It’s been an interesting week for reader comments.

11/5/2012: The iPad Mini: Apple’s Big Little Tablet, Discovery News

As I wrote here yesterday, I’m liking Apple’s smaller tablet more than I thought I would, and didn’t mind saying so in this review. I don’t know why it didn’t incite the usual comments flame war (“Apple’s awesome!” “No, Apple sucks!”), much less what to make of the gibberish replies a couple of readers left. Was that a case of pocket-commenting, or were they confused about how to spam the comments?

11/7/2012: Tablet showdown: iPad mini vs. Nexus 7 vs Kindle Fire HD, CNNMoney

I’ve been trying out Amazon’s Kindle Fire HD for several weeks, but I didn’t get around to writing about it until I did this comparison of it, the iPad mini and Google’s Nexus 7. I’m less impressed with the Seattle retail giant’s tablet efforts the second time around, while the Nexus 7 still holds up pretty well against the iPad mini.

I thought I might get some grief from readers for kicking the Kindle Fire HD to the curb like that, but instead I got several comments from irritated fans of… the BlackBerry PlayBook.

11/10/2012: Galaxy Note II Is More Than A Handful, Discovery News

Speaking of irritated fans, this dismissive review of Samsung’s latest oversized phone enraged a few Galaxy Note II partisans, who took to the comments to argue (paraphrasing loosely) that only limp-wristed losers would find this phone too big. One reader even wrote at length on on Google+ that most people don’t even use phones one-handed; I give him credit for saying so in a literate and civil manner, but I still have to regard that as the most delusional analysis I’ve seen since Karl Rove’s election-night math.

11/11/2012: How to find a lost or stolen smartphone, USA Today

I’ve been meaning to write this overview of find-my-phone apps for months, but the wireless carriers’ launch last week of a stolen-phone database finally got me to finish the job. The post also reminds readers that they can turn a deactivated smartphone into a poor man’s iPod touch that can also dial 911 in a pinch, a point I made in a CEA post last fall.

A few months ago, I got over my longstanding objection to buying gadgets just so I could review them. It beats waiting for a distracted or picky PR department to send a loaner unit, and it ensures I get the same hardware any reader might buy.

But unless I’m going to become a one-man stimulus program for the electronics industry, I can’t keep everything I buy to test. When I tried the iPhone 5, for instance, I had to return the phone within Verizon Wireless’s 14-day trial to avoid sentencing myself to a two-year contract.

(Returning used devices usually entails a restocking fee, but it would take a lot of those to equal what I spent on the ONA conference fee alone, much less all the other expenses it takes to stay in business.)

That brings me to my two latest review purchases: Apple’s iPad mini and the Microsoft Surface.

Going into this, I might have picked the iPad as the one more likely to go. We already own an iPad, I’d been leaning towards getting the Nexus 7 as our smaller tablet, and the absence of restocking fees at Apple’s stores would make returning it a cost-free proposition. The Surface, on the other hand, would be a new type of device in my home, and it would also allow me to experience Windows 8′s interface on hardware designed for it.

But now I’m thinking I’ll keep the mini and return the Surface. It’s a great little device, especially for use away from home, and our iPad 2 is starting to run out of space between the apps I’ve put on it for test purposes and those my wife uses for her job. Meanwhile, I don’t need Microsoft’s tablet to test Windows RT apps when my ThinkPad’s copy of Windows 8 also runs them. The Surface itself is too heavy to carry around as a tablet; when I tried using it on my lap, the Touch Cover flexed distractingly with my typing and the kickstand didn’t stop the screen from wobbling back and forth.

Plus, my MacBook Air only weighs a pound more than the combined Surface and Touch Cover but can do a lot more. It also cost twice as much–but that money was spent long before I set foot in a Microsoft Store to buy a Surface.

So that’s what I think I’ll do. If you think I’m making a huge mistake, you have until tonight to talk me out of it in the comments.

11/11/12, 10:34 a.m. Welcome, Loop Insight readers! I did, in fact, return the Surface last night–and found myself next to another Surface buyer at Microsoft’s Pentagon City store who was doing the same thing, for about the same reasons. The clerk apologized for the tablet not meeting our expectations and suggested that the upcoming Surface Pro might be a better fit. He could be right.

Because you want your candidate to win.

Because you want the other candidate to lose.

Because you can express your distaste for everybody on the ballot by writing in somebody else. Even yourself.

Because voting for the winning candidate can feel pretty good.

Because lining up to vote for the candidate who’s going to lose anyway demands a degree of stubbornness that should serve you well in other pursuits.

Because it’s not hard, and outside of presidential elections it rarely takes much time.

Because in state elections, you can do your small part to head off a lot of the nonsense that happens in state legislatures–like, say, attempts to make voting as bureaucratic and litigious as possible to stop the fictitious problem of in-person voter fraud.

Because in local elections, you have good odds of talking to the candidates directly, and you may even know some of them.

Because you may have the chance to vote on state constitutional amendments that will tie the government’s hands in ways you do or not want–or that may outright shame your state.

Because Americans have been beaten, jailed and killed trying to defend their right to vote. Our overcoming our worst instincts is part of our story as a country; honor it.

Because it’s your damn job as a citizen of the United States of America.

Because if you don’t vote, you invite the stupidest voter in your precinct to cast a ballot on your behalf.

Because if you can’t be bothered to vote, why should anybody care about what you think about the state of the country?

11/6, 8:13 a.m. Added one more reason to this list.

Not much to show for myself this week, but then again I spent most of the first half of it off the grid. Next week will be busier.

10/30/2012: Silent Circle Promises Spy-Proof Calls, Discovery News

I learned about this company back in June at the Tech Policy Summit, where co-founder Phil Zimmermann spoke on one panel, then got a briefing about from Zimmermann and another co-founder, Mike Janke, in mid-September. But actually testing Silent Circle’s encrypted-calling and encrypted-texting apps took just long enough that I finished and filed the review only an hour or so before the lights went out–ensuring it went online to a Sandy-diminished audience the next morning. That was not so smart.

11/1/2012:  Lessons of Sandy: How to keep your phone juiced longer, USA Today

I was going to write about ways to find and shut down a lost smartphone (that’ll happen next week), but sharing my own experience with keeping phones ticking along in a blackout seemed more timely. My editor thought so too, which is why a column that normally runs on Sunday appeared Thursday afternoon. It also includes a tip about some Android phones including FM radios that you can use even when you have no wireless service; a reader e-mailed to say that some Windows Phone devices share that feature, which was a point good enough for me to echo in a comment I left on the story.

11/3/2012: Microsoft’s Surface, A Tablet With Many Faces, Discovery News

I’m really on the fence about this tablet. The hardware is as tremendous as the first journalists to get a peek at it claimed this summer, but the software–well, if Microsoft had simply killed off the traditional Windows desktop entirely here, at least I’d know what I was dealing with. Meanwhile, I already own two laptops with great battery life that also run an enormous inventory of applications.

When did our first move after a power outage switch from reaching for a flashlight to grabbing a phone to announce on Twitter or Facebook that we’d lost electricity?

I don’t know, but I’ve had a lot of time to think about that this week. As I started writing this post, it had been almost 40 hours and counting since the neighborhood went dark M