I was in a similar situation about 5 years ago. I ordered an MP3 player, and my money basically disappeared into a black hole for a week before I could get a hold of anyone. They were, of course, responsive the moment I threatened to file a dispute with the bank. I wrote a nasty review on resellerratings.com, and they offered to refund my shipping if I softened it up a little.

You've got to be pretty damn drunk to fall asleep in one of those. The smell is enough to make you ill most of the time.

Honestly, I think Nvidia is digging itself into a massive hole with its faster and faster cards. They've over-focused on the high end, and let Intel control the low-end market. Now PC gaming has gotten so expensive the the bottom is falling out of the market, and a lot of the major American dev houses (e.g. id and Epic) have bascially given up and moved to consoles.

cube: I think the big thing here is that Comcast is selling service that they are, in actuality, unwilling or unable to deliver as advertised. They oversell, and then play the victim when someone actually takes them up on what they're supposedly offering.

"Better hump the sea cow before the C&D, boys and girls."

Ew.

It sounds like the book equivalent of a splog.

That just isn't fair. That dog is entirely too cute.

I think the best part is that he specifies the location as "The One By Jimmy-Johns".

#10: That's a bit imprecise. Godwin's Law is primarily about wholly inappropriate comparisons to Hitler and/or the Nazis, thus lessening the impact when the comparison is actually appropriate. In this case, I'd argue that comparing one charismatic leader who ordered his followers to murder to another is appropriate.

I learned this the hard way. I checked my bag with a few DVDs in it, and it arrived minus two DVDs and plus one TSA inspection slip.

Thank you!

I preferred Pirate Baby's Cabana Battle Street Fight 2006

The art reminds me a lot of The Curse of Monkey Island for some reason. A new Indy game in that art style (or a new Monkey Island title) would be fantastic.

Medical malpractice can be a real pain in the ass.

This is quite the cock-up. *rimshot*

#1: Not me. I'm extremely sick of that meme.

#5: It's not a mod, but it certainly is a hack.

Ugh, those are like some kind of super zits. I think that might necessitate a unicorn chaser.

According to the comments on reddit.com, this is not a fake: http://reddit.com/info/6brpb/comments/

4. Really? I always thought it stood as a monument to a man who had a fucked up, nearly non-existent childhood. It seems to be to be a sad attempt at re-capturing his lost youth, not as a sinister trap for children.

Honestly, I think that iPhone development sounds like a raw deal. You can't distribute your software on your own terms, and Apple has the final right of refusal on everything.

@5: Nope. The iPhone, while having a perfectly capable Bluetooth chip, has the gimpiest stack imaginable. It only supports the profile for mono bluetooth headsets.

While I never worked under conditions quite so draconian, I did work at a "management by metrics" call center. It really does deemphasize quality. It also makes the job even more stressful than it already is.

When I worked as a call center monkey for Citizens Bank, they recorded all of our calls, but there was no beeping. I don't think it's required.

#2: Oh it'd be awesome, but you'd never want anyone outside of your immediate family to see you in it. It's the sort of thing that would get you beat up repeatedly (if not regularly) at school.

"Amaze your friends when you come galloping into the room on your very own Tauntaun, straight from the plains of Hoth!"

The conceit of this idea is that the sort of person who owns something like this would have friends to begin with.

What the hell? That Denon unit has no HDMI in, and no coax S/PDIF in. And I was this close to buying it, too...

That radio transmitter looks suspiciously like the Fruit Fucker from Penny Arcade.

#3,4: Thank god. I was beginning to think I was the only person in the world who didn't drink whatever Apple's been putting into the Kool-Aid.

I'd prefer to see a mobile version of pandora.com

Resistance is a measure of the degree to which an object opposes an electric current throu-- I mean futile.

wurp: Frankly, that phone is ugly compared to both the iPhone and the Nuviphone. Sex factor is a huge factor in selling cell phones, so that's a big problem.

#5: Actually if you're going to be particular, coffee is a fruit, not a bean.

@#7 - But, sadly, not for the local Synagogue. The foreskin gnawing aspect would be lost on the people there.

In science it's very hard to definitively "prove" anything conclusively. The best we can do is gather as much evidence as possible to support our theories. This is why the phrase "evolution is just a theory" is, unfortunately, true in some sense (though I take issue with the word "just").

#16: By the way, I think it's disingenuous to complain that America's most popular beers are crap. The major beers in most countries are. It's like saying that a city doesn't have good restaurants because the most numerous ones are Burger King, McDonalds, and Wendy's. They're popular because they're cheap, consistent, and ubiquitous. They bear no relation to the quality you find once you get into the real stuff.

On a side note: it's actually rather impressive that the macrobrewers are able to get the consistency they do on such a large scale. It may be crap, but it's still a technological triumph.

#16: I don't think you could be any more wrong. There is an enormous difference between, say, Victory Storm King, Great Lakes Blackout Stout, and North Coast Old Rasputin. And all three of those beers are imperial stouts. By the way, the word is "huge" not "hugh", which a name.

#13: It really depends on the quality of the hops, and the skill of the brewmaster. Victory Hop Devil (Victory gets my vote for best brewery in America, BTW) is extremely hoppy, but delicious all the same.

haineux: Not like the iPod's audio quality is anything to write home about to begin with. ;)

It's Bobbin Threadbare!

I prefer the XKCD Rock 'em Sock 'em Robots mattress.

#9: The only thing the Twinkie has ever dirupted is digestion.

The note was obviously from a Zune owner.

Why would the audio quality of pirate CDs be any worse than the real thing? It's digital, and most duplications are as well.

#1: That's just mean.

Two things to note:
1. The original site, while neat, rivals most flash pages in terms of usability (or lack thereof).
2. The offending site has been hacked, so there's nothing to see.

I guess this leads us to the inevitable question: will it blend?

I understand where he's coming from, but I'm not sure if it's entirely true. Too much choice can be overwhelming but, at the same time, too little is a bad thing too. I don't think the key is necessarily reducing/limiting your choice, so much as not worrying so much about whether or not you made the right one.

I'm reminded of the song "Little Boxes" by Malvina Reynolds:

Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes made of ticky-tacky,
Little boxes, little boxes,
Little boxes, all the same.
There's a green one and a pink one
And a blue one and a yellow one
And they're all made out of ticky-tacky
And they all look just the same.

To the tune of that old Tootsie Roll commercial: "Whatever it is I think I see/becomes a gaping hole to me"

Where else but in Japan could a series named Tales of Agriculture succeed? Manga is probably one of the clearest examples of the Long Tail effect in the world.

Indeed. And, honestly, there are many things you can lambaste Google about (privacy, supporting Chinese censorship, etc.), but their advertising isn't one of them. As internet advertising goes, their ads have always been uncharacteristically unobtrusive and relevant.

I find it rather ironic that they're accusing Google of being a "restrictatron", but they've got no issue with FireFox, which is pretty much addicted to Google's cash,

Wikipedia is a dish best served cold... or is that revenge? I always get those two mixed up.

I've already been doing this for years with T-Mobile. I've never actually used a device they supplied. First I brought my own unlocked Motorola MPx200, then an imported Qtek 8500, and now an unlocked iPhone.

I'm not sure I like the title or the premise of this book. It seems to imply that some ideas aren't worthy of scientific exploration just because they're strange. A lot of ideas that are taken as scientific fact these days started out as oddities. If the question is worth asking, it's worth exploration.

The HDTV deal is already expired, unfortunately.

This is a "peanut butter and chocolate" moment if I ever saw one. Two great tastes that taste great together!

Now that's a memento mori if I've ever seen one.

Moonbat: Seconded. Why the hell didn't they back it up? Kinda defeats the whole point of digital media if you only have one copy.

You won't hear any complaints from me. Regardless of whether or not it was done in earnest, Radiohead's tactic did a lot to prove the viability of DRM-free music, and that you can be extremely successful selling music online. All-in-all, it did a great deal of good. Of course, it also helps that the album is fantastic.

It's like peanut butter and chocolate gone horribly awry.

#28: There are also people who are allergic to gluten.

corpse 1: Still it's better than iTunes, especially considering that the standard method for geting iTunes tracks into MP3 is to burn to disc, and then rip them. That's time consuming, and it further reduced the audio quality.

The problem is that everything related to HDTV is so ludicrously overcomplicated. You've got three different resolutions (720p, 1080i, 1080p); a number of different display technologies (CRT, LCD, plasma, OLED, DLP, LCD projection, etc.); three different cable standards (component, DVI, and HDMI); two competing disc formats (HD DVD and Blu-Ray); and, just in case you weren't confused enough, the question of whether or not your older display supports HDCP. You have to be an expert to make anything even resembling an informed decision.