It is hard to do horizontal scrolling, and the interface is non standard. It takes all screen, which a huge area to read on a low end desktop 1080p monitor. Features are seemingly hidden - the little arrow or its purpose is hard to discover. Lack of buttons to click on - why not have buttons that do what the magical shortcuts do? Search feature to compensate for the difficulty of launching stuff the regular way - Windows 7 was a bit like that already, having implemented the worst iteration of the start menu.

Good old start menu is alphabetically arranged (or right-click and sort), can be navigated by hovering the mouse so no need for four clicks, and is keyboard navigable as well. The good ones even allow you to add folders to it such as an 'apps' folder which contain software you care about and a 'games' folder that launches games very quickly (with command line options or via a .bat file if needed)

Tip : install Classic Shell in Windows 7, it's needed there too.

As opposed to taking time customizing the Start screen?

Some (most? all?) hard drives sold in enclosures have USB soldered-on, no SATA interface ; I find that a bit evil and would rather be able to reuse the hard drive or enclosure any way I see fit as well as choosing the precise color scheme and look/physical features of the enclosure.

USB-to-SATA docks or e-SATA or even hot-swap SATA dock in a desktop's drive bay are other options.

A friend told me he wishes for the crapper's flush to be linked to the coffee pot. Smart algorithms will detect his habit of taking a crap on the morning and then preparing coffee, so flushing the toilet should trigger coffee brewing on the right hour ranges, and if the pot is not full of coffee already. Taking a dump is a proxy for presence detection, but also for the intent of drinking coffee.
I suggested that the powers-that-be will spy on him by detecting droppings falling into the water as well as analyzing the shit and storing detailed, minute-precise reports for decades.

You would have to cook your meal before leaving or at the least prepare it and leave it to cook ; check it when you're away to see that it doesn't get burned or not cooked enough, you can adjust time or temperature. Then let it sit and cool off for hours.. Just before you come back you can turn on low heat to make it warm again. Pretty limited..
Remote control can be used at home too but really, why not walk to the friggin'g oven!

On the plus side, I will spy on your oven's content, remotely deactivate your alarms and unlock your door, activate presence simulation so the neighbors think everything is fine and then rush to your home and proceed to steal your delicious turkey or whatever.

It's a shame, as Ubuntu 14.04 LTS is almost out and I was ready to give a try. I know a few people using 12.04, it dumbs you down and encourages a browser-only use (due to difficulty of finding any but the most basic installed apps), but is decent when used in that role.

Ubuntu One was maybe a good fit (and usable on other platforms too) and especially, I have no trust in other "cloud" stuff. I don't want google or microsoft stuff, and as for dropbox I don't know who they are, what laws they obey, who they give access to your files to (NSA? Law enforcement? Dictatorships?). I thought I would try Ubuntu One one day.. It's not stuff that should go out, right?, Ubuntu has been out there for about a decade, and Long Term Support meant everything is alright till april 2017? Well, no.

Five year support is a good incentive. Having wifi after installing without an internet connection is another one, though I guess Mint Debian fixes that.
I'll be installing Mint Debian edition 32bit some, but after that Mint 17 (Ubuntu based) is probably a proposition I can't pass.. Fully works till 2019 and subsequent Ubuntu-based Mint versions are to be based on the LTS (with updated kernel and Xorg support, and updated Mate and Cinnamon environments). See linuxmint blog.

I cleaned up after Dropbox on a computer (Ubuntu 11.04).. Someone decided to install a dropbox package.. which is an extension for the Nautilus file manager, except the only GUI installed was LXDE (file manager is pcmanfm). So, what a funny situation.. Doesn't work and the user has no clue. I don't care as I don't use Dropbox and I guess the user could use a web interface to get his/her files.

On my current installation I have a choice of caja-dropbox, nemo-dropbox and nautilus-dropbox so that's better (but still doesn't include pcmanfm).

Windows RT is a locked down version of the real Windows 8 (fine) but it comes with a consumer version of Office without Access and other stuff, and can't join a domain (and can't share files like Windows home editions are able to) and can't get GPOs applied.

They're using the Chromebooks as thin clients anyway. Windows runs on the server farm. If web browsing is allowed on the Chrome boxen, using the Chrome browser for your errands and looking up stuff etc. is pretty elegant, as the big strain on CPU and RAM resources that can entail is on the local machine and not the server that streams desktop to dozens users.

The upside is you know you have Power Delivery, USB 3.1 and whatever just by looking at the connector. With a random USB type A, I know fuck all about how many amps it support or not even if it is USB 1 or USB 2. It is a benefit to have both USB C on host and device as well.

I watch DS9 (I'm new to it and am about half way), I have great fun trying to figure out what is Dax's job exactly.
Most times she's sitting or standing around, pushes a button sometimes, says stuff but it's extremely obvious she just pretends to work. I guess she wanders around the station when not on screen, doing errands and leisure activities.

Worf somehow made fun of himself in TNG. "I suggest we launch a photon torpedo at [this utterly unknown and undescriptible phenomenon hanging around in deep space]" ROFL. Picard and the whole crew were extremely dumb too in that episode where they come across a mysterious "hole" in space. Let's look at it, but be careful, not too fast, not too close. Let's get a bit closer. Damn, we still can't see or understand anything about it. Just a little bit closer, we'll be fine I guess? OH SHI- we're trapped! Hadn't seen that coming, I promise!

They save some physical space and importantly power. It depends on how much RAM the old PC have too.. A nice trick is to make the PCs diskless workstations, that makes them reliable (no hard drive) and replaceable on a whim. But if you're going to do everything on a browser having at least 2GB memory is nice, especially if you have no swap.

That gives a lowball 15 watts figure at 5 volts, which is pretty nice given I have a few 2.5 watt USB chargers around (and a mains-to-USB adapter that gives only 2.5 watts as well)
The worst case is a useful metric, it seems to define applications other than your specialty mobile computing device : e-cigs and other little things. The standard would be a nice 6x increase, if USB C is on both ends (and some minimal electronics handle it in the device)

You'll be able to power a meaningful amplified speaker with that level of power output.. Or going to 12V, you have enough for a class D amplifier that will fill the room with sound if connected to an adequate set of speakers. I do actually have an amplifier powered by a 12V, 3A power supply, use hifi-styled speakers with 90dB sensibilty and it's loud enough for movies, parties, whatever (sound quality and clarity ridiculously high as well).
Up ti 20V operation would be good for amps that take 24 volts but can work at 19V (laptop PSU) or less.

I hope it's made clear that you can still transmit data when power is at 12 volt, because you know, if you are going to output sound from a laptop it'd better be through USB audio.

So being responsible == having enough income to make high savings?

Even then, what if you have a $30k income (that would be about a typical US american income) and save $3k per year, and then you have a $250k surgery (uh, that's probably very generous).. With 30 years of savings you're short by $160k. Sounds about doable if you move into a trailer, slash your expenditures on food and other products, and pay debt for a couple decades.
Unless you have a fully paid off, owned house which you can sell to pay for the surgery, but that's asking much if you have $30K income and savings. But it sounds barely doable.

Now, what if the surgery and treatment is $750k.. hahahaha