But you are also decreasing local entropy -- That is, you take in raw materials and form them into physical ordered structures (cells, brain material, etc). That's what I meant by "local" entropy -- extremely local.

An entity that a) reduces local entropy, and b) came into existence via being replicated from and by another similar entity. Thus, you have the requirement of self replication, consuming resources, etc., which allows for those who can't reproduce, and rules out fire.

The other question is, Does this product cell in small quantities for a small price, which would cost 10x more to ship it? I hate buying a 25 cent component and paying 5 buck for shipping and "handling".

The problem with a mill is that you are starting out with a large block and taking off pieces until you have your shape. So you end up with a lot of wasted material (of course you could probably re-cast the scrap shavings into a new block but...). Whereas the 3d printer uses only enough material to make your shape, and it can include hollow parts inside. Some of them can even make fully assembled movable parts (like say a crescent wrench).

As for the material, it would seem that eventually one would come up with a system that pulls from two different spools, which when combined has a greater hardness (similar to mixing epoxy). Not sure what is holding that up though.

Well, that is only if you are going in through the front door. All the jobs I've gotten were through the back door, either personal reference or hungry recruiters. It probably doesn't hurt that I'm in an area with a wide range of opportunities and industries, but you'd be surprised at what you can accomplish by just keeping your ears open, talking to the right person, and saying the right things (you do have to have a certain amount of interpersonal skills, enough to read the other person's body language so you can adjust your message towards what they are looking for).

Look up your local hackerspace, there's an index on hackerspaces.org. These are facilities where you go to do physical hacking (wood working, metal, electronics, etc). Typically they are $50 a month or so, plus any supplies you use. Most of the classes they offer are free plus materials cost. I'd hang out at one all day if I had time.

Also, look at taking up a musical instrument (and studying music in general). Keep in mind this involves more than just memorizing the movements need to play a particular instrument -- there is a lot of theory to get involved in. Once you get through some initial lessons (I prefer piano myself, guitar may be a good choice also), you can explore multiple paths -- either playing straight off of sheet music, or playing from lead sheets / fake books (which gives you the basic structure of a song, and you improvise from there). Something like piano takes a good amount of time dedication, and almost requires one to not be employed full time.

Take up an activity that requires contact with others, to keep up the social aspects of your life. Maybe join a community organization, or get involved in local politics. It is important to socialize so that you don't get stuck in a rut so to speak.

Now a related question -- is there any evidence (for or against) that life originated more than once on earth? Is the prevailing theory that a single reproducing organism came into being, from which all others were derived, or is it more likely that multiple instances of life happened over the course of time, and they all happen to take the same form? If this is the case, then it lends credence to life existing elsewhere in the universe, with much similarity to what we know. However, if it is unlikely for more than one independent instance of life to be similar, then we should be observing various non-related life types here on earth (i.e., some carbon based, some silicon based, etc).

Or, as an alternative, run any infection vector program inside a VM, and access it from your main Windows host via RDP (if running a copy of Windows in the VM) or X (for Linux VMs). With my setup, I have Internet Explorer set to not run any scripts or plugins, and the Firefox icon points to a Cygwin script that launches Firefox on a remote Linux box. Same with IM clients, etc. Went from having to rebuild the Windows box that the kids used on a weekly basis to hardly having to touch it at all.

My first lesson on that topic was when I was around 19, working at a small business that included a print shop. At the time, OCR software was relatively new, so I thought I'd introduce it to the layout department. I sold the idea to management that it could save time scanning in documents instead of having someone type them in, and they loved it. However, one of the ladies that was responsible for entering everything into the typesetter was less than enthusiastic -- she thought this would put her out of a job. Of course, in my youth, I didn't get it. I just casually responded that if that were the case, then maybe she would get a better job somewhere else, or that she could learn other positions within the department. That didn't go over so well.

I though Jobs had already passed away.

I think the biggest thing that can come out of this project (especially if more like it come around) is the fact that the hardware is too cheap to run a non-free OS on it. Now sure, to make it into a full computer you have to add a monitor, keyboard, mouse, USB hub, storage (not sure if it comes with flash built in or if it needs a SD card to boot from), and and Internet connection. But most people are going to see the $25 price (assuming something like this ever gets retail) and pick one up. The netbooks almost made this happen (since they were Linux only when they first came out -- until Microsoft cut a deal for Windows XP). Only thing is, would the typical user be using a Debian based (or similar) distro, or would they be using a version of Android?

The only thing I think that would make this more useful is if they added another, say, $30 or so to the price and added a calculator screen / keypad to it (and battery/charging circuitry). Since most high school kids need a $100 graphing calculator, one that transforms into full workstation when plugged into a monitor/keyboard would be great. Of course the schools probably would never allow the use of an "open" calculator on exams (but then again, most high school level exams only need a simple scientific calculator -- or a slide rule).

And what makes you think that the IPv6 off-the-shelf routers won't default to a stateful firewall? In fact, I can't see any vendor not enabling that by default, and advertizing it in big bold letters (not the techno-jargon, but "Buy this box and keep the hackers out"). And the ISPs are likely to include such functionality in their cable/DSL modem, since they could benefit from fewer zombies on the network.

Not only that, you can install CM7 to boot directly off the SD card, so if you wanted to go back to the stock firmware it is just a simple matter of booting without the SD installed. If you go this route, make sure to use a Sandisk SD card though (even the class 2 Sandisk is faster than the class 10 of most other brands for this use case, since the other cards are only fast at very large block transfers).

Not to mention items like the Nook Color (Barnes & Noble). You can install CyanogenMod 7 (a community-maintained Android distribution) on it; you can even run it 100% from an SD card so you won't have to mod the device itself (the Nook tries booting from the SD card first before booting from internal storage). If you do run CyanogenMod from an SD card, make sure to use a Sandisk (class 2 or class 4) card. It is the only card I've tested that has good performance on small read/writes (even beats out all the class 10 cards).

Only thing missing on the Nook Color after running a generic Android port is front/rear facing cameras, GPS, and 3G.

Almost every root kit (Unix, Windows, Linux, etc) starts off with modifying the boot sector. Some may even go as far as modifying the BIOS. Now granted that on Unix type systems, root kits are installed after someone hacks your system. But on Windows, I've run into a fairly large number of root kit viruses that have an altered boot sector (the only way I've been able to clean them / detect them is to boot a Linux CD to run a virus scanner -- AVG has a somewhat useable one out).