Baby...bathwater. Darwin was trying to posit a mechanisim to describe his observations on hereditable traits. Remember, Mendel was a contemporary, and his work developing genetic theory wasn't to gain general acceptance until after his death...which was two years after Darwin died. Once genetic theory was developed and refined, it was simply applied to Darwin's Theory of Evolution and found to be a better description of how observed heredity actually works than his original hypothesis.

Claiming that "Pangenesis was wrong, therefore evolution is wrong" is akin to claiming that Copernican theory is incorrect because Galileo thought tides were caused by variations in the motion of the earth as it revolved around the sun.

THIS is why I hate going to bars. I like drinking. I like talking to my friends and (sometimes) making new ones. However, I hate having to shout at each other to pass the damn chicken wings...

I don't think I've ever seen a better example of this than this trailer of Mrs. Doubtfire recut as a horror film.

I am firmly in the 1-3%, yet I find you are correct, there are times and places where music enhances other experiences. So long as it doesn't distract from the movie or game.

Might I suggest you try listening to audiobooks on your long car trips? Douwnpour.com has a great selection of DRM-free MP3 audiobooks for reasonable prices.

I also can't stand listening to music while driving: it doesn't engage my mind enough to counteract the tedium, while being just repetitive enough to engender frustration and annoyance. But put in a good book by one of my favourite authors, and I'm happy as a clam: those four-hour drives just fly by! :)

To me, it sounds like they're planning on emulating Tassimo and their bar-coded brewing system, so the user can use 'milk' pods, tea pods, etc. and the system will brew them differently depending on the scanned and recognized contents (temperature for sure, pressure maybe? size? IDK)

What they seem to be 'forgetting' is that it was the flexibility and simplicity of the K-Cup system that actually gained them the dominant market share in the first place. Sure you can brew cappucinos and lattes with the Tassimo...but you can use your own favorite coffee brand with the Keurig My K-Cup reusable filter, freshly ground if that's your thing, or spooned out of a Maxwell House container to save money / env. wastage on each cup. Heck, I use my My K-Cup to hold loose tea leaves when I feel like a specialty cuppa...and they're good for two to three cups, too.

Nope, if they disable their whole BYO ability, I predict that they will wind up in a small corner of a niche market. If they relent and provide a My K-Cup equivalent for the 2.0...well, it's just barely possible that they could survive this bone-headed move, although people will grumble about not having cheap generics available. Either way, watch for stock prices to plunge.

It's not the length that counts, but how you use it...

Excellent list!

FYI, most of these programs (i.e., 10 out of the 12, if you count the alternate text editor Notepad++) are available as Portable Apps that you can keep on (and even run from) a USB thumb drive.

Might save you some installation and configuring time :) I'd bet plenty of programs on your full list are available too...

Frankly, the first thing I 'install' on a Windows box is a USB drive containing my Portable Apps, including Firefox, Libre Office, pdftk, FreeCommander, Lupas Rename (portable version), 7-Zip, FileZilla, Gimp, Dia, Irfanview, Notepad++, VLC, Audacity, WinDirStat, AutoHotKey and of course PStart to help manage them all :)

Irfanview is nice, I used to default to that, but I switched over to XNView a while back and like it much more. Just a more polished interface than IView, simple but very powerful batch tools, quick, responsive and customizable.

Unfortunately, the main desktop version is buggy under Windows 8 (was wonderful under Windows 7 and XP), and the cross-platform java version isn't nearly as powerful as the main one, although at least it works with Windows 8...

I used to install Calibre on everything, too, then I started using their server option and just leave a master copy running on my home server. Much better, and I don't have to worry about my various libraries getting out of sync.

Skype and Thunderbird...not so much.

Haha, the one I remember best is:

"You've got questions?
We've got blank stares..."

Which pretty much applies to any 'tech' chain store these days...*sigh*

This article sums it up nicely, I think.

Nice going, Arizona. Or at least, Arizona politicians.

Assuming they have enabled network access...

You read the Oatmeal too, don't you?

Yeah, there's definitely lots of potential problems with this whole scheme, which is why most people here are saying 'hell no'.

Even if you ignore the potential for abuse (kill-codes being sent by someone not authorized by the user), how effective can it really be? Basically, unless the reset password is hard-coded *someone* will find a way to change it, and even if it is hard-coded, chances are a patient enough thief will recover it...eventually. Firmware can be flashed, chips can be swapped out and probed, etc. etc.

The only way I can see that this could be really effective at the stated goal of reducing theft is if the phone *physically* bricks on receipt of the kill code, like if an acid capsule were punctured to etch the boards beyond repair. It's non-recoverable by anyone, which sucks for the user, but at least the thief isn't getting more than parts value for the stolen goods and the user's data is safe from malicious intent.

Even in this case, though, the thief will simply make it a priority to get the device into a faraday cage right after 'acquisition', so the user doesn't have time to get the kill code sent...then they have all the time in the world to disable the theft countermeasures. Be suspicious of that man following you with the roll of tinfoil in his back pocket...