No, it doesn't! This is not how money works. A dollar tomorrow is worth less than a dollar today. If you had $10k today, you could invest it and make more than $500/yr FOREVER. You will NEVER break even with this device; it is, rather, a mechanism for prying apart fools and money.

Lexmark tried a similar stunt, but it's never been tested in court and they've buckled every time it's come close.

Sure it would be a blow to their business model... but that's not really our problem.

Similarly, the advent of the automobile has seriously compromised my generation's ability to ride horseback, but somehow we survive.

Say what you will about the moral merits of solar power, but it is still a net cost at this point. [en.wikipedia.org]

I think it's a sad story, but more because it's a portrait of a lonely, grieving guy caught in an unending pattern of heartbreak, unable to move on.

Of course, it will be interesting to see which ISP's have the least limited bandwidth. Now that this is out in the open, they can start competing over that.

I know you're at your posting limit so you won't be able to respond. Nevertheless:

The difference is that he IS attracted to women -- he admits that he only refuses to look at porn because his robo-girlfriend evidently told him to stop. Perhaps no women will date him; this sounds like the most likely explanation since he claims that he was a virgin when he had sex with his robo-girlfriend.

That's the point: it's the attraction that defines a sexuality, not the ability to make the relationship work. Pedophilia is a sexual orientation that CANNOT result in a healthy relationship, but it doesn't stop being a sexual orientation. And many gay guys are so repressed that they can't or won't date another man. Some are so much so that they carry on decades-long, apparently happy marriages with women. Larry Craig is a good example. But he's still gay.

One thing I will give him, though, is that he will face a lot of eye-rolling, discrimination, and general humiliation at others' hands because of his sexual and romantic life, and I think that in general we need to let all that go. If it's what he wants, we shouldn't make light of it.

I have often said that I would buy an iPhone as soon as it included GPS and 3G (and maybe an AIM application).

But that is only because I thought there could never be a flip iPhone. I hate candybar phones, from the unlock sequence to the distance from mouth to microphone to the more difficult answer or hang up motions.

Please, Steve, give us a flip iPhone!

Well I guess it's good to know that it has the RvLeshrac vote, but before I alter my lifestyle on the advice of a stranger over the internet, I usually like to see studies that empirically confirm his gut sense.

If you don't follow a similar principle, I recommend immersing your head in castor oil seven times a day until you do. In my experience, that has also prevented cancer, since I have never gotten cancer within four hours of immersing my head in castor oil. Think about it: I bet you haven't either.

Hire some serious, well-known, highly-paid interface designers with a proven track record. Give them serious institutional clout, including authority over the tech people. I really can't imagine that it's all that hard.

Having my DVD player inform me that I am not permitted to fast-forward through three movie previews before the menu screen appears comes to mind.