It's not our fault that piracy happened. As intelligent people, we were innovative in our ways to push IT to the edge and allow us to get this content free. But Pirate Bay is at fault because they capitalized on others' misfortunes. As a frequent user of torrent sites, it stinks to see them be out of commision. But as a hard-working member of society, it's great! At the end of the day, this site (and many others) are blatantly making it possible to acquire paid digital content for free. Same digital content that our friends and classmates are working to create and make a living off. Obviously free > paid. But you owe it to society to put yourself in the shoes of the people making the games, the music, the movies and the software you and I were taking for free.

New Yorkers already pay an online tax of 8.625% for many retailers who operate within the state (Amazon Tax). It really sucks! It's not fair to introduce this tax in the current economic conditions to the rest of the country; people have little disposable income as is. The only good thing is that it sort of levels the playing field for mom-n-pop shops with no online storefront.

You know what else is funny? You can go to puzzlesolver.com and solve the Rubik's cube in about two hours even if you never touched it. This is where natural selection kicks in and determines that Graham's genes should never be passed on.

Apple can put shit on a stick, brand it with the Apple logo and sell it for $299. Palm is the homeless man on the side of the street eating the shit off the stick.

Yes, good. They can be cooled with the Mac owners' snobbery and conceitedness. They can also be backup-cooled with the frappacino as they're aimlessly typing at Starbucks.

The US antitrust regulators like to go by two metrics: Herfindahl Index (HHI) and Market Concentration Ratio (google them up). HHI = s1^2 + s2^2 + s3^2 + ... + sn^2 (where sn is the market share of the ith firm) If the HHI index is > 1800, this usually means it's a monopoly. Nothing is set in stone, but play around with the numbers and you'll get an idea. Basically Microsoft is still considered a monopoly for a long time.

When all of the sudden everyone becomes an economics expert, talks trash and screams Armageddon...it's nice to have someone fair and impartial like NBER. It wasn't easy for them to call a recession since Q1 and Q2 GDP growth was positive, yet unemployment was negative. These were conflicting statistics and until the aggregate numbers were recently revised, meant there was NO recession. But that's why they're economists and not frat-boy b-school analysts.

I agree that we live in a male-dominated society, and on average sexism prevails in every walk of life. But...there is no barrier to women entering computer science or engineering fields. There are no chauvinistic battles that come out of this field, like there are in business, television and other male dominated professions. Maybe I'm speaking from a narrow viewpoint, but in my 20 years of IT education, career searching and professional experience; female IT personnel are not only treated as equals but are in fact sought after.

Ask a 7 year old kid what a computer person does, and they will describe someone working with machines, boxes, TVs and gadgets. From an early age, we are lead to think that boys work with machines, aka play with trucks. When kids are in high school and start making initial career choices, this mentality stays with them and therefore only small fraction of women end up doing what they were raised to believe to be a man's profession. This has nothing to do with sexism, glass ceilings or modernization. From day one the whole concept of working with computers just seems like something a boy would do. With that being said, companies are DYING to hire female workers in IT. Hopefully this will help.

I worked at CC from 2000-2002 as a commissioned salesman. CC differentiated themselves by being the only national electronics chain with a loyal, knowledgeable, community-oriented staff. We're not talking 17 y/o high school juniors, but middle-aged sharks who at least knew what they were selling. This worked and stores were in the black, but the 2001-2003 economic conditions caused the clueless management to shift the blame on the sales force and divert to the hourly model. Since then, the store became a cheap knock-off of Best Buy with no value added to the customer. It was only a matter of time before this happened. They were too late to the online game, and were wiped out by the Neweggs and the Amazons. RIP another pointless store that takes pride in making people borrow money they can't afford to pay back. Who's next?