive home from the grocery store and strap yourself into bed in 15 seconds, but you can do a lot of really really important things in that time.