Roku

“you still can’t do anything really wild with the main characters.”

I completely disagree on this point. You can do wild things with the main characters. Someone who appeared to be a good guy can be made into a bad guy. Someone who appeared to be a villain can be shown to have sympathetic motives that changes your perspective on them. You have the power with a good prequel to completely change the original story.

Batman Begins isn’t really a prequel so much as a reboot of a series.

I just had this argument with my friend a couple of weeks ago. He was insisting to me that the entire show had been purgatory and that they had been dead throughout the entire show. Of course this was his theory from the start of the show and when season 6 partially took place in purgatory he just assumed he was right all along.

A lot of people simply can’t follow a story as long and complex as LOST. It was a convoluted tale.

I watched it for both so the finale was very successful on some levels and somewhat disappointing on other levels. I can’t understand how anyone could watch the show solely for mythology. The show focused so much on the characters and giving you very deep explanations of their backgrounds and motivations that I can’t believe anyone could watch 6 seasons of that show and not care at all about the characters.

I disagree with him strongly on the Matrix architect scene. It didn’t really bother me getting an explanation and history for what was going on inside of the Matrix. What did bother me were all of the boring/weird Zion scenes. The architect explanation isn’t even a disappointing explanation to me on any level.

LOST needed to deliver an emotionally satisfying resolution for the characters which it did very successfully, but it also needed to deliver a satisfying explanation for all of the mystery it had manufactured. On the mythology front there were mixed results that ranged from dumb explanations to no explanations. The Jacob mythology was not very human or relatable, which was always LOST’s strongest suit. That said the backstorys and interconnected relationships on LOST were almost always universally brilliant and surprising.

I also disagree about the inevitability of prequels. I think that a creative mind can still surprise and flip the script on an audience that expects an inevitable outcome. In fact in some ways it can be a useful tool like that of a magician who uses a misdirection and then surprises you with something you weren’t expecting. A successful prequel changes your perception of what you thought you knew about the original story and maybe even changes the entire story itself.

A prologue like the Star Wars prequels is nothing more than meaningless fan service, but that doesn’t mean that is how every prequel has to be.

My 35Mbps service is actually 43Mbps on FiOS. While the 75Mbps service sounds tempting I might drop down to the slower speed if it comes along with a price increase. There are definitely diminishing returns with speed increases.

Amazing that regulators are already investigating a product that hasn’t even been released and may be a half a year from market. Yet Apple iOS and Safari are laughing all the way to the bank. Personally I’m against the desktop lockdown on ARM, but this seems very hypocritical. Don’t understand why Windows Phone is okay but Windows RT which will be virtually the same OS running on virtually the same ARM chips is not. Most consumer electronics today have web browsers that cannot be changed whether it’s a game console, TV, tablet, or smartphone.

By your insane logic then the Samsung Brightside phone (3 stars user rating) is the 3rd best phone on the market because it is selling well on Amazon. That phone is a piece of garbage which proves that judging a phone’s quality by sales numbers is completely wrong.

The iPhone is sold on Amazon and the reviews are not great.

How are sales a better representation of quality than user reviews?

There is no direct correlation between sales and quality in any medium. The world of marketing exists solely to make sure of that.

Reviews are the best representation of something’s quality, not sales or usage numbers.

Glad to hear they fixed that “glitch” of telling people the truth. I’m sure it will never happen again.

I hope this movie is so bad that it becomes good.

Why open up the Youtube app when Youtube supports HTML5 and could play the video right from the web browser?

Because HTC doesn’t own Navteq like Nokia does and has to actually pay someone to provide navigation.

I agree, I still don’t understand why Desktop exists on Windows RT. It serves no purpose.

Android runs like garbage on a series 2 Snapdragon. Putting Android on a Lumia 900 would literally ruin the phone.

I know how you feel though, I wish someone would put Windows 8 on an Asus Transformer.

German courts allow you to abuse patents and hand out injunctions like candy which is why Motorola attempted to shift the venue there from America. Microsoft effectively neutered the ruling before it came down. Motorola has been using some desperate underhanded tactics. Time will tell if they get away with playing dirty and if they do then all bets are off, everyone can abuse FRAND from now on.

I don’t really “look forward” to software. Like most consumers I go into app stores and I see whatever is popular, highly rated, or featured and that’s what I download.

What I’m looking forward to is the Windows 8 app store because the only software I’ve been downloading for Windows for many years has been browser plug-ins. I probably haven’t purchased Windows software since the 1990’s, but when Windows 8 comes out I’ll be buying apps from the store on a daily basis.

Those stats include iPods, iPhones, BlackBerry, and Android phones. Absolutely ridiculous. One can only wonder why the Nintendo 3DS and PS Vita aren’t included in the stats as well.

What is wrong with designing a touch-first OS?

When they designed Windows they created a mouse-first OS in a world dominated by keyboard-only PCs. You can’t allow current hardware to dictate software design.

Hardware design follows software design. Consumers will buy the PCs that work best with Windows 8. If you think that is a touchscreen PC then that is what you will buy. If consumers choose touchscreen PCs for Windows 8 that is what OEMs will increasingly make and what retailers will promote.

You act as if Microsoft is stuck forever designing software only for mouse/keyboard users. If that was their fate then they would be doomed because almost every single other consumer electronics device has already made the transition to touch screens. Phones, cameras, game systems, GPS, MP3/PMP players have all transitioned to touch. What portable consumer electronics today aren’t touch screen other than laptops? Windows is very late to this transition if anything.

Windows 8 will not only boost Windows sales it will boost hardware sales because it benefits consumers to go out and buy a new PC with touch.

How hard is it to understand that software design dictates hardware design? Not the other way around. If you believe that your PC is ill-suited for Windows then you buy a new PC with a touch screen. All operating systems going forward are being designed around touch input.

“The changes in outer designs coupled with the adoption of new interface are expected to boost the effectiveness of Windows 8, and will help push up the ratio of touched-enabled ultrabooks with a display size of 13-inch and above to 30% of total ultrabook models shipped for the year-end buying season in 2012 compared to the 3-5% estimated previously, said the sources.”