@showbiz2: I think you misunderstood. I wasn't calling the farmers ignorant. I was calling you economically ignorant, since you aren't aware that these taxes you propose would reduce sales of corn, blow jobs, weddings, and oranges, hurting those you ostensibly want to help.

@elvisml2: Isn't it grand how well that turned out? I wonder, what in the history of government programs gives people the idea that government will ever perform effectively?

@Jimmy1: For the most part, yes, I am.

@Brian Alexander: I'm not following your sarcasm here, but you wanna know how we shiny city dwellers get our food? We pay for it. Most of us with our own money. That money goes to the farmers. Those farmers could use that money to pay for broadband access if they decide that's the best use of their money. If not,…

@casperiv: No, it's because we're all greedy dicks, didn't you know? If you don't vote to take someone else's money, you're greedy, see? Meanwhile, the "generous" people won't bother to donate a dime to whatever their cause du jour is, they'll just bitch about people who, god forbid, want to spend, save, donate, or…

@mrisinger: Smart phones allow people to be more connected than landlines or regular cell phones. Should they be subsidized as well? Maybe we should give satellite phones to "the unfortunate" because they might travel to an area where they can't get a cellphone signal.

@showbiz2: By the way, there already is a tax on every bushel of corn, in the form of subsidies. But if farmers to lobby to make each bushel of corn more expensive, let them knock themselves out. I just don't want to hear their crying when people buy less corn.

@Denver: Couldn't you and the other 47% of the country raise enough money through voluntary donations then? Even if the numbers were reversed, what right does 53% of the country have to spend anyone else's money?

@Dogen: If they want it, let them pay for it.

Here's an idea for you, Adam: If you think that people other than those living there should pay to bring broadband to rural areas, why don't you step up to the plate and donate?

@raveglass: That can mean only one thing: iPhone on Verizon!

@shooga: I watched the press conference, and read transcripts of the Q&A, and that's not the impression I got whatsoever. In fact, FrogEater's statement (that, yes, the iPhone 4's reception drops when held in certain ways, as happens with any phone) is pretty much exactly what Jobs presented. *Plus* he acknowledged…

@shooga: Price fixing is vastly different than selling memory at retail for a high price. And, by the way, you don't have to buy memory from Apple to put in an Apple computer; any vendor's compatible RAM will suffice.

@kasualbrotha: iPhone 4 users, for the most part (including yours truly), did not have a problem with Apple's product. You've got two industries with a vested interest in making this problem seem worse than it is: Competitors and the media (especially media outlets with a chip on their shoulder because they're…

@OreoExplosion: That's not a beer belly. Nokia got back.

@Ace: I'm happily placing calls without a bumper. It may improve things (I don't know), but it's not a necessity.

@scottlandk: I've got an iPhone 4, and I really have to work out it to get the bars to drop. Even then, I've gone from four bars to two. I haven't tried the tin foil, latex, and water trick yet, though (well, not with my phone anyway!)

@Dezerus Richardson: What was the actual damage done to the system? I haven't been able to find that information. Knowing that would either support or reject my claim that the damage an exploit can do on a Mac is minimal.

@Dezerus Richardson: It's not true that Macs are invulnerable to viruses, but it's also not true that the only thing making them safer is "that nobody writes viruses for them." There are things that make UNIX systems inherently more difficult to exploit, and the damage that an exploit can cause more limited. Not…

@Mad_Science: By the way, the news now is that the Toyota problem was, in fact, user error.