That will teach those mathematicians.

Not to mention the entire Greek population.

Very often, when you try to get a single device to do two jobs, it does neither job very well. I suspect the Surface is in this category. I have yet to see one in the wild, and I do not know anyone interested in purchasing one. I really don't want one either. I'm not saying the Surface is bad -- I'm pretty indifferent to it -- but I wonder if the market is as lucrative as MS thinks it is.

I've been out of school a long time, but the market for CS people was pretty hot in the mid-80s and this was the pattern I observed: People would head down the CS path, thinking they would cash in on the great opportunities. However, a lot of them would switch majors after their first programming class, and more would drop after their first advanced class (data structures, or something like that), I have had many, many people tell me over the years that they took some programming and didn't like it. It's just not something everyone can do, or that everyone likes.

I can see how this would work for blackphone-to-blackphone communication. What about people who call me or text me who don't have a blackphone? Those calls and texts are not going to be encrypted.

I think the market for this thing will be limited, at least for the immediate future.

Heh, I like the "firstworldproblems" tag.

You would have to be pretty naive to have gone all this time believing that CDs would last forever. Sure, all the salespeople back in the 80s and 90s told us this, but they only knew what they had heard or been told, and to be fair, they were drawing a comparison to casette tapes.

I don't know anyone who has a CD collection, who has not ripped them to some sort of digital format. True, if they were ripped to mp3s there was some loss, but most people couldn't tell you the difference anyway. I know I can't tell a difference. My hearing just isn't that sensitive I guess. I also can't tell much of a difference between Pepsi and Coke.

But yes, thank you Ms. Adrienne LaFrance for informing me that CDs deteriorate. However, it is not necessary to point out the blatantly obvious; pointing out the merely obvious will suffice. And I am SO happy that the Library of Congress is spending lots of taxpayer money studying this problem. While they are at it, they may want to investigate why metal corrodes and why bananas turn brown.

Hmmm. I might have something to do with the fact that you never see job postings that read:

Taxonomist Needed!
Immediate Opening!
High Pay! Great Benefits!

But it might be just as dangerous as the other kind.

Semantics. You're auctioning off the use of property that isn't yours. Nobody is using my driveway right now. Does that mean some park monkey can auction off it's use while I'm gone?

No, if I sold a used book to a friend I would not report that, but if I start selling lots of books and video games to the highest bidder? Yes, I think the IRS would say I need to report that.

I'm sure the city and private owners will have no trouble with you auctioning off property that isn't yours. The state and IRS will also not have any problem with you collecting this extra income under the table.

That was my question too. I'm glad I'm not the only one. More pretentious bullsh*t from Gartner masquerading as useful information. Do you care? Does anyone care? Perhaps the manufacturers care, but surely they are well aware of their sales numbers and are capable of populating a simple spreadsheet as well as Gartner can.

Gartner: experts at telling you what you already know -- with charts.

More earthquakes in Oklahoma. Thanks Obama!

The auto manufacturer is responsible for safety recalls for a very long time, if not forever. I've gotten safety recalls for cars that I haven't owned in years and that are way past the warranty period. I was the last known owner, so I got the letter.

This kind of thing is very much like a safety recall for cars, except it is for an operating system.

I like TBBT, but I do have one criticism of it. I know a lot of you are saying it makes fun of nerds, rather than idolizing them, and I think someone even went so far as to call it "blackface for nerds", or something like that. But the show is a sitcom and ALL sitcoms rely on caricatures and clownish antics. TBBT is no different. I don't criticize them for that.

My problem with TBBT is that it's been going on a little too long. The actors are getting into middle age. Jim Parsons is over 40. Johnny Galecki and Mayim Blaik are almost there. The others are all approaching their mid-30s. Most people, by this age, are raising families, getting mortgages, etc. Maybe not everyone, but among professionals this is certainly the case. Certainly, by middle age, most people have moved beyond paintball and hanging out at the comic book store. The show is becoming a little too unrealistic.

I don't understand why you need an app. Can't you just ignore the phone while you're driving? I have no trouble doing this. I regularly have to sit in meetings that last one or two hours where I ignore my phone. That's far longer than the amount of time I have to spend in my car. If you can't ignore your phone for awhile, perhaps what you need is a psychiatrist, and not an app.

This should never have made it to /. There's nothing in the summary or TFA that explains what we're all supposed to be upset about. It looks like the forwarded emails I get from angry, elderly acquaintances who have nothing better to do all day, since retirement, except to get all outraged over perceived problems which are always just around the corner, but never seem to actually occur.