"I wish they'd push a yank-resistant and positive-connecting plug along the lines of Apple's MagSafe."

So would Apple since they have a patent on the MagSafe design. I suspect it would be quite the patent windfall.

The biggest issue the the common antibacterial agent in soaps combines with other household cleaners water treatment chemicals to produce a dioxin like substance. Studies are starting to showing negative environmental impacts to takes and rivers as a result.

Laser, neat. Couldn't you just wrap the UAV in Mylar to deflect it?

The biggest surprise here is this happened in AKL instead of SFO. There is no transit freedom in the united states. If you're connecting you need to clear US customs and immigration and then re-check into your connecting flight. So if this was really a US demanded search one would think the phones and electronics would have been taken in SFO.

Generally for a reputable site I don't see a problem letting the site domain itself run. JS infection payload is far more likely to come from the ad network.

You may not, but the market says thin and light sells. Otherwise we wouldn't see a ton of companies copying apples Macbook Pro.

The Matte screen is just a film layer of the display. There are plenty of reputable matte film products on the market, and since the bezel is behind the glass in the MBP it's one of the easiest installations out there.

First, Ultrabooks are not all that much cheaper than the real Mac Book Air. Often they are just as much, if not more expensive when they try to copy the all metal case. There's a bit more of a delta in price on the larger 15" Mac Book Pro, but the windows machine is still going to be thicker and heavier. Once you start comparing truly comparable hardware the premium is pretty small. This is especially true once you start comparing all metal case laptops.

Want to save money, go with plastic. Resale value on a plastic laptop is pretty abysmal. The hinges are prone to cosmetic cracks and the finish gets pronounced wear patterns.

You also need to take into account with mac you're getting a free productivity suite, free OS upgrades, and you don't waste the first few hours of ownership removing a ton of bloatware and crippleware. Add that to the resale value and it makes fiscal sense to me.

Many credit cards have built in 1-year extensions to the warranty. I'd start there.

As far as the RAM, meh. It's not windows, there's not a lot of cases when you would upgrade the RAM for OSX.

Battery on the other hand is a real issue. Yeah, the "new batteries" aren't supposed to have recharge issues, but PC makers have been using that line for over a decade.

It's not like Apple spends it time having a Seance to talk to Steve's ghost just to figure out how to piss people off. You want an ultra-thin notebook and you're going to sacrifice serviceability. You look at windows based ultrabooks and the serviceability is better than Apple, but not by that much. It's still a hassle to fit a battery into that space and an even bigger hassle to replace the battery. You start making the laptop more modular and a few things will happen. 1) You'll compromise on size and weight. 2) You start getting flex issues issues in the case (like it or not the glue on apple products has more to do with durability and case flex than it does with repairs). It become even more pronounced with plastic cases. 3) You end up with design compromises that make the overall experience horrid.

So where does that leave the IT professional? Well, if it's for work there's likely a service contract. The glue is the problem for some guy at the referb factory. For home? Either put up with it/get applecare contract, or hackintosh one of the cheaper ultrabooks out there and live with what that entails.

From your viewpoint what's the current state of licensing in the Open Hardware community? It seems to me that Hardware is far more likely to be encumbered by patents, licensing consortiums and other players in the ecosystem that are all about the Benjamins. It also seems like the hardware community doesn't have an outspoken advocate like Richard Stallman (or maybe that's a good thing).

I think so. See Mohawk Guy on the Mars Pathfinder project.

You will always need a small about of Ethanol in the gas for oxygenation. MTBE was banned because of ground water contamination. Ethanol is relatively inexpensive and doesn't have the baggage of MTBE. It's here to stay because of the smog problems places like California have.

The gov't should have realigned subsidies for cellulosic ethanol, they also should have pushed a natural gas change over for heavy trucking.

Almost all pre-loaded software on a major PC brand (excluding Apple) is crippleware. In many cases the computer vendor has been paid to pre-install the software. So my answer to people about the first thing to do is to uninstall all that junk. It's just taking up CPU cycles, drive space, and making the computer take longer to boot.

We already have the ability to make calls via VoIP, Facetime, etc. Anything internet based. The vast majority of mainline domestic planes have internet and do not restrict most voice protocols. The only saving grace has been internet became so popular on planes that services like GoGo quickly ran into bandwidth and latency issues (Most planes share a single 3G gateway). That will change as upgrades happen.