Excellent analogy, wrong conclusion. Know your objective, how what you're willing to invest to achieve it, and exit when you've reached your goal or exceeded your costs. LulzSec made some headlines and embarrassed a few major organizations. Going to jail isn't worth a few more headlines.

An asteroid eventually hitting the earth is a sure thing, but hitting "us" is far from a sure thing. The asteroid most likely to hit earth in our lifetime has a 99.918% chance of missing.

I wasn't expecting it, and I bet Windows 8 supports .NET applications in some manner when it's released. It's always been hard for MS to drop anything corporate customers rely on... VB, 16-bit apps, FoxPro. If they hope to put Windows 8 on business desktops, the lack of .NET support will be a major obstacle.

Mitsuyuki Ikeda is referenced in countless articles and papers about education and sustainability organizations. The organization and project seem consistent with his other work. I'd like to believe it's not true, but it's really not a hoax.

It will be interesting to see how long it takes the people that need it in Egypt today to ban it after they're in power.

I'm OK with that if it means I'll never look like a lunatic yelling at my phone in public again.

Residential
Res-i-den-tial
Res-i-den-ti-al
RES-I-DEN-TIAL
RESIDENTIAL!!! I live in a fucking house!!!
OPERATOR! OPERATOR! NO! YES! NO! NNN-OOO!
Arrrrrggg!!!

Yeah, it is a great service. It's one of the only automated attendant experiences that I preferred over a human operator. Every time I suffer through a clunky, annoying IVR when I call my bank or cable company, I wonder why they can't do it as well as Google's free service. Maybe the answer is, Google blew a lot of money on it and couldn't (or didn't want to) sustain it any longer.

Don't be such a downer. My 401k dropped from $100,000 to $1, but now it's up to $5. I have to assume it will continue to grow at a 500% rate, so I'm going to retire a millionaire and vinyl will be the dominant music format again.

I'd say Mario is an example of an iconic character that is used to showcase new styles of game play. Arcade platformer, co-op play, 2D scroller, puzzles, 3D console, racing, etc. Most "franchises" regurgitate the same game, adding little more than gimmicks for a new platform.

Theater of Magic! I'm insanely jealous.

It's hard to reproduce pinball in a video game, but Pinball Hall of Fame: The Williams Collection on the Wii comes really close. The Wiimote and nun-chuck are perfect for the flippers and nudging the table, and the physics are lifelike.

I agree, developing tests after the fact is boring and forces you to remember what you did. When you create unit tests during the creative, problem solving phase it's much less of a chore. The end result is much easier to maintain too.

You're not alone. Normally, my undergraduate math courses and Wikipedia are enough for me to at least explain the concept to laymen. I'm at a loss in this case.

Oh, a lesson in not changing history from Mr. I'm-My-Own-Grandpa! Let's get the hell out of here already! Screw history!

Like many of us, I've had a parent undergo heart surgery. I don't recall concerns about cath's electricity, but I know today's technology fails to detect atherosclerosis (artery thickening) until very late stages. If this can deliver "high quality, 3D-images from inside arteries and blood vessels" it could prevent heart attacks and open heart surgery. Don't get me wrong, coronary catheterization has helped this generation survive heart disease and enjoy a better quality of life. But "stress tests" and family history are the only tools doctor's have today to help diagnosis this type of heart disease. I hope this leads to better tools.