Actually, having remote access to an inventory is a killer application. Of course, we don't want to scan every item added or used up. The implementation is the problem. RFID might be a solution, though it isn't cost-effective at this time, and more importantly, RFID tags won't be attached to single eggs or pieces of broccoli in my fridge. A simple webcam in the fridge might go along way (the devil is in the details - light - positioning?), but it wouldn't capture the pantry or the spice rack... "When did I last buy X?" might be a pretty good proxy for all of this, without all the kitchen technology.

I tried switching from Chrome (using the Canary build), because it kept crashing on me. I had to use Firefox nightly builds, because the standard Firefox looks fuzzy on my Retina display Macbook Pro (high-res Retina display have been out for almost 6 months, IIRC).

Unfortunately, Firefox turned out to have problems with providing a cursor in the location bar after opening a new window (you had to set it by mouse!), and the privacy mode is broken: it removes all other windows and switches to anonymous browsing globally. Autofill did not work as well as I expected: user names often weren't filled in. Speed was not an issue.

Enough little issues for me to switch back to Chrome. It's sad that they haven't managed to make FF fully useable. To make anonymous browsing apply to a single window appears to require deeper architectural changes according to the bug thread, which does not bode well for their overall design. Making it per-tab appears to be yet another story, which seems even more strange to me.

Apparently, I'll never understand Slashdot. The latest junk from Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon, Apple, Oracle, et al. make the front page, but one of the highest quality open source releases gets buried. (It's almost like people self-medicate their marketing these days, but separate issue.)

I got 6 years of uptime once off of NetBSD on sparc. This stuff is gold. It's platinum. It's so stable, you have to worry about making sure you get around to patching your apps because the OS just never dies... stick this on solid state storage with the new NAND support, and you don't even have to worry about spinning disk fails. As a network device OS, this will be an awesome high-uptime packet sensor or embedded packet router.

Bravo NetBSD! Keep up the good work. This is top headline stuff.

I have been using various unlocked iPhones on T-Mobile US for the past four years. There are two drawbacks with that approach. You can't use 3G (only EDGE) data, which makes for somewhat slower and less reliable data service. The second is coverage - T-Mobile just isn't great. Cost is $50/month, plus about $400 for the phone itself (found on Craigslist, had to look one that had an older baseband firmware). One advantage is that I can pop in a European SIM card whenever I go to Europe. When the new iPhone comes out next month, I'll probably switch to Verizon with a regular plan. Total cost of ownership (over 2 years) is much higher and my data will be limited to 2GB/month or so, but at least I'll have reliable service. If it is dual GSM/CDMA (and I expect it to be), I should be able to use it in Europe without much trouble.

See the comment above ("It's not immigration"). I can relate to what you're saying - I'd rather be a part of this country (at least while I'm living here) than to be treated as a guest.

(Note - I'm saying this because we're originally talking about a small single-engine plane intended for private passenger operation - and not some of the largest jets you can find.)

Actually, that's not true. You can load a lot into a regular-size family sedan, and usually even add a trailer. With a full fuel tank and 3 or 3.5 passengers that all want to take some light luggage, you're quickly up against max gross in a typical 150HP or 180HP Cessna.

Then there's the proposed $100 per flight user fee. And insurance. At $500k insured hull, you're looking at quite a substantial figure. My guess from my own insurance premium would be $13k. And we have capital cost, which, at a low 4.5% interest rate, amounts to $22,500 a year for half a mill. There's nothing cheap about owning an airplane. (I own a glider, and even there, the insurance and some minimal maintenance cost add up to a rather high per-flight cost...) You don't own an aircraft because you're trying to save money!

What are they actually using in terms of special apps? I suspect most of it are web-based eGovernment applications, perhaps accounting (SAP?), on top of OpenOffice. The GNU/Linux applications involved are all very stable by now, so this seems like a reasonable decision. The press release actually mentions an increase in workstations from 1,500 to 9,500, and a reduction in system malfunctions. I don't think it is plausible to have either 70 or 46 actual support tickets, as suggested by the description here. That doesn't make sense given the number of machines involved, whether they're running Windows or GNU/Linux or whatever. Besides, the PR compares the modern-day GNU/Linux installation to Windows NT. Seriously? (PS: Was it the German foreign affairs office that changed back to Windows recently, due to general user unhappiness?)

This is tyranny of a set of minorities, who all expect to have their irrational beliefs respected and tolerated. Is this another instance of what the ecologist Hardin called the Tragedy of the Commons? By making use of simple, seemingly reasonable demands, a large number of individuals exploits a shared resource (culture, education) up to the point where the total of the actions disables the system. Religious and political freedom may now destroy the education system and with it the environment that makes these freedoms viable in the first place.

Wow, that's big news. I heard him speak last year when he got the Rumelhart prize - the story about how he worked out Bayesian networks is humble. I think, some paper napkins were involved. The whole lecture is archived here: http://thesciencenetwork.org/programs/cogsci-2011/rumelhart-lecture-judea-pearl

More like Logan's Run. I have been Michael's number two guy for about 5 years. And we make a great team. We're like one of those classic famous teams. He's like Mozart and I'm like... Mozart's friend. No. I'm like Butch Cassidy and Michael is like... Mozart. You try and hurt Mozart? You're gonna get a bullet in your head courtesy of Butch Cassidy. - Dwight Schrute

Seems that if Britney had only held on to him a bit longer, she could have made a mint.

C'mon, this has HISTORY behind it.