Joanne Hayes-White and James Clapper should trade jobs.

Given how shoddy Microsoft's interface to computing has been over the decades, I'm nauseated by the idea of the same people creating - and if this patent is granted, controlling - an interface to (some subset of) reality.

Though it's ironic that people who used to insist text was the only interface the world needed and anyone who wanted more was mentally feeble are now basing a patent application on their ground-breaking insight that text is sometimes limiting.

I do look forward to all the hilarious ways this latest variation of the intelligent PDA will screw up.

"It looks like you're trying to murder your father and marry your mother. Would you like help?"

p.s. The appropriate solution to students finding textbooks boring is better textbooks and a society that demands quality education for its people. What Gates and Myhrvold are attempting to provide is the educational equivalent of an energy drink - instead of true health and fitness.

p.p.s. Knowing how difficult the process is Gates and Myhrvold are attempting to claim they can implement, I'm surprised TFA didn't include

Well, a lot of the men in England are queens....

If the BBC truly wanted to do something different, they'd make the next Doctor Who a Dalek.

That is why I phrased the joke that way. ;-)

No no no, you don't understand. That 100% rate just proves how good and trustworthy the whole secret system is!

I wonder if the Twitter red herring will fit in 140 chars? "1. ad tweets 2. ??? 3: #PROFIT"

Because that would allow the USPS to continue operating smoothly, and is thus illegal.

The goal of both parties of Congress is to sell off the lucrative USPS to private interests. In order to do that Congress and its owners must trick the public into believing their valuable USPS is a failing, worthless business.

The USPS cannot - by law - raise the price of stamps by anything more than the "rate of inflation" the government announces. The Consumer Price Index (CPI) is a politically-motivated number, since higher rates of inflation reflect badly on politicians and cost the government money in payments keyed to CPI. So the USPS is legally prohibited from raising prices to reflect its costs, and even the amount it is allowed to increase is artificially low.

The USPS is prevented from doing what every other business is allowed to do - change its prices to reflect changes in its costs - and then the results of this Congressional restriction are used in Congress as an example of how the USPS is inept and inefficient and must be privatized!

This legal constraint on the revenue side is matched by a legal requirement for the USPS to wildly increase its expenses. The same law restricting increases in USPS revenue requires the USPS pre-fund 75 years worth of retiree health benefits - while private businesses are being allowed to completely renege on even existing pension agreements.

(There's also a little backstory here about Congress mandating these huge front-loaded payments. The USPS had been overpaying into its pension fund and was actually going to be able to reduce the amount it needed to pay, but because of unified federal budgeting, USPS payments into its pension fund counted as revenue to the entire government. Congress required these huge payments from the USPS to make sure Congress didn't have to reduce its own spending. But that's a detail, like robbing a person already being murdered for their bodily organs.)

The goal of this simultaneous restriction on revenue and increase in costs is to force the USPS into bankruptcy and paint the USPS as an expensive failure so the public will accept having another valuable public resource sold off at fire sale prices to private interests.

Said a shorter way, what "makes sense" from the standpoint of the public makes no sense at all from the viewpoint of those who feed off the public.

You not only changed our world for the better, you were a good human being. Even with all your success you always remained thoughtful, generous, and kind. That touched my life even more than all the technological innovation. How you were with people was even more important than what you did for them.

Thanks for everything, and most of all thanks for being such a role model for me, Doug.

I'll miss you.

Ahh, the Washington Post/MSM and their standard excuse of "no one could have imagined" when finally forced to report the consequences of the sociopathic behaviors of the ruling class (consequences that were not only warned against at the time of the original behaviors but that they themselves were part of insisting were impossible).

"No one could have imagined America's war in Viet Nam would have such disastrous consequences."

"No one could have imagined rewarding companies for shipping jobs overseas would devastate the economy."

"No one could have imagined attacking other people's countries would create anti-American sentiment."

"No one could have imagined repealing Glass-Steagall would lead to such rampant speculation by Wall Street."

"No one could have imagined misleading our readers would have them stop reading our newspaper."

I feel like they're tracking my every moove....

"We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out." - Decca Records rejecting the Beatles

"I’d shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders." - Michael Dell on the future of Apple

"I think there is a world market for about five computers." - Thomas J. Watson, chairman of IBM

"We don't think that's what people want. A movie takes forever to download." - Steve Jobs on the possibility of an iTunes Movie Store

I think the phrase "promoted as being a Buddhist" may be a clue. ;-)

Though perhaps Steve simply saw Buddhism as the primitive work of that artless hack Siddhartha Gautama, a few trivial concepts that only Steve's vision could fully bring to life and only his (multi)touch could elegantly refine to its shiny essence and bring to the world.

Steve probably felt not suing Buddhism was a noble gesture.

To me Slashdot surely deserves a place in the pantheon of great technology creations. If the early Internet was the Homebrew Computer Club for the whole planet, Slashdot was a project not only fun and exciting and cool - the kind of thing one told one's friends "you have to see this" - it was worthwhile. Slashdot was the kind of creation all nerds hope to be able to give to the world: something that brought joy to its users while enabling the creation of things larger than itself.

Rob Malda, you've made the world, and my world, a better place.

Thank you and farewell, good CmdrTaco.

Indeed - western tyranny's sweet spot.