Yes. Packard bell.

Yes, so have I (though not quite as entertaininWly as your account). I keep secretly hoping that people's disks corrupt themselves every time they laugh at me for suggesting that ZFS and BTRFS have a place in this world.

And then we wonder why college students spend their money on drugs. Well, it's cheaper than a dvd and it lasts the whole night, not 95 minutes. Frankly, drugs and booze are far more entertaining than "Ice Age 65764 R2 Second Edition Professional Collectors Shiny Foil on Box"

Sure they do. It just happens to be wooden.

http://xkcd.com/743/

Fixed that for ya.

1. There is nothing sexy about a crippled CPU with no connectivity.

2. People can't handle choices. If you give them a device with only a few buttons, then it's like a microwave and they're happy.

What'll be different, I think, is that a lot less information will be lost in the demise of a "modern" culture simply due to the global (that's the key word here) communications network and data archival abilities we now possess. If the US went into oblivion, the world wouldn't have to re-invent the Ford Model-T or "Freedom Fries"; That data will be quite difficult to get rid of due to geographic redundancy.

Also, spoken langauges don't die off in short periods of time. Given the available compute power and potential advances in translation software, it should be relively easy to bring texts up to the new language. You won't need a giant rock and guys like Daniel Jackson spouting some Goa'uld nonsense.

What about that says you have to use Apple's API? It just says you can't use a 3rd party wrapper.

One thing people tend to forget here on the dot is that Apple doesn't sell "computers" as we define it. They sell a style or rather a UI. It's like going to Casa Bonita; you go there for the scenery not the food.

As much as I hate Apple, it's their right to do what they want with the device. Especially considering that you have a choice of phones to choose from. Yes, Verizon+Droid is indeed a choice. Forgetting the touch UI issues with flash, it's just too slow and Apple wants their device to be as polished and native looking as possible for the "experience".

I'll put it in Star Trek terms: If you built your house to look like the bridge of Voyager, you'd be pissed if your [insert related person here] up and installed an ugly looking "crystal" SG-Atlantis control panel.

Yes, absolutely. The same applies for Facebook app developers too. You're programming for a closed platform, controlled by a closed company.
If you can't handle that, develop for Android.

Forward voltage to current is non-linear. It is exponential.You can approximate it linearly if you want, but you'll get error.
Fine, those charts show current handling, not luminous efficacy.
Try this chart for size:
http://www.ledsmagazine.com/features/4/8/1/MarlFig4

Still not convinced?
http://www.ledsmagazine.com/features/4/8/1
"The light output from an LED light source decreases with increasing LED die junction temperature. Higher LED die junction temperatures, resulting from increased power dissipation or changes in ambient temperature, can have a significant effect on light output."

If you want even more:
http://optodatabook.liteon.com/DataBookFiles/8426/LTST-C190CKT.pdf
Look at figure 5 on page 6. This is live charts for a real part used in real electronics.

There is only one reason that I can think of for driving at that power: temperature. This doesn't really apply to switches because they're going to (hopefully) stay in air conditioned rooms, however: Once you get past 40C the effective brightness of the LED starts to approach 0 very rapidly. This is critical for equipment spec'd to run in industrial conditions. Because LEDs are so non-linear, designing a product with wide temp ranges with LEDs can be a real PITA. There is a good explanation here.

Nah. Run gigabit. Auto MDI-X is built in to the spec.

... the tree huggers here in the states won't let us build one. First Chernobyl, and now Sayano-Shushenskaya. With nuclear power exed and hydro power exed, now what do we do?? I think we should substitute tree-huggers for coal in our power plants. It'll get rid of one more whiny voice...

Easy: don't use a switch, use a hub! Everything will be a broadcast storm!

Lets see... That's 100,000 ports with 2 LEDs each (link, action/fdx/speed/poe) for a total of 200,000 LEDs. Lets say they use some of the cheapest SMD LEDs on the market. Well use digikey part number 160-1183-1-ND which is a cheap 0603 foot print green LED. At quantity 200,000 that comes out to $12,000 in cut-tape packaging or $9,450 if you buy 210,000 of them in 3,000-qty reels.

Lets say that all of the link LEDs are on 100% of the time and the the activity LED is on 50% of the time. That gives us 150,000 LEDs on at any given point in time. Our example LEDs use 20ma at 2.1V. So 150,000 LEDs at 20ma uses 3Ka. In total, 6.1Kw is burned by the green LEDs.

All that blinking... Damn. I want one NOW!!! More than a girl friend!