But balloon would not make a news and it is so low tech. Lasers, on the other hand, are awesome.

Are you serious? You think the light goes unattenuated through the fiber? And power density? No way.

There is no such thing as non-conductive - all depends on the voltage applied. It will become very conductive once the lightning strikes it.

You got me at "there is a research"

Don't you people ever learn? It is always like this with MS. They obsolete your knowledge ALL THE TIME in favor new technology that does not do anything new.

VB, C#, .net, several version of it, really. Well, now it is time to move on. If you cherish "amazing development experience" (get a life, man) then you should be salivating in anticipation of the next great thing to come. Trust me, MS will come through for you.

And, PLEASE, don't call it cross-platform. It is not.

>> and I am basically indispensable for the continuation of this growth.

That is funny. You must be new to the industry. One of the first things anyone in employee/contractor position learns (should learn) in their first 5 or so years is that EVERYONE is replaceable. Well ok, Steve Jobs turned out to be not so replaceable, but that's Steve Jobs. In all likelihood, you are flattering yourself - you are very much dispensable.

Presently I do a lot of contract work for one customer, and I too would not mind getting a royalty from every unit they ship. And yes, I'm kind of 'indispensable' - several products developed for them, a couple of them are fairly complex. But I know full well that if the push comes to shove they will find a replacement for me. Just the same as they've found me to replace the other guy who was with them for like 10 years before that :)

Modern wedding photographers are artists? Give me a break. Today they just shoot away 1000 images to select 10 decent ones. And why the hell should my photographer be allowed to use my photo in his gallery? Well he could ask me for permission to do so and I may grant it if I like the photo, but that is not automatic with him retaining the copyright.

Would you want your photo to be used in a gallery of bloopers? Thankfully, most normal galleries require releases from people in the images anyway.

Common sense suggests that it can't be both highly radioactive AND to have a half-life of 24000 years. And yes, it does have a half-life of 24000 years. Yet it is very stable and not very radioactive, which is why it finds its use in weapons.

Exactly. Is not this all normal? All the time TV ads show happy 'customers' who are in fact actors.

Can it be spoofed? What if I attach enough meet chunks in front of me, and possibly have some device that would move the chunk in sync with my breathing in opposite direction?

Me too. If anything, the first association that comes to my head is "Mango", which is neutral, and Mongol if I force myself to look for another one - but it really is a stretch, since Mongol is not part of my everyday vocabulary.

I see, you are right

ever heard of dice?

Well that's not generally true. It would be true if the odds of computer choosing each of the 3 choices were equal, as those are for your random play. But if the computer is following some strategy, it might favor one of the choices more than others, thus biasing outcome from equal one way or another.

There should be a small tax (0.1%) attached to every stock transaction. That would kill all microsecond trading in an instant. In fact most of day trading as well.