I welcome the day the "Department of Homeland Security" and "National Security Agency" are renamed "Department of Homeland Science" and "National Science Agency." Oh well.

Futuremark, at least...

Most likely a rhetorical question, but S.T.A.L.K.E.R.:SoC, Dead Space, Cryostasis, Half-Life, Morrowind, Max Payne 1+2,...

I have to ask: Why does she resemble Catherine Tate...?

nobody said that. All the OP said was that contemplating your navel too much is dangerous.

Rather the sementic web, maybe?

It was an absurd 105 year sentence for a 16 year old who committed robbery.

Other people had been given 15 or so.

Huckabee reduced it to 45 years. And he did not 'pardon' him.

Like I said, I'm a Democrat. I don't like Huckabee at all. (Although I do have to admit he's the one Republican who appears to honestly believe what he says he believes.)

But this is just stupid and unfair. There are three problems with how the government handled Clemmons, and none of them were Huckabee reducing the sentence of a sane, young offender who'd be absurdly over-sentenced on account of the incompetence of his public defender. As Huckabee himself pointed out, for some reason, white well spoken youth who commit the same crime often appear to be sentenced to a fifth the time in prison Clemmons got, for some reason.

The three problems in Clemmons' treatment by the government were: a) the prosecutor not having him arrested for parole violations, b) too low a bail for a child-rapist with multiple felonies, and c) no one catching that he was insane and getting him committed.

Allow me to rephrase: How do I tell the editor how to find "the strings of all previously used variables" in code written in the assembly language for a given microcontroller, specifically one with a 6502-compatible CPU core? Two ACs recommended that I look into Emacs with an appropriate major mode, but it appears asm-mode supports only indentation, not autocompletion.

There is something about a newspaper, magazine, book, flipping through it that I simply love. I find it relaxing and enjoyable to lazily leaf through a book, magazine or newspaper. Always will.

I have to admit that if I were searching for a phrase or phrases I would prefer to have it on a computer. Just works better.

What matters to me more is not the device (hand held, net book, tablet, laptop, PC, desktop, tower, etc...) but the data format.

I want to purchase my content ONCE, maybe twice if I have too, but not repeatedly for the rest of my life, every three or four years. That it crazy. I was taught at a young age to try to avoid being penny-wise and dollar foolish. I like to purchase things that last. So if you put the content on cheap materials that will not last, your bad, you will lose my business. I would rather save more money, pay a little more and get the data on better materials that will last. Look at furniture, I will not buy cheap furniture that breaks in less than a year. I would rather pay more (its usually not that much more either) and have it last, it should still be in good shape so that I can give it to my grandchildren if I want too. Instead of something cheaply made that will not last till I see my own children. What a waste of money.

To buy too cheap is penny wise and dollar foolish.

I apply the same logic to computer hardware and software that is proprietary in nature. Having been burned not just once, not just twice, but many more times than three, I am simply tired of seeing my hard earned money being drained away by insane fees, charges and forced updates. I will pay for innovation, however I am hard pressed to see how spreadsheets, word-processors and database programs have really improved enough to be labeled "innovative" since Windows 95/98. Granted you might have a chance with databases of finding one or two obscure new features that might be a "must have". But not with Spreadsheets and Word-Processors.

A friend of mine loved WordPerfect, the technical writers would keep finding new ways to apply WordPerfect to their craft, technical writing, literally every day, day in, day out for multiple years. It was not because the product had been improved, though it was, it was because the product was feature rich and would let a master at their craft (word processing, tech writing, etc..) really excel. Word Perfect was the best Word Processor ever. That was years before Word gained only because of Microsoft Office and Microsoft's control of the desktop. Even later when most had switched to Word after Microsoft corrupted their own file formats to force users to upgrade to the new Word, the experts, the technical writers who knew their craft preferred WordPerfect and other Desktop Publishing tools. It just made sense.

Word did not take over through innovation, but it did take over none the less. We are all poorer for the lack of innovation.

So the idea of forcing us to buy some proprietary e-reader hardware in order to read a proprietary data format that could just as easily be provided in an open data format is crazy. Quite frankly it is beyond offensive and hardly endears us to your brand.

We were not born yesterday.

Even those (probably because they are simply too inexperienced) that have not experienced this kind of FUD, still understand the concept.

Sorry, many of us are just NOT THAT STUPID, sadly many are still getting burned for their inexperience. Its there money to waste.

You want our money innovate and earn it. As for the content, give it to me in a format that I can read now, with the tools I have now, else we will not purchase. (Read I take my hard earned money and stay home...I will not buy from you).

Innovate to get my money, give me a choice and show me how your product will make our lives better. However try to force me, no way in heck as I will say go to heck, stay home and not spend any money. In fact I will continue to point out the futility of your non-innovative, customer no-service business approach to my friends, neighbors and co-workers. Some will listen and some of them will influence others. It is already happening thanks to the really awful current economy.

And earning back our TRUST, that you have abused so badly, well that SHOULD NOT be easy, should it. (See other posts elsewhere about 7-year and 3-year clocks on what it would take for a company that treats us so miserably to regain our trust. Admittedly a friend of mine came up with this idea, but I agree with it!)

The big issue with these so called e-readers is the data formats. Perhaps you can come up with a better way to display the content (data) than the software applications I currently have on my computer, netbook and Nokia N800 (yes, Linux), perhaps, but I seriously doubt it. So if you can not enhance my enjoyment of the material and/or my ability to retain knowledge, than I can not call it innovation on your part. At that point I call it for what it is, FUD! I do not spend money on FUD anymore thanks to my 3 year and 7 year clocks!

e-readers, e-ink, whatever. We can read .pdf files, though many of us have problems with the closed source applications that build those. Fortunately there are many open source tools that can create .pdf files today. OpenOffice.org Writer can convert an open source document to a .pdf format real fast with a couple of mouse clicks and it just works. PHP can read/write .pdf files and there are many Content Management Systems (CMS) built with PHP. (Nothing wrong with Ruby or Python, if it starts in PHP, you can use those tools too, but not the other way around.). There are other widely supported open source data standards and formats that have been decided on years ago, those are the file formats I want my data in. Give me the content in a format I can use, period.

If you want me to purchase new hardware (i.e. a Kindle), then you are going to have to give me a better reason than its a Kindle, or its an iPhone, etc... My Nokia N800, used price is way less than $200, will work just fine for most content, thanks to its full browser I can even surf the web in the same manner that I surf on my netbook, laptop or PC. Lets see you use a full web browser on a Kindle or iPhone, you can't! Add in two 32GB Micro SD memory card slots for storage (applications and data) in the Nokia Nxxx. Let's see a Kindle or iPhone do that, oh wait, they can NOT! I would like to see the book or song that needs 32GB to store itself, that is a funny thought, perhaps one day.

The technology, the Nokia N770 and N800 have existed since before 2006, not new, they just work. And three years later, in 2009, you want me to purchase proprietary hardware that limits me...really, Really, REALLY? Not going to happen.

These other devices that force proprietary application software and proprietary data formats do not add any value at all. Sorry, just a fact. The reality is that they limit me, I can do more now with my Nokia N800 (thanks to Linux and Open Source) than they will ever be able to do (thanks to the companies failed business model, its a fail because they refuse to allow root access to the device even if they use Linux, meaning the user can not custom install what they need to install to use the device as they see fit...this is NOT SMART!)

It is not about FREE, it's about control over your applications, your hardware and your data.

We can talk again when they create a 3 dimensional image in mid air in front of me, generated form a hand held, that I can interact with as if it were a touch screen. I would call that innovation. Chances are it will run on Linux first anyway. Microsoft, Cellular companies, Cable companies, etc... will still be trying to lock the few stragglers into their smaller and smaller markets. As for the rest of us, the Horse has already left the barn, we are not going backwards,ever. We have adapted even if you have not. Even then you better have a better reason than DCMA and/or copyright for not providing me content in a standardized open source data format.

As I said earlier, we are not that stupid. Companies that continue to treat customers as stupid do not deserve our business.

Interesting direction with the "ribbon" bar. I must be in the minority, because looking at the one mock-up I'm looking forward to this change. I hardly use anything in the menu bar, and it looks far more minimalistic which I like. I'm reminded of Chrome as well, which isn't too bad. I'm more concerned about certain add-ons though. Hmm.