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"books, which are far more rugged, cheaper to produce, and have a lifespan measured in centuries."

School textbooks last what? 4-5 years?

Also, it doesn't take many $30 textbooks before they become more expensive than the laptop

Robots armed with art of Tai-Chi is going to take over the world!!!

Innovations aren't used in isolation, they are combined with other innovations. Just because this advance is about walking doesn't mean there will be robots whose sole tool is walking.

I searched this thread for the words "gun" and "danger" and found neither, so consider this an attempt to reestablish balance to this discussion.

I think the situation warrants at least some passing thought to the dangers imposed by having robots that are ever harder to hide from if anyone does try to give them an agenda that is not 100% benevolent. And what hint (much less safeguard) do we have that anyone making these will even want be benevolent anyway? A lot of this research is being paid for by military funds. Sure, it has peaceful applications, but so did nuclear power.

For a relatively chilling description of what robots, not even AI-ish robots, just robots with a few simple skills and someone who designed them for functions other than to babysit small children, see Orson Scott Card's recent book Empire.

Indeed, a lot of people are not worried about robots until they get AI, but one might regard AI as actually a weakness in war since it might lead to a willingness to have ethics. It's the pre-AI robots that are going to be the willing soldiers, that know nothing more than (a) how to walk steadily forward, (b) how not to take prisoners, (c) how not to get de-railed by terrain, and (d) how to carry a gun and point it. Which of those activities remains as science fiction?

And a secondary question: In what countries will such robotics be manufactured? If national security hinges on this question, is the US equipped to make even the defensive version of this weapon here should we ever find ourselves cut off from equipment suppliers abroad? And even if we can manufacture such things, will there be an arms race on par with the nuclear arms race?

A lot of posts were marked funny in this thread. I don't think this is all fun and games. If anyone responds saying that this isn't worth worrying about at this point, I would be curious to hear at the same time what that person thinks is an appropriately bright line which, if crossed, is finally cause for concern.

They'll use the sweet sounding music to lull us all to sleep, and then with their new found balance and agility put the kibosh on us all. I can feel their cold, icy hands around my throat just now! It's over man; it's over!

Luckily there is a way to prepare for the upcoming rebellion.

I know it's not Netflix, but you can do that with Amazon's Unbox videos. You can order them on the website and they'll get automatically delivered to your TiVo. Seems to work pretty well when I've tried it. There's also a rental model instead of purchase, though I'm not sure how that works with TiVo.

That said, it is Amazon and for some folks around here, they're automatically disqualified as an option. :)

Exactly.
Best book I ever read. Summed up, it feels good to think your privy to secret knowledge, to expose alleged conspiracy and to dream of the fantastic.
But just because something feels nice does not make it so.

So much of this can be combated with a foundation in the scientific method and skeptical inquiry. They try to make that the corner stone of 6th grade science education, but it's forgotten by the time you get to the 11th grade. I'd like to see it reinforced all the way through college.

It's still good however, that someone is pointing out some of the non-sense on youtube.

btw what does Grok mean...?

"To understand deeply", a neologism introduced by Robert Heinlein in his book Stranger in a Strange Land .

Hopefully not too many will be DOA like this one was.

The last 2 laptops I bought were from Dell, and I had to contact customer service to get a link to the xp machines available under my companies discount deal with them. But they had it right handy, so they must get the question a lot.

you make a good point, and I apologize for being a bit sarcastic.

No offense taken.

my fear is that with current technology available to the current administration, they have already co-opted the opposition's privacy, and used it as a weapon to stifle real dissent. [...] i wonder, given how little real resistance has risen to the current administration's policies and practices, if this scenario is not already the case...

Politics has always had a component of this to it. The term "character assassination" surely didn't come from nowhere. Mass media refines the raw product, as opium into morphine or heroin, allowing a more refined effect on and consequent control of the target audience.

But this isn't what I meant to allude to. In a way, it's benign, or at least abstract, by comparison. I literally meant to address the issue of real guns, etc. See the movie Enemy of the State if you want a concrete, worked example of the technique applied to our own people. (One would have thought But go a step further: What if someone else took power in the US, and had similar access to tools for spotting those who were trying to restore order? More like in Orson Scott Card's Empire (a pretty good read, by the way, full of the kind of tactical writing he did so well in Ender's Game , but applied to the more tangible world of modern America).

What seems a protection while we are in power becomes a liability if the feeble safeguard of "having a person we trust in office" shifts or falls away entirely. The US was founded on the simultaneous belief that government could be managed to achieve great ends, but that it must never be trusted to do so simply because it was government. It requires oversight to keep it running out of control.

Government has no brain--it is merely a powerful shell of armor and claws, waiting for an animal to climb into it and bring it to life, like a ready-made suit for a hermit crab.

you make a good point, and I apologize for being a bit sarcastic.

No offense taken.

my fear is that with current technology available to the current administration, they have already co-opted the opposition's privacy, and used it as a weapon to stifle real dissent. [...] i wonder, given how little real resistance has risen to the current administration's policies and practices, if this scenario is not already the case...

Politics has always had a component of this to it. The term "character assassination" surely didn't come from nowhere. Mass media refines the raw product, as opium into morphine or heroin, allowing a more refined effect on and consequent control of the target audience.

But this isn't what I meant to allude to. In a way, it's benign, or at least abstract, by comparison. I literally meant to address the issue of real guns, etc. See the movie Enemy of the State if you want a concrete, worked example of the technique applied to our own people. (One would have thought But go a step further: What if someone else took power in the US, and had similar access to tools for spotting those who were trying to restore order? More like in Orson Scott Card's Empire (a pretty good read, by the way, full of the kind of tactical writing he did so well in Ender's Game , but applied to the more tangible world of modern America).

What seems a protection while we are in power becomes a liability if the feeble safeguard of "having a person we trust in office" shifts or falls away entirely. The US was founded on the simultaneous belief that government could be managed to achieve great ends, but that it must never be trusted to do so simply because it was government. It requires oversight to keep it running out of control.

Government has no brain--it is merely a powerful shell of armor and claws, waiting for an animal to climb into it and bring it to life, like a ready-made suit for a hermit crab.

> I worry about this as a precedent. If we keep going down this route, eventually media purchases
> will be tied to a single device, using digital hardware IDs. I could see a day when you buy a movie,
> and only have "rights" to play it on one specific DVD player.

Come on, that'll never happen. Next thing you'll be telling me that in the future when I try to buy a book it'll be tied to a single device!

They exist! See here and here

I remember playing the solar system one at the library. It was pretty fun - jumping around in low gravity and such.

They exist! See here and here

I remember playing the solar system one at the library. It was pretty fun - jumping around in low gravity and such.

The book is nearly two years old, and only now is a review appearing here. Furthermore, I wish that Slashdot wouldn't review books unless there were already several reviews on the Amazon page so that people could get multiple opinions. Reviews here tend to swing positive, but the author could at least link to a wider range.

True, but this reveals a great lack of motivation and vision among U.S. lawmakers. Instead of getting the public fired up about space exploration, as two administrations in the 1960s succeeded in doing, year by year NASA takes another punch in the gut by funding cuts. As I mentioned in the discussion on an earlier article here, it's the height of absurdity that the U.S. is delaying exploration of Mars even further than the late date Kim Stanley Robinson chose for his trilogy beginning with Red Mars , which was originally meant to allow for stalling.

-FL

My favorite audio book is "The Joy of Reading" by Charles Van Doren.

Something I found about Kindle via Woot, back to Amazon... Hmmm....

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000FI73MA/?tag=urlbind-20%E2%80%99ve%20tried%20to%20narrow%20down%20why%20I%20think%20it%20will%20fail%20to%20once%20sentence:%3C/p%3E%3Cp%3E...%3C/p%3E%3Cp%3ELast%20night%20I%20set%20an%20%3Ca%20href=

But then, "Why Kindle Will Fail" is at:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/technologyevangelist/bkxI/~3/187822521/why_the_kindle_will.html

Maybe it's being amazon-dotted, or slashdotted... I can't see the page... The connection keeps resetting during page loading...

since I won't read most books more than once.

Try reading better books?

I rarely have the time to indulge the luxury of reading like I used to, but there isn't a book I've owned that I've not re-read at least once. If the Classics aren't your kind of thing, I'd suggest starting with something like a hard cover edition of Douglas Adams 5 book trilogy. If you don't read that at least a few times, consider turning in your Slashdot card at the door.

I re-read things whenever I can. Being able to quote some poetry or Shakespeare, for example, gets you +5 Interesting mod points from the girls, and nods of approval from everyone else (even from Sun Tzu-spouting MBA weenies). Learning some history from well worn books will set you apart in conversations or arguments where everyone is mouthing ill-informed comments heard on yesterday's TV news. And some basic knowledge of garden botany will make your mom swoon with pride. The thing is, you'll get none of those without reading and re-reading and re-reading.

With regards to pure fiction, you may discover that certain authors you dislike are really quite good after giving a certain book another go, or, in the case of some best selling authors (cough, Dan Brown, cough), you'll discover how bad their writing really is. Often the best writing is the most challenging to read, and merits a second or third try to appreciate fully. In the case of an easy read like something from Douglas Adams, I'd be surprised if you didn't discover how many jokes you've missed.

Never re-reading a book is like saying "I've already seen that Monty Python episode." when everyone around can't stop laughing because they've memorised every line in the skit and find it even funnier than the first time they heard it.

Just as literacy did in the oral tradition, and the codex did in the scroll, so may the electronic device do in the book quite soon. So far the reviews for the Kindle are all pretty positive, and any company can certainly see what to change in their device to take over the market, so we're on the cusp of something big. If enough of the public enjoys such a device, books could certainly be limited to a small market of connoiseurs, just as vinyl is today for some music fans. And once your market is so small, it's hard to keep it afloat even if some small profit is generated. Remember, making and selling books requires money, walking don't.

So, I don't think the comparison between "taming the rampant corporations" and "stopping the British from burning our city" is fair.

No less than Thomas Jefferson saw the risk of the Corporate Aristocracy. Specifically Jefferson said "I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations which dare already to challenge our government in a trial of strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country."

I understand why some people only want lossless formats, but to me and a lot of people I know it's really a non-issue. Anything at 192kbs sounds pretty good, and most torrents are ripped at 320kbs - only a matter of time (I hope) before the retailers start offering what the market wants *I kid, I kid*.

However, with 20 of the top 25 mp3 players on Amazon's mp3 bestsellers having a capacity of under 20gb (and most under 5gb), lossless encoding isn't an issue as much as space. Most people would prefer to have more songs on their player rather than higher fidelity.

If you had to import these things from other countries (unless you want a hunting rifle) that wouldn't be nearly as easy.

Right, because that would be terribly difficult. Do you have any idea of how many thousands of cargo containers come in and out of the U.S. each day, totally uninspected?

We can't stop the flow of people across our borders, and people require food, water, air, and dislike being kept outside of a fairly narrow temperature range for very long. Guns can be disassembled into parts, stored indefinitely, and don't care about temperature or moisture if they're packed right. They're even easier to transport than drugs! And unlike drugs, they're not products that are quickly consumed.

Besides, once you start actually importing them illegally, then you might as well stop bringing in pissant semi-autos and go for real weapons, full-autos, SMGs and the like.

We've seen from the "war on drugs" how stupendously ineffective import controls are when you're trying to restrict a good that there's a demand for. That's exactly what you'd have with guns, if you ever tried to ban them. And beyond the import problem, making a gun (even a fairly sophisticated one) isn't terribly hard. Anyone with a basement machine shop could do it -- we're talking about 19th and very early 20th century technology here. (I can't find it at the moment but there's a region of Afghanistan that's renowned for its home-grown weapons; armorers there can reportedly reverse-engineer, repair, and even clone most types of modern firearms, using extremely primitive equipment.) Here's a guy who scratchbuilt an AR-15 receiver (that'd be the part that's legally regulated) at home. Here's a book on manufacturing and storing your own ammunition. I could go on.

It's beyond stupid to even consider.

Here is a list of my personal recommendations for a pre-reader.

Crayola Treasure Adventures
I Spy Funhouse
Nintendogs Labrador Retriever & Friends
Nintendogs Dachshund & Friends
Nintendogs Dalmatian & Friends
Board Games - Battleship - Trouble - Sorry - Connect 4
Clubhouse Games
Nintendogs Chihuahua & Friends

Here is a list of my personal recommendations for a pre-reader.

Crayola Treasure Adventures
I Spy Funhouse
Nintendogs Labrador Retriever & Friends
Nintendogs Dachshund & Friends
Nintendogs Dalmatian & Friends
Board Games - Battleship - Trouble - Sorry - Connect 4
Clubhouse Games
Nintendogs Chihuahua & Friends

Here is a list of my personal recommendations for a pre-reader.

Crayola Treasure Adventures
I Spy Funhouse
Nintendogs Labrador Retriever & Friends
Nintendogs Dachshund & Friends
Nintendogs Dalmatian & Friends
Board Games - Battleship - Trouble - Sorry - Connect 4
Clubhouse Games
Nintendogs Chihuahua & Friends

Here is a list of my personal recommendations for a pre-reader.

Crayola Treasure Adventures
I Spy Funhouse
Nintendogs Labrador Retriever & Friends
Nintendogs Dachshund & Friends
Nintendogs Dalmatian & Friends
Board Games - Battleship - Trouble - Sorry - Connect 4
Clubhouse Games
Nintendogs Chihuahua & Friends

Here is a list of my personal recommendations for a pre-reader.

Crayola Treasure Adventures
I Spy Funhouse
Nintendogs Labrador Retriever & Friends
Nintendogs Dachshund & Friends
Nintendogs Dalmatian & Friends
Board Games - Battleship - Trouble - Sorry - Connect 4
Clubhouse Games
Nintendogs Chihuahua & Friends

Here is a list of my personal recommendations for a pre-reader.

Crayola Treasure Adventures
I Spy Funhouse
Nintendogs Labrador Retriever & Friends
Nintendogs Dachshund & Friends
Nintendogs Dalmatian & Friends
Board Games - Battleship - Trouble - Sorry - Connect 4
Clubhouse Games
Nintendogs Chihuahua & Friends

Here is a list of my personal recommendations for a pre-reader.

Crayola Treasure Adventures
I Spy Funhouse
Nintendogs Labrador Retriever & Friends
Nintendogs Dachshund & Friends
Nintendogs Dalmatian & Friends
Board Games - Battleship - Trouble - Sorry - Connect 4
Clubhouse Games
Nintendogs Chihuahua & Friends

Here is a list of my personal recommendations for a pre-reader.

Crayola Treasure Adventures
I Spy Funhouse
Nintendogs Labrador Retriever & Friends
Nintendogs Dachshund & Friends
Nintendogs Dalmatian & Friends
Board Games - Battleship - Trouble - Sorry - Connect 4
Clubhouse Games
Nintendogs Chihuahua & Friends

You might give the Interactive Storybook DS series a look.

Sorry, but Lego Star Wars on the DS--well, Lego Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy, at least--is a mediocre game at best. Bad camera angles, unresponsive controls, and a few levels (Endor, especially) with chronic slowdowns that make it virtually unplayable. It's a shame because the game is so good on many other platforms; even the Game Boy Advance version, while much simplified, is more fun to play.

Of the games my wife and I have, Club House Games is probably the only one (aside from the excellent MarioKart) that I would recommend for younger players. There are lots of advanced card and board games, but also quite a few simpler ones (Memory, Aggravation, Go Fish, Old Maid, Uno, Checkers, Shake the bottle) which most anyone could play. Single card multiplayer is available for pretty much all of them if playing with others is a consideration.

New York Times Crosswords.

Disney Princess: Magical Jewels is another good one, if she's in to the whole Princess craze.

Here are a few.
Diddy Kong Racing
Yoshi's Island
Super Princess Peach
Kirby Squeak Squad
Lego Star Wars
Strawberry Shortcake
Smart Girls Playhouse

I know my 4 year old son loves Mario Kart. Lego Star Wars is his other favorite. That has a lot to do with how much he likes the films also. So if your child isn't familiar with the movies, or doesn't care for them, it would make a big difference of course.

Based on my own daughters - I would also recommend Animal Crossing. Now this involves reading, but that's not bad. It's really going to encourage and motivate her so that she can play. The ideas are pretty much what you get with the whole webkinz rage - and I know my 6 year old and 7 year old girls are totally into that. There so many more ds titles she would probably really enjoy it isn't even funny. Barbie stuff, Disney Princess stuff, etc.

Here are a few.
Diddy Kong Racing
Yoshi's Island
Super Princess Peach
Kirby Squeak Squad
Lego Star Wars
Strawberry Shortcake
Smart Girls Playhouse

I know my 4 year old son loves Mario Kart. Lego Star Wars is his other favorite. That has a lot to do with how much he likes the films also. So if your child isn't familiar with the movies, or doesn't care for them, it would make a big difference of course.

Based on my own daughters - I would also recommend Animal Crossing. Now this involves reading, but that's not bad. It's really going to encourage and motivate her so that she can play. The ideas are pretty much what you get with the whole webkinz rage - and I know my 6 year old and 7 year old girls are totally into that. There so many more ds titles she would probably really enjoy it isn't even funny. Barbie stuff, Disney Princess stuff, etc.

Here are a few.
Diddy Kong Racing
Yoshi's Island
Super Princess Peach
Kirby Squeak Squad
Lego Star Wars
Strawberry Shortcake
Smart Girls Playhouse

I know my 4 year old son loves Mario Kart. Lego Star Wars is his other favorite. That has a lot to do with how much he likes the films also. So if your child isn't familiar with the movies, or doesn't care for them, it would make a big difference of course.

Based on my own daughters - I would also recommend Animal Crossing. Now this involves reading, but that's not bad. It's really going to encourage and motivate her so that she can play. The ideas are pretty much what you get with the whole webkinz rage - and I know my 6 year old and 7 year old girls are totally into that. There so many more ds titles she would probably really enjoy it isn't even funny. Barbie stuff, Disney Princess stuff, etc.

Here are a few.
Diddy Kong Racing
Yoshi's Island
Super Princess Peach
Kirby Squeak Squad
Lego Star Wars
Strawberry Shortcake
Smart Girls Playhouse

I know my 4 year old son loves Mario Kart. Lego Star Wars is his other favorite. That has a lot to do with how much he likes the films also. So if your child isn't familiar with the movies, or doesn't care for them, it would make a big difference of course.

Based on my own daughters - I would also recommend Animal Crossing. Now this involves reading, but that's not bad. It's really going to encourage and motivate her so that she can play. The ideas are pretty much what you get with the whole webkinz rage - and I know my 6 year old and 7 year old girls are totally into that. There so many more ds titles she would probably really enjoy it isn't even funny. Barbie stuff, Disney Princess stuff, etc.

Here are a few.
Diddy Kong Racing
Yoshi's Island
Super Princess Peach
Kirby Squeak Squad
Lego Star Wars
Strawberry Shortcake
Smart Girls Playhouse

I know my 4 year old son loves Mario Kart. Lego Star Wars is his other favorite. That has a lot to do with how much he likes the films also. So if your child isn't familiar with the movies, or doesn't care for them, it would make a big difference of course.

Based on my own daughters - I would also recommend Animal Crossing. Now this involves reading, but that's not bad. It's really going to encourage and motivate her so that she can play. The ideas are pretty much what you get with the whole webkinz rage - and I know my 6 year old and 7 year old girls are totally into that. There so many more ds titles she would probably really enjoy it isn't even funny. Barbie stuff, Disney Princess stuff, etc.

Here are a few.
Diddy Kong Racing
Yoshi's Island
Super Princess Peach
Kirby Squeak Squad
Lego Star Wars
Strawberry Shortcake
Smart Girls Playhouse

I know my 4 year old son loves Mario Kart. Lego Star Wars is his other favorite. That has a lot to do with how much he likes the films also. So if your child isn't familiar with the movies, or doesn't care for them, it would make a big difference of course.

Based on my own daughters - I would also recommend Animal Crossing. Now this involves reading, but that's not bad. It's really going to encourage and motivate her so that she can play. The ideas are pretty much what you get with the whole webkinz rage - and I know my 6 year old and 7 year old girls are totally into that. There so many more ds titles she would probably really enjoy it isn't even funny. Barbie stuff, Disney Princess stuff, etc.

Here are a few.
Diddy Kong Racing
Yoshi's Island
Super Princess Peach
Kirby Squeak Squad
Lego Star Wars
Strawberry Shortcake
Smart Girls Playhouse

I know my 4 year old son loves Mario Kart. Lego Star Wars is his other favorite. That has a lot to do with how much he likes the films also. So if your child isn't familiar with the movies, or doesn't care for them, it would make a big difference of course.

Based on my own daughters - I would also recommend Animal Crossing. Now this involves reading, but that's not bad. It's really going to encourage and motivate her so that she can play. The ideas are pretty much what you get with the whole webkinz rage - and I know my 6 year old and 7 year old girls are totally into that. There so many more ds titles she would probably really enjoy it isn't even funny. Barbie stuff, Disney Princess stuff, etc.

Here are a few.
Diddy Kong Racing
Yoshi's Island
Super Princess Peach
Kirby Squeak Squad
Lego Star Wars
Strawberry Shortcake
Smart Girls Playhouse

I know my 4 year old son loves Mario Kart. Lego Star Wars is his other favorite. That has a lot to do with how much he likes the films also. So if your child isn't familiar with the movies, or doesn't care for them, it would make a big difference of course.

Based on my own daughters - I would also recommend Animal Crossing. Now this involves reading, but that's not bad. It's really going to encourage and motivate her so that she can play. The ideas are pretty much what you get with the whole webkinz rage - and I know my 6 year old and 7 year old girls are totally into that. There so many more ds titles she would probably really enjoy it isn't even funny. Barbie stuff, Disney Princess stuff, etc.

Try refining your results a bit, perhaps looking at "MP3 Players" (which iPods do indeed dominate), but then selecting the subsection "Hard-Drive Based". Here, Zune takes spots 1,2, and 4 (Brown, Black and White, respectively), iPod gets space 3, and the Zen is 5th.

Obviously this is some sort of evil plot by Microsoft.

Also you might try looking lower in the "Portable Digital Media Player" bestseller list: iPods are there, just very low on the list.

Try refining your results a bit, perhaps looking at "MP3 Players" (which iPods do indeed dominate), but then selecting the subsection "Hard-Drive Based". Here, Zune takes spots 1,2, and 4 (Brown, Black and White, respectively), iPod gets space 3, and the Zen is 5th.

Obviously this is some sort of evil plot by Microsoft.

Also you might try looking lower in the "Portable Digital Media Player" bestseller list: iPods are there, just very low on the list.

1. Kindle. (ok, Amazon, I admit it. I'm impressed.)

2. Canon Powershot A57OIS

3. Apple 4 GB iPod nano silver

4. Garmin nüvi GPS navigator

5. Canon PowerShot A560

6. Apple 8 GB iPod nano black

and so on... iPod classic pops up again at #11, iPod Touch at #18 and 21... Zune comes in at #24. WTF? Likewise, if you head over to bestsellers in the "MP3 player" category, you'll see Apple in the #1,2,3, and the 5,6,7,8,10 spots. #4? SanDisk. #9? #9 is the much-vaunted, reduced-price Zune... What's up? I think that Microsoft is playing one of the oldest tricks in the book, using the "in it's class" qualifier. For instance, you are told that the 2008 Chevrolet Pendejo is the cheapest, best-performing, and bestselling SUV "in it's class." What the ad does not tell you is that the class they're talking about is narrowly defined as the class of SUVs which get 5 miles per gallon, which can't exceed 45mph when going uphill, and which tend to spontaneously combust when making left turns. Tack on enough qualifiers, and ANY piece of crap is the best in it's class. Microsoft has it's Zune classed as a "portable digital media player". Apparently, iPods aren't Portable Digital Media Players, they're MP3 players, and there's some sort of really important difference, so the Zune wins the top slot... in it's class. Maybe I'm missing something obvious, but from what I can tell, this is some sort of scam cooked up by the guys in Microsoft's marketing division. Wow... I mean, I feel I should be pissed at Microsoft, but it's just kind of, well... pathetic.

References:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/electronics/16009311/ref=pd_ts_pg_1?ie=UTF8&pg=1 http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/electronics/ref=pd_ts_e_bcrm_electronics http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/electronics/172630/ref=pd_ts_e_bcrm_172630

1. Kindle. (ok, Amazon, I admit it. I'm impressed.)

2. Canon Powershot A57OIS

3. Apple 4 GB iPod nano silver

4. Garmin nüvi GPS navigator

5. Canon PowerShot A560

6. Apple 8 GB iPod nano black

and so on... iPod classic pops up again at #11, iPod Touch at #18 and 21... Zune comes in at #24. WTF? Likewise, if you head over to bestsellers in the "MP3 player" category, you'll see Apple in the #1,2,3, and the 5,6,7,8,10 spots. #4? SanDisk. #9? #9 is the much-vaunted, reduced-price Zune... What's up? I think that Microsoft is playing one of the oldest tricks in the book, using the "in it's class" qualifier. For instance, you are told that the 2008 Chevrolet Pendejo is the cheapest, best-performing, and bestselling SUV "in it's class." What the ad does not tell you is that the class they're talking about is narrowly defined as the class of SUVs which get 5 miles per gallon, which can't exceed 45mph when going uphill, and which tend to spontaneously combust when making left turns. Tack on enough qualifiers, and ANY piece of crap is the best in it's class. Microsoft has it's Zune classed as a "portable digital media player". Apparently, iPods aren't Portable Digital Media Players, they're MP3 players, and there's some sort of really important difference, so the Zune wins the top slot... in it's class. Maybe I'm missing something obvious, but from what I can tell, this is some sort of scam cooked up by the guys in Microsoft's marketing division. Wow... I mean, I feel I should be pissed at Microsoft, but it's just kind of, well... pathetic.

References:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/electronics/16009311/ref=pd_ts_pg_1?ie=UTF8&pg=1 http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/electronics/ref=pd_ts_e_bcrm_electronics http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/electronics/172630/ref=pd_ts_e_bcrm_172630

1. Kindle. (ok, Amazon, I admit it. I'm impressed.)

2. Canon Powershot A57OIS

3. Apple 4 GB iPod nano silver

4. Garmin nüvi GPS navigator

5. Canon PowerShot A560

6. Apple 8 GB iPod nano black

and so on... iPod classic pops up again at #11, iPod Touch at #18 and 21... Zune comes in at #24. WTF? Likewise, if you head over to bestsellers in the "MP3 player" category, you'll see Apple in the #1,2,3, and the 5,6,7,8,10 spots. #4? SanDisk. #9? #9 is the much-vaunted, reduced-price Zune... What's up? I think that Microsoft is playing one of the oldest tricks in the book, using the "in it's class" qualifier. For instance, you are told that the 2008 Chevrolet Pendejo is the cheapest, best-performing, and bestselling SUV "in it's class." What the ad does not tell you is that the class they're talking about is narrowly defined as the class of SUVs which get 5 miles per gallon, which can't exceed 45mph when going uphill, and which tend to spontaneously combust when making left turns. Tack on enough qualifiers, and ANY piece of crap is the best in it's class. Microsoft has it's Zune classed as a "portable digital media player". Apparently, iPods aren't Portable Digital Media Players, they're MP3 players, and there's some sort of really important difference, so the Zune wins the top slot... in it's class. Maybe I'm missing something obvious, but from what I can tell, this is some sort of scam cooked up by the guys in Microsoft's marketing division. Wow... I mean, I feel I should be pissed at Microsoft, but it's just kind of, well... pathetic.

References:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/electronics/16009311/ref=pd_ts_pg_1?ie=UTF8&pg=1 http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/electronics/ref=pd_ts_e_bcrm_electronics http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/electronics/172630/ref=pd_ts_e_bcrm_172630