Just yesterday, I heard two news reports about how Blu-Ray seemed to be winning but nothing was decided yet.

Nah, it was pretty much decided a few weeks ago when a major studio decided to drop HD-DVD.

You would think that they would have learned their lesson.

But that would require them to play nice.

Yeah, yesterday's news reports were of the "they've announced that they're going to make an announcement soon" flavor, but the studio news a few months back had since been followed up by news that Best Buy, Wal-Mart, and Netflix would all be switching their new purchases to Blu-ray only. Lots of writing on the wall for the dork obsessives who watch such.

We have Blu-ray, but only because it's what's in the PS3 -- we certainly weren't going to buy either format for its own sake until after the format war worked itself out, but they're mighty nice to watch when they turn up in the Netflix.

But Sony blew it with Beta, DAT, Mini-Disc, SACD and UMD.

And what's with the proprietary memory stick? They can't use SD like everyone else?

Wasn't their proprietary memory stick a part of their bizarre and onerous DRM scheme for their portable digital music players? Or was that a separate fuckup?

Okay, I'm horribly plebian and uninformed, but what does this actually mean for the rest of us? I'm assuming that my regular DVD player will continue to work, and it only matters if I'm trying to watch something in super clarity (trying not to say HD and confuse the issue). What about people who have HD DVD players? Burners?

We have Blu-ray, but only because it's what's in the PS3

For that, you are fortunate since the Blu-Ray folks admitted recently that special features on the new generation of BR discs might not work on the older BR players. I'm told they were quietly recommending that people buy Playstations.

Okay, I'm horribly plebian and uninformed, but what does this actually mean for the rest of us? I'm assuming that my regular DVD player will continue to work, and it only matters if I'm trying to watch something in super clarity (trying not to say HD and confuse the issue).

Basically, you need a big-screen TV (and a Blu-Ray player and disc, of course). Your old DVDs will continue to work in a Blu-Ray player. Most or all of the Blu-Ray players come with the ability to "upscale" older DVDs, so that they will look a little better, but still not as good as a native Blu-Ray disc.

What about people who have HD DVD players? Burners?

They're basically screwed, although you can still use your HD DVD player to watch upscaled regular DVDs, which aren't going away any time soon.

okay. My new laptop has an HD DVD burner, but I don't have an HD tv, so I wasn't particularly concerned about it. Although, eventually, I'd hoped to upgrade.

I'm fed up with at&t wireless, and I'm thinking about switching cell service providers. Verizon and Sprint are out because I need to use my personal phone overseas, so that leaves me with T-Mobile.

Anyone have info to share? I've heard coverage is not as good as at&t, but is it really as bad as some people say?

I'm a cellphone almost-Luddite, in that I rarely see a reason to ever use mine (it's currently out of power, so I have to charge it up tonight, which is the first time I've done so in over a week) and have never ever texted anyone and definitely don't see me ever using that function. So I'm definitely not capable of helping you out with that question!

However, I do love my computer, for giving me access to all of you lovely people if nothing else, so I was wondering if I can get an opinion on this laptop from some of you more savvy techies? It'll be my first laptop ever and it's replacing my ancient desktop (which runs on Windows ME--feh!). I like the price and the fact that it has 2GB of memory.