Posted 10/10/2009 at 05:27:43am

Short term spikes in sales trends (a couple years is short term) is not any kind of an indicator of the "wave of the future." Just look at PDAs. Not ten years since they were a necessity for any self-respecting business man and they have already gone the way of the dodo. Granted they have been replaced by smartphones, but they were dieing off before those became common.

 My personal thoughts on the usefulness of e-readers is that I am unable to convince myself it is a good idea to spend $225 on a device which serves one function (e-reader) which is better served by a device which costs $300 and serves a myriad of functions (netbook).

Posted 10/05/2009 at 10:42:34pm

"It seems sad and strange to me that the PC marketplace has so few stylish and contemporary designs made for adults. " Mac has one design. PC has hundreds if not hundreds of thousands of case options to apply to virtually any taste. If you don't like pre-designed models (in which case you should hate Macs, but I digress) you can always buy components, and design your own. And what's more, if you want more memory later you will not void your warranty just because you added RAM yourself. Don't give us this "Macs have better design" crap. This is as old, tired, and untrue as the "if you want to do serious graphic design or video editing you need a Mac" garbage that is still so popular.

Posted 10/05/2009 at 10:07:29pm

I am not saying that software patents should be upheld as a matter law. However, they currently are and the way to change that has nothing to do with the court system. This is an issue to be decided by congress (and not necessarily the federal congress). There are enough "spread the wealth around" types on "the hill" right now that if this was pitched as an entitlement program it could be pushed through in a week or so. Involving the supreme court who's role has nothing to do with deciding what a law should or should not say is no the right way to go about this.

Posted 10/05/2009 at 10:00:47pm

as a scientist with no personal stake in the outcome. There are honest scientists who will give the truth of their results even if they do not like them, but every outcome affects the scientists doing the work personally whether it be in the form of grants that are/are not offered or something else.

Posted 10/05/2009 at 09:57:39pm

the argument about efficiency. If we are talking 20% less efficient than a wired connection, it just is not worth it at this point. However, isn't that what the 80Plus stickers I keep seeing mean? That the power supply actually operates at above 80% efficiency making it not that much better?

Posted 09/21/2009 at 11:01:10pm

The real question you need to ask is if the Federal Government has any authority to regulate such a thing. The answer is no.

Posted 09/13/2009 at 03:01:48pm

I have been waiting for a reason to buy 802.11n equipment. The range and speed of 802.11g is plenty to accomplish anything I need right now, so why would I upgrade?

Posted 09/12/2009 at 12:07:08pm

Why does it matter if Batman portrays psychology correctly according to what people in the industry claim it is? I know this may be hard to believe, but some people actually play games to have a good time, and not for the opportunity to psycho-analyze themselves or the game.

 Incidentally, Maslow was a selfish moron who wanted to continue being selfish and therefore came up with his "Heirarchy of Needs." The guy argued that people are basically good, and sick people (mentally speaking) are the result of a sick society. Where does the sick society come from? Society is nothing more than the people that make up that society. If people are only made sick by sick societies, then there can be no sickness.

And that in a nutshell is why I (even more than the fact that I like to enjoy my games) could not care less about whether they accurately portray Psychology. It's nothing more than people trying to explain away responsibility for selfish actions.

Posted 09/11/2009 at 04:50:03pm

No pun intended.

Posted 09/11/2009 at 04:44:15pm

What did MS say that was untrue? Windows does have better driver support, better software compatibility, far more games that work on it (without having to install an OS "non-emulator" inside ala WINE), and pro support for user distributions. Sure, MS failed to mention any of the advantages Linux has like the fact that it is free (unless you pay for one of the ridiculous retail distributions), but that is common marketing practice.

Incidentally, MPC who is Pulkit Chandna and why are you having him write for you? This article would be fine as a serious "check out MS's new sales technique" article, but it was written as a "demon microsoft liars strike again!" piece of trash. How about some "journalistic integrity." Eww, oxymorons leave a bad taste in my mouth.