We had one at home, only one local video shop did rental tapes. Fun times.

It's cute that teenagers still think they're the centre of the world, meanwhile Facebook is moving on from pure social networking and starting to absorb special interest groups from blogs, forums and mailing lists.

What do XML files in directories on the filesystem have in common with a binary blob?

Time to go and catch a few Mahars.

I guess it just went underground for a while, a lot of the bands I listened to at the time were still releasing records on vinyl, and you had to go to record fairs or mail order rather than shops. And releases in that period now sell for a fortune.

I think the internet is something that probably helped, taking that nascent mail order market and making it easier than ever. Discogs probably helped keep quite a few small businesses afloat.

I don't really see it as competitive to the digital or CD marketplace, more an extensive of it enlarging the market as a whole.

Did it really start like that or has it simply never gone away? I started listening to vinyl in the 80s and haven't really stopped since. I've just always found it more enjoyable than either of the digital equivalents, it's just more fun than juggling CDs or file management (and I've tried both).

If you want to push digital files on optical disks then surely you're better off trying to convince those who already buy CDs or have moved to downloads/streaming.

You've not been paying attention Jerry. Nothing unusual there.

Yes, a lot of it goes towards offshoring jobs.

You're really listing trademarks rather than requirements there (at least for the first two). If you're tied to Acme(TM) then platform becomes pretty much an irrelevance as an independant choice, as you're limited by what Acme(TM) supports.

Take it up with hogwart, he's in charge now.

But surely being able to squirt songs at each other on the other days made up for that?

What is a 1 to 3 millimetres rise in volume?

...or that actor Ronald Reagan.

Of course point and click shooting always wins, it eliminates the pesky aiming and replaces it with positioning a cursor.

Of course you can, I bet it only got censored in the US.