Hearing half a conversation can be very distracting, it's how we're wired.

That's one of my biggest gripes with Metro, most of the tiles are monorchromish. When I look at the apps menu I see a bunch of little squares and text with nothing to distinguish them. Compare that to Mac's Launchpad: it's the same idea, but you get big, colorful, distinctive icons, with small text underneath them. I can easily scan the screen in a couple seconds, with Metro I have to read the text next to every damn icon because most of them aren't distinctive.

I was a Windows user for a couple decades, but MS keeps making it harder not to be an Apple fanboi.

"It is difficult to use a PC/laptop on anything other than a desk and chair."

Uh, not for some of us.

I think that's a factor. Last time I bought a PC it was partly because I wanted to upgrade to win7. Nobody wants to "upgrade" to 8, I expect a lot of people are waiting for MS to replace it with an OS that sucks less.

Otherwise, what's the point in buying a self-driving car? If I have to monitor it every second to make sure it's not crashing, why even bother? People bring up aviation, but it's not the same, the pilot is always involved to some extent, better trained than most drivers, and if there's a problem with the auto pilot there's usually plenty of time for the pilot to take over and make corrections. Not so on a crowded roadway.

Obviously they can't build the entire cost into the purchase price, so I'd think they'd give one year free coverage and then charge the customer beyond that. Of course, that would depend on all systems being functional, so maintenance becomes an issue. I expect at first these cars will only be leased so manufacturers can keep tight control of them.

Seems like a lot of extra work. Why not just mod an existing design with their piston?

...by Lara Logan . But I suppose that would be rude.

Great link, that is brilliant!

if you want to contract out police work such as traffic speed enforcement, that contractor _has_ to make money."

Making any for-profit entity dependent on law-breakers means that they will encourage people to break the law to increase they're bottom line. In the case of red-light cams, that means shorter yellows, and that means more accidents. The solution is simple: pay the the companies a fixed fee to install and manage the cameras, and let cities keep the revenue from fines. But in that scenario the cameras won't pay for themselves, and cities sure don't have extra money to pay for them.

My town in Oregon started putting in countdown timers last year. They're great

...I remember when USB and Firewire first came out, one look at the plugs and it was obvious that one team was a little clueless.

motors and batteries require size and mass to be effective. Shrinking them to be small enough to fit in a standard hub would render them pointless. Also, one side of the hub doesn't rotate (the motor needs something to push against), so it would be simple to detect

that their commute is too hilly, or they don't want to get to work sweaty, this eliminates a couple reasons not to commute by bike. If my commute were longer I'd take a look at one of these.

because Microsoft isn't much of a brand. Everyone knows Windows, but I'll bet half the people who use it couldn't tell you what Microsoft is, and half of those couldn't name anything else MS makes, besides Office. So the only thing MS had to leverage was Windows, which created a crapload of confusion.

That said, I do agree with you, because MS needs to create a new brand, and they have the resources to play the long game. But they chickened out, and that didn't work out so well for them.

I saw them live at the Hollywood Bowl when I was 18, so that would mean I'd have to be.......oh crap.