It would make sense, but if you pick up a cellphone in an emergency state like a natural disaster of this magnitude (no pun intended), you may find that any number you dial is greeted with a message telling you that all lines are busy to non-emergency crew traffic, and to please try your call again later (Ask anyone along the Eastern Seaboard or Gulf Coast of the US about this right after a hurricane, for example).
Even your calls to 112, 118, 119, 000, 911, etc. would run into this if the towers are that congested.

Meanwhile, there might still be a little bandwidth left from that tower for someone using a cellphone to send a few packets, hoping that someone can save them. Just wildly guessing that people are more likely to pick up the phone and call for help, or try to call family, or receive calls from family after said disaster, and guessing that data would run on a different channel of sorts for cell networks, I'd safely guess that getting to the Facebook or Twitter pages (barring any Fail Whales) would be easier than calling someone.

If your wall or tweet happens to reach someone who has access to the emergency crew channels for a given disaster, then it might be an effective option to go this route, if you have no other viable option.
It beats dying, if you have something to live for.

That's just my two cents, though.

I have.

Plug a set of speakers in, connected an S-Video cable and the AC Adapter, disabled screensaver.

Watch Hulu and Youtube videos on a screen significantly larger than my laptop's, so I can sit back and enjoy the first week of being in my new apartment (Cable company came and hooked us up to the internet on the same afternoon we moved in, which was amazing).

It's one of the draws to a compact device -- knowing you can carry it from room to room and show videos.

Depending on the setup, I could see this as being useful in an educational setting -- give the teachers a lightweight device that they can check out from a central repository (the media center at my old high school comes to mind), and something to project images up to. When they're done, check 'em back in, or chain them down securely to something that's immobile.

Instead of those boring laminate slides and the plain overhead projectors, you could have something that can be colorful and interactive. It could certainly make Biology much more interesting, for example.

If a device like this catches on in an educational setting, you could end up with lots of applications that can save money in the long run.
Virtual dissection for biology class, anyone? Can't object so much to cutting things open when there's no formaldehyde smell (note to self: if this app happens, create a formaldehyde scented diffuser for that "Real Dissection Smell"...).
No? How about 3D rotatable molecules for chemistry classes to help visualize what's being worked with?
No? How about a visual math application, helping people who are learning the basics of algebra visualize how you get from one point to another when using it? I know I could have used it -- I nearly failed Algebra the first time, because I couldn't make it make sense in my head until someone actually started drawing some of it out for me.
I'm sure that there are a boatload of other suggestions that are out there, too. Make the device and the necessary gear to set it up in an educational environment affordable, and I'd dare say there are schools that would consider running a pilot program to see how much it boosts education by, at the very least.

But alas, I ramble too much and feel like I might be preaching to the choir. :)

So, instead of G.U.I.L.T., it's G.R.I.E.F.?

Why should the ISPs enter into talks when they've already won in court?

<whine style=3 year old>Because I want them too! And if they don't I'm going to stamp my feet and cry! And, and, and my pet MP is going to pass a law and MAKE them.</whine>

If you pass Kindergarten (and probably grades 1-3 as well.. they've all blended together for me now), you have most of these things down.
* Basic Math & Science : Arithmetic, counting, shapes, ecology, gravity, etc.
* Skepticism : That stranger with the van might not really be a nice man....
* Logic : You hopefully learn some common sense.
* Computers : Not in my day, but you'd probably learn some simple things now.
* Manners : Play nicely & share, and everyone is happy.
* Grammar/Communication : Okay, starting off everyone's spelling is so bad the teacher has to write what those "strnge grop of letirs" actually are supposed to be, but after some time it's sort of legible! You also learn how to read and told what nouns and verbs are.
* Shurikens : I didn't go to Ninja Kindergarten so I don't really know.

Then everything important you learn seeps out after 12 years of other(much less fun) schooling. It might have to do with actually paying attention, or something, but if people could actually pass kindergarten after grade 12, society would be a much better place.

"Pink" and "broken outlines" still works, note that Stealth aircraft are black to appeal to aircrew. Black isn't optimal for the night ops required by stealth systems, which is why WWII night fighters were often a lighter color.

Factory stealth camo:

http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/f-117-camo.jpg

He has obviously not seen a man leaning over into the passenger seat of his car, furtively stabbing away at his laptop's keyboard while driving in rush hour traffic.
If that man had a mobile broadband card in that computer, and is busy trying to pull up a playlist on blip.fm/last.fm/pandora.com, and he manages to rear-end a mini-van in front of him that came to a sudden stop for whatever reason... and the kids in the back seat aren't buckled in, PLUS the airbags fail to deploy...

You've got a kid rocketing through a windshield to his death and possible dismemberment.

I'm sure there are better scenarios, but I have witnessed the man leaning to stab a laptop in the passenger seat. In the case I witnessed, it was just a smash of the rear bumper of the car in front of him at around 5-8 miles per hour. I can only imagine the results at 8 times that speed.

I'm a type 2 diabetic. I only use pills, diet, and exercise to treat my symptoms, since the insulin I was taking was causing me to bottom out (50-60 mg/dL or lower). I would love something that would drop the need for (up to) 2.5 gigantic pills out of my daily regimen (especially given the side-effects (of which my gut would thank me to avoid) of Metformin).

I did address the needle group in my thoughts above, but a little haphazardly, perhaps. :)

I read TFA (gasp! rare!)

They were using older and diabetic mice for their tests.

I can't help but wonder if this discovery may have some effect on diabetes treatments in the future. For diabetics who still have some pancreatic function, and aren't wholly dependent on pills, maybe the results found from this research could help them.

As for those who are dependent on pills, needles, and the like, I could wonder what it would do for them.

The article didn't really clarify what happened with the diabetes in the affected test subjects, though, so I lack that answer.

If Comcast actually does what they're saying on the tin, maybe the other ISPs will follow suit.

This just might be a good thing.

Netbook!?

I keep my desktop right by my bed. 20" monitor, keyboard, stuff.
All sorts of good times.
Netflix, live TV, stored media, all in an arm's reach. Great for when it's too bloody cold to sit at the computer and read /. -- balled up under a blanket, text size enlarged in the browser to compensate for the slightly larger distance from the screen...

Sadly enough, trying to figure out a logical way to put a computer in the bathroom. Need to mitigate the gigantic cloud of steam's potential damage for when my roomie uses all the hot water showering (I'm a warm/cold shower person, not nearly as much steam).

Three letters:
DVR.

I observed that, visiting my family last week.
They've got a DVR, and the kids are gathered around watching some show called I, Carly (too lazy to google, don't care if it's the right name).

They know how to work the DVR better than my 40-something year old aunt. I saw them pull the show up, start it, and start laughing.

When I lived with the family over half a decade ago (helping to take care of my aging mother, whom I miss very much), I encouraged them to get a DVR then, because they'd get upset if someone (my mother) didn't hit record on the VCR in the afternoons.

We got a couple of DVRs with the cable service, and would fill up their puny HDDs with various shows.

I only recorded two shows per week (that came on at around one in the morning) with the intent of watching them on Sunday mornings (while the family was out and about), but the kids decided they were going to erase my recordings. Why? Because they didn't have enough room for Spengbab.

I guess the tl;dr of this post is:
Kids, when given the opportunity to dictate when (and to some extent, where) they will watch something, will watch PLENTY of television.

Erm.
Isn't that the goal of ReactOS?

I may be wrong, but it's a shot.

Must agree with this, because that was my experience, on a desktop, with a cheap wireless card stuck in there.

I went back and installed some of the hardware-specific drivers, simply because they perform a little better than the default drivers did (mostly just the video driver and my TV tuner, really, now that I think of it -- everything was detected and installed, except that tuner, which took me on a little side trip for drivers, then Windows Media Center happily picked it up and asked me to tune in stations.)

Adding to the challenge, the Win7 RC installed quickly AND ran well on a 6 year old laptop. I only needed a wireless driver, and the sound driver. Wireless was easy, once I connected a NIC cable to the computer -- there was a Vista driver available for the hardware, if I remember well. Sound was harder, since there were ONLY XP drivers available, but 7 RC worked okay with them. Some of the audio functionality was reduced, but it still worked.
On 768 (-64 for the onboard video!) MB of RAM.
It took about 80-90 minutes to get that done.