I think you've grabbed every DNS-related RFC you can find, hoping that I had not read them.
You're welcome to think whatever you want.
I have, and so I will ask you to be more specific.
What am I, a twig to be bent? Well, OK, I will feed the troll.
Which part of RFC 2065 (DNSSEC) is violated?
I specifically said that you can make an argument the standards are not being violated. These standards are not necessarily defined to exist at the presentation layer. You've chosen to ignore that part of my statement. With that caveat, RFC2065 section 5 specifically defines NXT returns for non-existent hosts - you ask for something not present, you get a description of the range of non-existent hosts that contains the requested name. You follow? There is DATA returned, Microsoft is removing it from the response when it directs you to a search page; if you think it's OK for presentation layer tools to re-interpret returns from DNS in a way that removes content by default without the consent or knowledge of the user, then that's OK - otherwise it's a violation of RFC2065 because the record returned has been munged in transit to the user.
Are you suggesting that IE is a poorly-implemented DNS caching server which does not cache negative results (RFC 2038)?
No. I haven't checked, so I would not suggest that.
I'm particularly curious why you cited RFC 1536. Did the subject of the conversation turn to whether IE is appending your local domain to DNS queries for non-explicit FQDNs?
The subject of the conversation, as I see it, is whether it's OK for IE (presentation layer) to behave in a way that ISPs (transport layer) should not. Tangentially, I guess you are not aware that currently shipping Microsoft operating systems cache DNS, and that current versions of IE only work on Microsoft operating systems.
The only specific citation you've made from the DNS-related RFCs is about structuring the DNS header. I have yet to see anyone point to any claim that IE sends improperly formatted DNS headers.
This is getting tedious. Are you simply missing the point, or are you purposely misdirecting the conversation to exercise your typing skills? IE is shortstopping the bad status return and substituting a valid page lookup. Some people don't like that, and if you believe that the standards control the presentation layer as well as the communication on the wire, then you'll see this as a standards violation.
What they ARE doing is presenting your NXDOMAIN result accompanied by results for a search on the missing domain.
Didn't I just say that? Some people find it offensive. I would consider it stupid and a waste of my time, if I used IE. But I rarely use IE, because it is a crappy browser that doesn't run on half my systems anyway, and personally I can look up how to change the behaviour anyway.
I still do not see a standard which requires a browser or other application's response to an NXDOMAIN to not accompany it with search results, and I do not believe one exists.
Perhaps you should write one, then. I don't see any standard which requires applications to not explode and not spit acid in my face. It's somewhat unusual (though not unknown) for RFCs to have negative specifications.
If your script relies on IE presenting NXDOMAINs in a specific way, then you have a badly-written script, and you shouldn't have expected it to keep working.
As far as I'm concerned, if your script relies on IE, you have a badly written script. Yet I am aware of several dozen in constant use at several large hospitals, and I am sure there are tens of thousands out there (at least).
"The true measure of another man's intelligence is how much he agrees with you" is probably the one most used in the world. It certainly applies to/. and pretty much every other situation I've been in in my life.
Hey, you're derailing this discussion with your reality-based interjections. We were talking about how all the other races are stupider than our own. Get with the program, you dummy!
Can you point me to the relevant RFC, or at least a standard from a recognized standards body which is being violated here?
It depends on how they are doing it; if they are preventing transmission of NXDOMAIN to userland, then RFCs 1034, 1035 and 2065, mainly. Also RFC2308 and 1536 and 4074 and probably others depending on specific circumstances.
Check out RFC1035 section 4.1.1, RCODE 3.
It can be (and will be, right here) argued that the browser is a presentation layer tool that already exists in userland and thus Microsoft preventing users from seeing that a name does not exist (and redirecting them to an advertising engine) is not a standards violation. Certainly the behaviour of the big ISPs like Verizon and Comcast, which actually prevent the client machine from ever seeing the NXDOMAIN response, is a much more heinous violation of standards.
In any case the expected, well standardized behaviour of DNS when asked for a non-existent name is embedded in a great deal of existing work, including user guides and scripts, which is why technically knowledgeable people are usually pretty pissed off by this sort of greedy foolishness even when it's just happening in the browser.
Stop right there; your OLPC is unused because anyone sitting in an office isn't the target audience for the device.
If you had bought a SCUBA suit you wouldn't be using it in your office, either. Would you be complaining about how uncomfortable it is to type in a SCUBA suit? It sounds like you're bitching because the XO isn't a super-netbook built for cube dwellers in rich industrialized countries.
The technological challenges the XO took on were not "how fast can it play crysis" they were "how can we make it readable in direct sunlight" and "how can we make it survive dusty road travel" and "how can we build a mesh network".
The target audience is well-nourished, well-housed children without internet connections in their homes, who have very limited access to up-to-date textbooks. It's not you, and it's not Starvin' Marvin, either.
When I was a kid computer connections were 300 bps. We used the computer anyway. Your "too slow" argument is bogus.
It looks to me like they mean "high level" languages... the sort that allow you to deal with arbitrarily complex datastructures without burdening the programmer with the manual management of memory allocation and pointers.
Like awk, for example. Since gawk implemented direct socket I/O a few years ago it's been one of the best high level languages around.
Perl barely qualifies for this category (no pointers, but "references"), yet it was one of the first high level languages, so it should get some respect.
I think you left out the words "thousand or so" between first and high level.;)
BTW, is anyone at Microsoft working on a native port of Tridge & Makkeras's rsync?
Being able to rsync windows volumes to NTFS filesystems mounted on *ix boxes without destroying the file attributes that *ix does not directly support would be incredibly wonderful. SSH interoperability is already available - it's preserving the Windows file attributes that is the problem.
Am I misunderstanding the description of this extension, because to me this sounds exactly like what it does. You enable scripts from domains you specify. Thus, no javascript injections or form hacking will get a page to retrieve foreign scripts without the attacker being able to physically alter the document.
If you are talking about noscript, yes, that's exactly how it works. The UI is simple enough that my 9-year-old uses it without problems. It cannot really be used by anyone who does not understand the difference between code and data, though.
The difference between noscript and this idea is simple:
Noscript - you decide who you will trust.
TFA - whoever hacked the site you are visiting decides who you will trust.
No-brainer from where I'm sitting. But for people who are not knowledgeable enough to browse safely, and who need to (or insist on) browsing anyway, this would be a step in the right direction.
Every joule of energy we get on the earth, without tapping geothermal sources, originally comes from the sun.
There's actually another exception: nuclear energy. It comes from supernovas that predate the solar system's formation.
Seems like a good argument for not using it.
I like nuclear power in theory. But I believe human beings of the corporate-controlling social classes are too cheap, greedy and stupid to run nuclear power plants safely. Come the revolution, maybe we can have nukes, but for now this is why we can't have nice things.
It just couldn't simply because there isn't wind all the time and we don't have any realistic way to store energy for calm days. Wind could be useful as a part of the energy production but with current technology there is no way wind could be used as the only energy source.
Although that's a standard oil-shill talking point I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and explain why you are wrong.
First of all, there is wind all the time. Seriously; the Earth is not a perfectly smooth billiard ball, therefore the earth's rotation causes turbulence in her atmospheric jacket all the time. The places humans prefer to live generally have intermittent winds, but even so there is wind somewhere always. Just as we currently move electricity from the generation points to the points of use on copper wires, so we can distribute wind-generated electricity on copper wires. It's a solved problem, despite what coal and oil apologists might want you to believe.
Second, large scale energy storage is also a solved problem. Large power plants already store titanic amounts of energy by running turbines backwards (pushing water uphill for later release) and in heavy flywheels. In a distributed generation system such as a global wind generator network, there would be less need for energy storage than you'd think, since the wind blows somewhere all the time and someone uses power somewhere all the time. In any case, existing hydroelectric facilities can already be used to bank energy and new facilities can be built.
Submitter is in the UK, not the US. Electrical work is the way to go, not plumbing.
UK mains are high enough voltage to be mildly dangerous, and have inordinately high safety requirements (fuse in every outlet, for example). Plus, there is a cultural resistance to DIY electrical work, it generally just "isn't done". So, most people call the expert and pay him well.
English plumbing is famous world-wide for its baroque design and lack of reliable function. When I visit the UK I prefer to stay in places that advertise "American style plumbing" - and yes, they do put that in advertisements. Problems are often in the drains, so you would frequently be up to your elbows in the human waste stream. Yet (by necessity, perhaps) there is less cultural resistance to DIY plumbing, and with the introduction of glued plastic pipe it's become relatively easy for the homeowner, which drives wages down for plumbers at the same time that it cuts down on the service business opportunities.
Don't bother with fiber, it's unlikely to be as popular as copper in your lifetime.
The best machine possible weighs less than an ounce, fits in a cigarette pack, and has both a full size keyboard and a 50 inch flatscreen. And you can use it on a plane without bothering your seatmate.
The public doesn't care about the so-called "laws" of physics.
I find Apple interfaces counter-intuitive and difficult to use. Are you going to assume I'm lying, or that I'm misguided, or that I'm stupid? Pick any one of the three, and you instantly prove that you aren't operating from logic, you are emotionally attached to your iPhone and can't bear to look at it objectively. Subjectively, for you, I am sure the interface is great. But the idea that the Apple interface is "intuitive" and/or "easy" is pure marketing.
I've used Apple products since they've existed, incidentally, so I'm not speaking from inexperience. I have a mac on my desk right now. I don't own an iPhone or iPod touch because they are difficult and frustrating for me to use and cost too much anyway. I do own an older iPod but I prefer my $15 chinese MP3 player because it has a better user interface (no host software - pure USB drag'n'drop on any operating system with no software install).
Your last point is much better - market prices are determined by markets. It's hard to fight that one! If you can show that there is some function of the iPhone (a real function, like geo-location or caller number lookup, not iFart) that is not already available on the market for less, you can prove your thesis.
Synaptic is friendlier than apt which is friendlier than dpkg.
Cow crap stinks less than horse crap which stinks less than pig crap.
Seriously, having a choice between incredibly slow and inefficient bloatware with a pretty face, a command-line client that pre-supposes immense knowledge of package availability and naming, and a totally user-hostile but really solid tool that was always intended to be a backend only... wait, which choice doesn't stink again? Because my 78 year old father (who runs and likes Ubuntu BTW) thinks they all suck. He uses synaptic because it sucks slightly less.
"no sane person thinks $100 a month is a reasonable price for phone service, but they buy iPhones anyway."
Actually, I think it is reasonable. Hell, I've been paying close to that for years for the Sprint Vision service with a phone that is not even a smartphone....
Well, I apologize for calling you insane, even though you clearly are. Hey, insane people are more interesting, look at it that way!
I figured if I'm paying this much, get an iPhone that actually does a LOT for the price.
Well, here in New Zealand all phones have to be sold as bare handsets, without contracts (and so without subsidies); also, parallel importing is explicitly permitted by law. In this market, the iPhone is actually cheaper than comparable smartphones, even the parallel imported ones.
Sounds like New Zealand already woke up! Aren't you afraid Australia will invade? How can the Aussies stand to see such flagrant sanity right there on their doorstep?
Someday I hope my country will be as sane as yours. Seriously, I am not kidding.
Tulips and iPhones will still exist, but they won't be fetish objects to otherwise normal people any more, and so their prices will no longer reflect emotional baggage unrelated to function or utility.
Except that emotional baggage isn't what sells iPhones. It's primarily function and utility.
The replies to my post, and my observations of iPhone users, convince me that you are mistaken.
If you say, "Cola sucks. I like iced tea" otherwise sane people don't write ten thousand word threads to prove that you have misjudged the perfect and god-like attributes of cola. Because cola is not (currently) a fad. If you say "iPhones and iPods suck. I like cheap chinese MP3 players and Go-phones" people's heads spin around on their shoulders, and earnest, well-meaning people drop everything to preach you the true faith. Unmistakably a fad.
It's OK to have an iPhone/iPod, it's OK to like it, it's OK to pay more than it might objectively be worth if that brings you pleasure. Rock on, people! But one day the fad will pass, and the people who still want and like the devices will not have to pay so much for them. Nothing wrong with that.
For the fourth time in this thread...Iphone service samey pricey other smart phone service. Understandy nowey. Pleasey showey meey smarty phoney costy lessy monthy.
If everything is blue, that doesn't mean the sky is not blue. Follow me chinee racy mockeree?
I don't carry a phone (because if I did, people would call me... which would degrade my enjoyment of life) but my spouse and son do. They pay less than $100 dollars US per year and get every service they want.
A lot of people forget that during the 1500s and 1600s, there were a lot of white-colored slaves. The practice of enslaving whites was gradually replaced with black slavery during the 1700s, but if you are a white person it's entirely possible you have slavery in your background.
Replace "during the 1500s and 1600s" with "throughout history" and "entirely possible" with "mathematically inescapable" and you're on to something.
Unfortunately, since slavery still exists, we still need to work on helping out slaves and people who have had their lives warped because of slave ancestry. Some of us have managed to get well past the lingering, generations-long effects of slavery, but the slaves Saddam Hussein freed when he invaded Kuwait (and all the slaves in states like Somalia, Dubai, and the UAE) still need our help.
I'll get modded down for mentioning that Saddam once did something useful, I bet.
On February 3rd, 1637, everyone just woke up. And the price of tulips went down the toilet, and everyone looked around and said "why did I pay more than a tulip's weight in gold for this? It's just a flower".
Someday, everyone will just wake up. They will put down the ipods, and pick up pennywhistles, guitars, and harmonicas again. That's just how fads work. Tulips and iPhones will still exist, but they won't be fetish objects to otherwise normal people any more, and so their prices will no longer reflect emotional baggage unrelated to function or utility.
Your perfectly valid reasoning may not do you any good at all if people suddenly go crazy for Zunes, or whatever. I suspect that trying to analyze fads with reason and logic is an exercise in futility... no sane person thinks $100 a month is a reasonable price for phone service, but they buy iPhones anyway. It's probably best just to roll with it and try not to lose your shirt when the bubble bursts.
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You're welcome to think whatever you want.
What am I, a twig to be bent? Well, OK, I will feed the troll.
I specifically said that you can make an argument the standards are not being violated. These standards are not necessarily defined to exist at the presentation layer. You've chosen to ignore that part of my statement. With that caveat, RFC2065 section 5 specifically defines NXT returns for non-existent hosts - you ask for something not present, you get a description of the range of non-existent hosts that contains the requested name. You follow? There is DATA returned, Microsoft is removing it from the response when it directs you to a search page; if you think it's OK for presentation layer tools to re-interpret returns from DNS in a way that removes content by default without the consent or knowledge of the user, then that's OK - otherwise it's a violation of RFC2065 because the record returned has been munged in transit to the user.
No. I haven't checked, so I would not suggest that.
The subject of the conversation, as I see it, is whether it's OK for IE (presentation layer) to behave in a way that ISPs (transport layer) should not. Tangentially, I guess you are not aware that currently shipping Microsoft operating systems cache DNS, and that current versions of IE only work on Microsoft operating systems.
This is getting tedious. Are you simply missing the point, or are you purposely misdirecting the conversation to exercise your typing skills? IE is shortstopping the bad status return and substituting a valid page lookup. Some people don't like that, and if you believe that the standards control the presentation layer as well as the communication on the wire, then you'll see this as a standards violation.
Didn't I just say that? Some people find it offensive. I would consider it stupid and a waste of my time, if I used IE. But I rarely use IE, because it is a crappy browser that doesn't run on half my systems anyway, and personally I can look up how to change the behaviour anyway.
Perhaps you should write one, then. I don't see any standard which requires applications to not explode and not spit acid in my face. It's somewhat unusual (though not unknown) for RFCs to have negative specifications.
As far as I'm concerned, if your script relies on IE, you have a badly written script. Yet I am aware of several dozen in constant use at several large hospitals, and I am sure there are tens of thousands out there (at least).
Y'know, I was just tr
Hey, you're derailing this discussion with your reality-based interjections. We were talking about how all the other races are stupider than our own. Get with the program, you dummy!
It depends on how they are doing it; if they are preventing transmission of NXDOMAIN to userland, then RFCs 1034, 1035 and 2065, mainly. Also RFC2308 and 1536 and 4074 and probably others depending on specific circumstances.
Check out RFC1035 section 4.1.1, RCODE 3.
It can be (and will be, right here) argued that the browser is a presentation layer tool that already exists in userland and thus Microsoft preventing users from seeing that a name does not exist (and redirecting them to an advertising engine) is not a standards violation. Certainly the behaviour of the big ISPs like Verizon and Comcast, which actually prevent the client machine from ever seeing the NXDOMAIN response, is a much more heinous violation of standards.
In any case the expected, well standardized behaviour of DNS when asked for a non-existent name is embedded in a great deal of existing work, including user guides and scripts, which is why technically knowledgeable people are usually pretty pissed off by this sort of greedy foolishness even when it's just happening in the browser.
Stop right there; your OLPC is unused because anyone sitting in an office isn't the target audience for the device.
If you had bought a SCUBA suit you wouldn't be using it in your office, either. Would you be complaining about how uncomfortable it is to type in a SCUBA suit? It sounds like you're bitching because the XO isn't a super-netbook built for cube dwellers in rich industrialized countries.
The technological challenges the XO took on were not "how fast can it play crysis" they were "how can we make it readable in direct sunlight" and "how can we make it survive dusty road travel" and "how can we build a mesh network".
The target audience is well-nourished, well-housed children without internet connections in their homes, who have very limited access to up-to-date textbooks. It's not you, and it's not Starvin' Marvin, either.
When I was a kid computer connections were 300 bps. We used the computer anyway. Your "too slow" argument is bogus.
Like awk, for example. Since gawk implemented direct socket I/O a few years ago it's been one of the best high level languages around.
I think you left out the words "thousand or so" between first and high level. ;)
BTW, is anyone at Microsoft working on a native port of Tridge & Makkeras's rsync?
Being able to rsync windows volumes to NTFS filesystems mounted on *ix boxes without destroying the file attributes that *ix does not directly support would be incredibly wonderful. SSH interoperability is already available - it's preserving the Windows file attributes that is the problem.
Thanks!
Well, you could check for known problems first.
http://mozillalinks.org/wp/2009/07/workaround-for-firefox-3-5-slow-startups-on-windows/
If that doesn't fix it for you, post a bug report with the firefox devs (instead of on slashdot).
If you are talking about noscript, yes, that's exactly how it works. The UI is simple enough that my 9-year-old uses it without problems. It cannot really be used by anyone who does not understand the difference between code and data, though.
The difference between noscript and this idea is simple:
Noscript - you decide who you will trust.
TFA - whoever hacked the site you are visiting decides who you will trust.
No-brainer from where I'm sitting. But for people who are not knowledgeable enough to browse safely, and who need to (or insist on) browsing anyway, this would be a step in the right direction.
And I'm not running any of 'em. And I never have.
Thanks, Sam, I appreciate your taking the time to keep us annoying users informed!
Seems like a good argument for not using it.
I like nuclear power in theory. But I believe human beings of the corporate-controlling social classes are too cheap, greedy and stupid to run nuclear power plants safely. Come the revolution, maybe we can have nukes, but for now this is why we can't have nice things.
Although that's a standard oil-shill talking point I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and explain why you are wrong.
First of all, there is wind all the time. Seriously; the Earth is not a perfectly smooth billiard ball, therefore the earth's rotation causes turbulence in her atmospheric jacket all the time. The places humans prefer to live generally have intermittent winds, but even so there is wind somewhere always. Just as we currently move electricity from the generation points to the points of use on copper wires, so we can distribute wind-generated electricity on copper wires. It's a solved problem, despite what coal and oil apologists might want you to believe.
Second, large scale energy storage is also a solved problem. Large power plants already store titanic amounts of energy by running turbines backwards (pushing water uphill for later release) and in heavy flywheels. In a distributed generation system such as a global wind generator network, there would be less need for energy storage than you'd think, since the wind blows somewhere all the time and someone uses power somewhere all the time. In any case, existing hydroelectric facilities can already be used to bank energy and new facilities can be built.
Submitter is in the UK, not the US. Electrical work is the way to go, not plumbing.
UK mains are high enough voltage to be mildly dangerous, and have inordinately high safety requirements (fuse in every outlet, for example). Plus, there is a cultural resistance to DIY electrical work, it generally just "isn't done". So, most people call the expert and pay him well.
English plumbing is famous world-wide for its baroque design and lack of reliable function. When I visit the UK I prefer to stay in places that advertise "American style plumbing" - and yes, they do put that in advertisements. Problems are often in the drains, so you would frequently be up to your elbows in the human waste stream. Yet (by necessity, perhaps) there is less cultural resistance to DIY plumbing, and with the introduction of glued plastic pipe it's become relatively easy for the homeowner, which drives wages down for plumbers at the same time that it cuts down on the service business opportunities.
Don't bother with fiber, it's unlikely to be as popular as copper in your lifetime.
The best machine possible weighs less than an ounce, fits in a cigarette pack, and has both a full size keyboard and a 50 inch flatscreen. And you can use it on a plane without bothering your seatmate.
The public doesn't care about the so-called "laws" of physics.
I find Apple interfaces counter-intuitive and difficult to use. Are you going to assume I'm lying, or that I'm misguided, or that I'm stupid? Pick any one of the three, and you instantly prove that you aren't operating from logic, you are emotionally attached to your iPhone and can't bear to look at it objectively. Subjectively, for you, I am sure the interface is great. But the idea that the Apple interface is "intuitive" and/or "easy" is pure marketing.
I've used Apple products since they've existed, incidentally, so I'm not speaking from inexperience. I have a mac on my desk right now. I don't own an iPhone or iPod touch because they are difficult and frustrating for me to use and cost too much anyway. I do own an older iPod but I prefer my $15 chinese MP3 player because it has a better user interface (no host software - pure USB drag'n'drop on any operating system with no software install).
Your last point is much better - market prices are determined by markets. It's hard to fight that one! If you can show that there is some function of the iPhone (a real function, like geo-location or caller number lookup, not iFart) that is not already available on the market for less, you can prove your thesis.
Synaptic is friendlier than apt which is friendlier than dpkg.
Cow crap stinks less than horse crap which stinks less than pig crap.
Seriously, having a choice between incredibly slow and inefficient bloatware with a pretty face, a command-line client that pre-supposes immense knowledge of package availability and naming, and a totally user-hostile but really solid tool that was always intended to be a backend only... wait, which choice doesn't stink again? Because my 78 year old father (who runs and likes Ubuntu BTW) thinks they all suck. He uses synaptic because it sucks slightly less.
Well, I apologize for calling you insane, even though you clearly are. Hey, insane people are more interesting, look at it that way!
Well, that part seems perfectly reasonable to me.
How perceptive of you. You read a post wherein I say "it's not logical" and you recognize the absence of logic. You will go far, with such mad skillz!
A "real job" huh? I'm guessing not an accountant.
Sounds like New Zealand already woke up! Aren't you afraid Australia will invade? How can the Aussies stand to see such flagrant sanity right there on their doorstep?
Someday I hope my country will be as sane as yours. Seriously, I am not kidding.
No interface is intuitive, not even the nipple. It's all learned. Use what works for you.
If you're blind, the iPhone is a useless bar of soap, manual or not.
The replies to my post, and my observations of iPhone users, convince me that you are mistaken.
If you say, "Cola sucks. I like iced tea" otherwise sane people don't write ten thousand word threads to prove that you have misjudged the perfect and god-like attributes of cola. Because cola is not (currently) a fad. If you say "iPhones and iPods suck. I like cheap chinese MP3 players and Go-phones" people's heads spin around on their shoulders, and earnest, well-meaning people drop everything to preach you the true faith. Unmistakably a fad.
It's OK to have an iPhone/iPod, it's OK to like it, it's OK to pay more than it might objectively be worth if that brings you pleasure. Rock on, people! But one day the fad will pass, and the people who still want and like the devices will not have to pay so much for them. Nothing wrong with that.
If everything is blue, that doesn't mean the sky is not blue. Follow me chinee racy mockeree?
I don't carry a phone (because if I did, people would call me... which would degrade my enjoyment of life) but my spouse and son do. They pay less than $100 dollars US per year and get every service they want.
Every reported case, perhaps. How many aren't ever discovered?
There aren't any. I use a magic fact-repelling rock to make sure they are all discovered.
It also keeps whales out of my cherry trees - see, there aren't any whales in my cherry trees, that's how I know the magic rock works.
A lot of people forget that during the 1500s and 1600s, there were a lot of white-colored slaves. The practice of enslaving whites was gradually replaced with black slavery during the 1700s, but if you are a white person it's entirely possible you have slavery in your background.
Replace "during the 1500s and 1600s" with "throughout history" and "entirely possible" with "mathematically inescapable" and you're on to something.
Unfortunately, since slavery still exists, we still need to work on helping out slaves and people who have had their lives warped because of slave ancestry. Some of us have managed to get well past the lingering, generations-long effects of slavery, but the slaves Saddam Hussein freed when he invaded Kuwait (and all the slaves in states like Somalia, Dubai, and the UAE) still need our help.
I'll get modded down for mentioning that Saddam once did something useful, I bet.
Without trolling, or flaming, here is my answer:
On February 3rd, 1637, everyone just woke up. And the price of tulips went down the toilet, and everyone looked around and said "why did I pay more than a tulip's weight in gold for this? It's just a flower".
Someday, everyone will just wake up. They will put down the ipods, and pick up pennywhistles, guitars, and harmonicas again. That's just how fads work. Tulips and iPhones will still exist, but they won't be fetish objects to otherwise normal people any more, and so their prices will no longer reflect emotional baggage unrelated to function or utility.
Your perfectly valid reasoning may not do you any good at all if people suddenly go crazy for Zunes, or whatever. I suspect that trying to analyze fads with reason and logic is an exercise in futility... no sane person thinks $100 a month is a reasonable price for phone service, but they buy iPhones anyway. It's probably best just to roll with it and try not to lose your shirt when the bubble bursts.