"We want to keep raising our profit margins, we know we'll get our asses handed to us if we raise prices significantly, so we'll use the shrink-ray on the product instead."

So, you've never had a scratched disk and been forced to shell out another $60 bucks to get a game you already own?

I also find it offensive and painful when I can't run my own code on my computer.

Area of Sweden: 450 000 km^2
Population of Sweden: 9 000 000 inhabitants

20 inhabitants per km^2

Area of US: 9 100 000 km^2
Population of US: 300 000 000 inhabitants

32 inhabitants per km^2

The united states has roughly 1.5 times the population density of Sweden and far worse internet connectivity. It has nothing to do with the United States being so large and everything to do with politics.

I am a sysadmin for a school district, so it just means that I have to deal with teachers and students again. I prefer the summer, when I can get some actual work done, instead of showing teachers how to save pictures of their kids and pets as their wallpaper.

I can't understand gamers' "I will not budge" on in-game advertising. The "I've already paid money for it, why should I have to see advertisements" argument pops up EVERYWHERE. Consider that maybe the cost of making the game outweighs the amount made from 1-time sales? Games are becoming increasingly expensive to produce, with everyone expecting beautiful art, a well-made story, good voice acting, good music/sounds, an amazing graphics engine... etc. Yet the normal cost of a new game ($50) has been pretty static, at least for the last 5 years. Regardless of whether you think that the products that these people are producing are worth even that, it doesn't change the fact that they're expensive little things that the people in charge are trying to turn into a profit.

You pay for *some* TV (HBO) yet there's lots of subtle in-show advertisements there. You pay for magazine subscriptions, and those are practically 90% ads. I'm not saying that those advertisements aren't obnoxious, just that there's nothing "sacred" about advertising in game.

The biggest point that I'd like to make is the potential for in-game advertising to be both there AND non-obtrusive. In a game where I'm driving through a city, I don't care if a billboard has an actual company or a fake company. A game would be MORE believable if you could include real-world advertisements. Obviously the "you have to watch this 30 second clip before you play" bit would be too much. There's also the problem fo tracking advertisements, updating them, and the conflict of those two things and privacy. All are solvable... but advertisements are coming to games whether you like it or not.

... is not interviewed.

WTF?

We have potentially better control over it, and can run the currency system as a not for profit public good, instead of issuing the currency itself as a private profit business now. I know what you are saying, swapping to official (corrupt) government instead of what are in essence private (corrupt) contractors, but it is the lesser of the only two choices we have theoretically. We should have perfectly clear transparency then. Unless you want to go to a thousand different private currencies or something, which would be quite awkward.

Frankly could we stop with this stupid "Terminator Vision" meme? I understand it's an easy simile to make for the masses but until we have our phone chips embedded in the brain, just looking at the stuff makes it clear as day that it's nowhere near as advanced as it sounds, it's just a stupid way to advertise the stuff...

I agree somewhat, but it's not going to be long before you can get essentially an iPhone in a pair of sunglasses or a device that does this sort of information overlaying. Of course the first application will probably be language translation.

I thought they meant receiver as well but someone on another site mentioned it is there to allow you to stream audio to your FM receiver (car or home or wherever). Hands free also sounds plausible. The N900 looks like the kitchen sink of mobile gadgets on paper. I hope it can deliver.

specs are better than the iphone and the interface looks nice. how much is it? I think the $299 price point is the most that most people are willing to pay

The FSF should definitely stop thinking about (and marketing) software freedom as a religious issue. Drop all these notions of "sin", "purity", and this whole "dogmatic" take to (computing) life. This crap only alienates people, and leads to wackos thinking in terms of faithful and sinners....

When will these idiots realize that the folks that are the most interested in (Free) software (and thus likely to care), are mostly of the technical rational kind. Never, they will keep making a religious purity argument out of FOSS....

How about putting on rational arguments forward? How about having someone in charge that actually is humanly capable of acknowledging a mistake and/or changing its own mind? Otherwise you only attract the "RMS is always right" kind of people.

Creative Commons Zero I believe is an attempt to address this issue, reserving as few rights as legally possible to yourself. For code I just use BSD, though, since it's been around forever and is well understood.

First, if you don't know what a word means, please don't use it. Even if you think you know, it's most likely that you will use it wrongly.

Second, so what does this mean for users?

I think that totally went over his head. For the uneducated:

1Gb = 1 gigabit
1GB = 1 gigabyte
8 bits = 1 byte

Case matters.

Farhad makes a lot of good points, but he underestimates the transformative nature of the iPhone. I agree that Google should build its own phone, but it's not about making yet another bespoke handset, it's about building another mobile computing transformation that Apple, with its walled garden approach, cannot even contemplate. It's not nearly enough to be a bit better than the iPhone - any serious competitor will need to take the next gigantic leap forward, and do it before Apple does.