Plays may use 3D properly in general, but movies don't - and probably won't/can't until a movie can be shown, as others mentioned, on a full hologram stage like a play.

For a 3D movie in 2012, there is only one thing that is being done with it: creating the effect of something coming out at the audience. For the majority of movies, which weren't SHOT in 3D, this is only done for a few scenes, artificially generated digitally, and most of them were contrived to force any justification of the effect at all. Hitting an enemy toward the viewer in a fight scene, throwing an item away or at someone, etc. Having 3D adds absolutely nothing to the film except to the ticket price.

IMO, Avatar was the last movie to actually do it right. All scenes were filmed with 2 cameras to create a real stereo view, all digital effects used the same techniques. A proper 3D movie, like a play, uses the 3D to show depth in the environment, not to show depth coming out at the audience, although a Gallagher concert movie might argue with that statement. We don't need artificial justification to use 3D, and it should not be encouraged unless it adds to the movie.

Pretty sad, really, that the only thing that was learned from Avatar was that 3D makes money. It's become a buzzword in today's movie industry that producers THINK they will make more money with little effort, because the public are sheep, and practically every movie now MUST have a 3D version (in their minds) to be released at all. It doesn't matter to them that the glasses make the movie unwatchable for many, that the movie is too dark to see for most, or that the public complains when they find out that only 20 seconds of a 2 hour film even qualifies as needing the glasses at all. Pay more money and get a worse experience, guaranteed. Personally, I refuse to support this crap with my dollars, and I know I'm not the only one.

Why not? What makes you think the overwhelming majority of PC users would be adverse to that? It works fine for their smartphones, so why wouldn't they like it for their PCs too?

To be perfectly blunt - the ONLY reason why I am willing to put up with my (smartphone/gameconsole)'s walled garden, is precisely because my pc ISN'T a walled garden. Having some devices import controlled is one thing - having every device import controlled is quite another, and nobody I know would stand for it.

How many free programs will be allowed? Apple has (or had) a very strict policy that any program that provides the same function as one that came with their OS would be denied with prejudice. Microsoft might view this as a perfectly legal solution to their Mozilla/Chrome 'problem'. If Apple set this policy, and they got away with it - even though it is anti-competitive - how can Microsoft get in trouble for using the same policy?

Note: I don't have anything against an app store, just a walled garden. This doesn't just hurt developers and power users, this hurts everybody that has ever tried to not use a Microsoft program that came on their Windows machine, like Internet Explorer. It is completely anti-competitive, and if it's ruled justly, then they won't be able to legally deny any free apps after such a precedent. They'd be better off allowing the app store as an alternative to the 'get-your-own' lifestyle, but not any more restrictive than that.

Well, this fellow geek just dropped the streaming option and lowered my fee by 4 bucks. The streaming option was added to my account for free when it came out, but I never used it. Why? DRM. I'm not going to infect my PCs with any flavor DRM, and I'm surprised anybody on Slashdot chooses to do so willingly.

Not to mention the crap selection available for streaming. And, oh yeah, I almost forgot, our upcoming bandwidth cap overlords will be squeezing you all a bit harder to let you keep streaming your DRM-laden videos. The tiered plans they anticipate will make the $7.99 Netflix hike look paltry. Me, I'm dropping a free service I never used anyway and saving money on this price hike, and Netflix has to continue mailing me those red envelopes, something they're trying to get us to stop having them do by - um - well, instituting this price hike...

Joyful memories indeed. A Racing game for chemically imbalanced. Picked it up on a lark from that phrase alone. Favorite game ever or since.

Installed a Glide 3D driver emulator on an XP box specifically for the purpose of whipping this game out every once in a while for the gratuitous Ped smearing. Nothing quite like the feeling of a 100% Ped victory - finding Ped 976 of 976 without accidentally finishing the race or wiping out the 5th opponent - now that's frickin' awesome. And people say us old-timers don't know how to enjoy video games... those kids on my lawn would get bored before their Ped count got to 3 digits.

Now THAT should be a trophy on PSN - 100% Ped victory!. Gimme a real remake on PS3 in full HD of the first one... new maps, old maps, don't care. Just so long as you screw the missions and that fake time-limit cap - if I wanna spend 2 hours getting Ped guts in my tires, there should be nothin' stoppin' me... :)

Whoever owns the rights, take note, I'd pay more than full price for it.

...So there really is no reason for 19 kids.

Sure there is. It'll help you get on tv, where you can become a household name, an internet meme, infamous for your bad example to future generations everywhere, and then eventually end up on "Dancing With The Has-Beens" once your 15 minutes are over.

I think what is happening is just simple time. What we have here is an audio compression that has been the "standard" (and I use the term very loosely) for over a decade, iTunes and aac notwithstanding. During that time period, just about everyone has used it, and since most people don't have the ears to tell the difference consciously, they've been listening to it for so long that they unconsciously think it's normal, even compared to the original lossless cd.

If this were true, then it might explain how a random sampling would be skewed towards mp3 even when most people guess. They unconsciously pick the one that registers with what their ears are attuned to.

Me, I can't listen to mp3 anymore. Even at 320k, the hiss in the upper registers sets my teeth aching. This gets really annoying when listening to an mp3 disc on long trips in the car. Oddly, I can listen to AAC at 320k without a problem, which is good - I'd hate to have to use lossless on the iPod. Severely limits the selection, even on the 80g. :)

Could be, in your native language "making available" and "support" are synonymous

Well, in the countries governed by pawns of the RIAA/MPAA, the phrase "making available" is synonymous with "intent to distribute others' work as your own".

Under these conditions, I can understand perfectly well why some might be under the (mistaken) impression that Microsoft will be forced to distribute and support other browsers...

It all depends on where you are and what your commute is like.

I live near Philadelphia - near being described as "between Philly and Lancaster/Harrisburg". Went job hunting this winter (not by choice) and landed a good job in downtown Philly. I drove to work my first three days. I've taken the train ever since.

Why? Because I did my math. 50-some miles each way is a typical "local" commute for people in my area. Nobody thinks twice about it. 100+ miles a day, plus traffic, had me filling my tank after 2.5 days, or twice a week, to the tune of about $50/week - or $10/day - just for the gas. 21.5 working days average a month makes the gas to $215/month. Best price I could find for reliable parking is also $10/day, so my total per month given that my car is paid for is roughly $430/month.

That doesn't count wear and tear on my car, wear and tear on my sanity or blood pressure. Nor does it count the fact that the average drive time was 2 hours each way, and (as someone else also mentioned) those 2 hours were spent doing nothing BUT driving and screaming obscenities at the other cars.

SEPTA's costs? $181 for the monthly anytime pass, a buck a day to park, and a single tank of gas = ~$227.50/month. The trip is less than an hour each way, and I've been catching up on old tv shows, reading books, and playing games on an ipod. Certainly less wasted than driving, and my sanity has never been better - if it could've been called that in the first place, that is... :)

Other people might not be so clear cut, so maybe it's not for them, but for me this was a no-brainer. Aside from the occasional delay once in a while, there's no reason for me to think otherwise.

In the end, we'll have advertisements embedded into the hit singles, as part of the music and lyrics.

If the goal here is to advertise the artists themselves, then this shameless bit of self-promotion has been around for a while.

I don't know exactly when it started, but I first started noticing it in the late 90's - particularly in hip-hop / rap / dance tracks - the artist would speak their own name during the song. If there was a "Featuring..." guest artist, that person would also name themselves. Pretty annoying, imho, but in most cases it at least gave me an easy way to know who NOT to buy...