A large pocket of resistance in Sonoma county is in Sebastopol (headquarters of O Reilly publishing). Those people are not engineers who graduated from prestigious universities. They are eco-crazy aged hippies who also elected a local government majority from the Green Party.

I second wxPython. There is a lot of info available and python makes it easy to use. You can set up a window where you draw something with opengl and use virtual lists or trees for your huge datasets.

One thing that we used and have seen a lot is a save-the-date card before the invitation. This can be a lot more informal. You just need to have the date set, no other details. The best format is a magnet with a picture of the couple and the date. Years later I have seen ours still on the fridge of many of our guests. If your wedding is going to be a traditional family and family-friends affair then sorry, I don't think it's a good place to go crazy with tech. But if that's not the case then go crazy. We were mostly traditional but threw in some subtle geeky details to the reception by hanging 1000 paper cranes and doing our first dance to "1000 Words" from Final Fantasy X-2.

There's one good way to figure out if Obama takes this seriously. Everyone sign this one to convert to the metric system: https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions#!/petition/complete-us-transition-modern-metric-system-allowing-us-manufacture-items-we-could-sell-world/7v0MQpNp The wording is bad; there's no advantage to exports because science and industry has already converted. But there are a lot of cost savings. And there's that whole Challenger thing.

As someone who's designed a few UIs I have to say that putting the tabs at the top is brilliant. The very top of the screen or window is a spot that is easy to find with your eyes and easy to get to with a mouse. With the tabs there I can scan all the tabs I have and switch between them more quickly. It's also a more efficient use of screen space. I can think of two reasons to prefer the tabs below. Either you don't use tabs much or you are used to other browsers that have the tabs below. Both problems will be resolved as you use Chrome more. I applaud the developers for doing the right thing and ignoring the stupidity of the crowd here.

Whenever you design any sort of UI you should look for some sort of example. Say what you like but it's usually best to find some part of Windows and make your interface work similarly. Young developers haven't yet learned that in most cases you actually can't do better than Microsoft.

Seconded. But you should probably go for the newer edition.

Seasonal Affective Disorder is a very real problem for a lot of people. However, it skews heavily towards women so it's not surprising to see that it's unknown on /. Check the Wikipedia page for a good rundown.

After seeing this I was really excited and ready to order. But that's because I have the worst possible form of SAD. Even in the SF bay area I am miserable for a couple months or so of the rainy season. I'd pay way more than $300 to avoid the energy drain.

As a sufferer I can tell you that it's not just the self-funded and published nature that is suspicious. It's also the timing. I get really antsy as winter starts to get close. There's plenty of summer weather left here but there's less time in say, Finland. I also noticed that Valkee launched its product in August last year.

Sadly, there's no cure for SAD. It's something you have to learn to manage and live with. Essentially all research into it was stopped once it was discovered that light therapy works for most people and drugs don't. So it's unlikely that anyone will prove or disprove the study here. It's also unlikely that we will see anything less biased either. Maybe it helps, maybe it doesn't.

I know shining light in your ear sounds really stupid but if you are sick and miserable you will try anything to get better. I don't know about the ear but I do find normal light therapy to be insufficient. That reminds me to get out and take a nice walk in the sunshine!

Why aren't we using this for child care? You could get some feedback on your kid's response to different things. Or use it to make a robot nanny that can tell how a kid is feeling.

Chicago seems like bad place for solar panels. It will only produce a decent amount of energy for a few months out of the year.

You really need experience. Get an internship somewhere and hope they'll pay. You don't say what level degree you got, but my wife went for one year with no interviews after getting an MS in engineering. It's really tough and you will have to settle for what you can get. Good luck.

I enjoy the claims that universal health care will make doctor's visits like going to the DMV. When I moved states in 2008 I had to go to the DMV to switch my license and registration. There was a convenient online appointment system. When I arrived the staff helped me take care of my business and I was out in about an hour. When we switched healthcare plans this year we had a problem getting a prescription filled. The pharmacy preferred to use a mail-order system but they got our address wrong. In trying to resolve this my wife had difficulty reaching a real person. There was additional difficulty reaching a _competent_ real person. It took about a dozen phone calls and a lot of headaches over several days. So I am actually looking forward to health care becoming more like the DMV.

Back-to-school shopping with back-to-school sales! Even if you are well past school, why not take advantage of the deals?

I still play DDR somewhat regularly. I have pads at home and most of the time they are connected to the computer for Stepmania. I'll buy every main DDR title because Konami has an awesome team that knows exactly what they are doing. However, with the exception of ITG no one else has ever released a decent clone. I'm sure I'm not the only one who keeps up at this level so there's always going to be some market for DDR. It's possible that the guitar games will go this way. The big money and interest is in the fad phase. But unless some new genre completely replaces the fix you get from rocking out on the guitar or drums then there will always be some audience for these. As far as peripherals go, the guitar is relatively cheap and sturdy.