As an amateur student of accents, this performance completely blew me away. I don't ever recall applauding something I saw on the internet before, but found myself uncontrollably clapping at the end of this clip. Bravo.

@Nelson.C, I think it's probably important to differentiate what kind of defects we're talking about, and what kinds of things you get accused of whining about.

Are you pointing out defects in something you actually have experience with (i.e. have purchased and/or used) or merely criticizing a product for not having some feature that you think is critical for your enjoyment of a product?

I think we can probably universally agree that if you try something and it sucks, you should say so. Loudly, even. It's the anti-fanboyism that drives me nuts online. Complaining that Acme didn't include a main-stem stopper valve in their latest Widget is pointless if you can just buy one that *does* from Wizco. This is where, to me, we should just vote with our wallets instead of berating a company for not designing a product to your exact specifications and to your complete liking.

Maybe it comes down to implementation vs. design: if it was implemented poorly, you have a valid complaint. If the design isn't to your liking... maybe it wasn't designed for you?

Complaining about a product you've had direct experience with is appropriate, informative, and helpful. Complaining about a product that you have no direct experience with on the grounds that it doesn't meet your needs in some way is stupid and misses the point that it probably wasn't designed with your specific needs in mind. That doesn't make it a bad product, that just makes it unsuitable for you.

Put another way: if you don't have any idea WTF you're talking about, just STFU and move along.

Sounds like a pretty good reason not to reveal your personal information (including friendships) by participating in stupid social networking sites to begin with.

I mean really, what's the point? What possible purpose does it serve, except to show off how many friends you've got to the world?

Not a hoax. Absolutely not.

From a technical standpoint, simulating the constantly-changing lighting conditions on the subject holding the fireballs would be an incredible nightmare. If someone had those kinds of chops and wanted to perpetrate a hoax, I can think of a lot more interesting things to fake than a guy handling fire.

Ted - Your question is simple misdirection, and ignores the point that I made: In any situation, if one wants to criticize the opposition, doing so by what amounts to lying is sure to set back one's cause.

DRM is a huge threat to free information. No doubt about it. I fully support Cory in calling attention to the problem. However, writing breathless and incendiary headlines that aren't actually true, or are otherwise substantially misleading does the cause more harm than good.

In this case, the hard drive does *not*, in fact, prevent the user from storing, retrieving, or even sharing *any* file type on the local LAN. It just doesn't. To say so, or even suggest so, damages Cory's reputation and makes it easy to ignore everything else he says, even when he's not being deceitful.

Don't you think that's harmful to the cause?

If Cory can't refrain from sneaky, underhanded, deceitful summaries, maybe he should just STFU and let someone with higher moral standards do the talking.

I'm certainly no DRM apologist (quite the opposite, actually) but headlines & summaries like this do the anti-DRM cause a gross disservice. Cory consistently comes off as a raving nutjob whenever DRM is mentioned, and writes grossly misleading headlines & summaries. This makes it much easier for the general public to dismiss the anti-DRM cause. In my estimation, Cory has set back our cause years by not playing straight.

Cory: If you want to criticize DRM (and you should) then you should really consider taking the moral high road. To publish what amounts to outright lies hurts us all.

Rarely have I been so ashamed to be an American as right now.