Could this be used for laptops, and maybe tablets and phones?

I would think so. Laptops already have vents. A smaller, slower, quieter fan may be necessary.

Surface area, it is why I prefer crushed ice on a hot day.

I believe you are spot on regarding perception and and possibly an uncanny valley effect.

In my opinion, when our heads move we experience motion blur, our eyes cannot be focused perfectly when in motion (when the head moves slowly focus can track, but if the objects in the field of vision vary significantly in distance from the subject then a lot of refocus is going on). Only when we stop do we get full clarity in our primary field of vision and improved peripheral vision (I'm just spit balling here, outside my realm of knowledge...).

Games have started adding motion blur as an option, The Forest is my primary example. Turning quickly to find an attacker isn't just turning, it's perceiving the blur. In game it is creepy. Try turning quickly (first person shooter speed) to find a small object. This is perfect gaming realism, not uncanny at all (scary when being attacked, scary game).

24 frames per second for a movie provides a slight blur. Higher, well focused scenes, will be lacking in this some. I'm not sure if it is just the fact that we expect a movie to look as it does at 24 fps (prior experience) or if we find it uncanny. There is a softness to 24 fps as well.

Movies like Avatar are perfectly focused and should be uncanny, but they are like video games without motion blur (Avatar used motion blur a lot though), perfect focus at all times. They are realistic, but not of our reality. Uncanny? Yes. Are we comfortable watching it? Yes.

During the trash avalanche scenes at the beginning of Idiocracy I noticed the entire frame was in perfect focus (the far off background). I only noticed this after a couple of dozen viewings...

Anyway, very thought provoking comment.

Xamarin allows for iPhone and Android development using C#.

I'm waiting for the day that Microsoft buys them so I can get the premium Visual Studio integration via my MSDN subscription...

Unfortunately she wouldn't let me make his last name Mulder...

Perception is reality. Sucks sometimes because "the truth is out there" (my son's middle name is Fox for a reason, primarily because I got to name him, my wife named his twin sister...).

That's why I drag around a 35 amp hour 12 volt battery when camping (it gets used for fans, lights, laptop, bug zapper, electric blanket, and air pump among things). I admit that I'm not backpacking, but creature comforts became necessary when I started to take my 2.5 year old twins camping a couple of years ago (mostly by myself, wife has a small business and works most days). I set it up with 4 cigarette lighter ports (10 amps each, 30 amp on the main).

I've used it to jump start my car on a number of occasions (mostly while not camping), and in the house for lights and fans during a couple of long power outages.

It's nice have a portable, capable battery with an extensive set of 12 volt accessories.

I recently gave up on CNN.com because every story is a video (but not marked as such, some articles are clearly marked as videos), and they are all auto-play. And they have video ads that play on the front page.

Every day it seems that the world is moving towards Idocracy, I love the movie but hate to call it poignant. It's like a documentary from the future.

What would be the best way to setup a "more difficult" to bock ad service?

Could one use cloud services, and have the clients issue DNS sub-domain entries (content.CompanyName.com) pointing to the service which then provides the images? Of course the IPs could be blocked relatively easy.

What about providing companies that want to serve ads with a small web server that you control that serves the ads (it would appear internal, just sub-domain)? It would reside outside the DMZ, so security concerns on the companies part could be mitigated.

I don't mind static image ads (although I hate it when I purchase something on Amazon and then get served Amazon ads for the thing I purchased). But if it is not static then I despise it.

That's as bad as the colorblind son in Little Miss Sunshine.

Sucks but I can understand the very stringent entry requirements for military pilots.

So it goes - Vonnegut.

I'm 40 now. I remember the late 1990s when I was young, as was everyone around me, and at a non-public facing reinsurance company, we had extra staff just doing pie-in-the-sky stuff no one was ever going to see. We got a lot done via inherent competence, I realize now that we were lucky, and we had budget.

In the early 2000s I led the design and development of a SOA rewrite of an existing VB6 app. We had an iDeisgn consultant come in for a week to get us started which was invaluable; but it was through luck, intuition, and a great team that we were successful.

Now I'm on an architecture/strategy path with good leadership (time for training, sandboxing, prototyping). I now realize that every project needs a seasoned lead for component/interface design, UX/unit testing, hardcore analysis, and general direction setting (as well as a solid QA team to find problems). Skimp on any of that, on a medium/large project, and luck is the deciding factor to success.

Oh, and learn the business. Send ideas to upper management. Really think about the business. It can be interesting, and good for the career.

Carter is cool in my book. He had the guts to promote conservation, way ahead of his time.

Clinton had the benefit of a great economy. Bush Jr. was... inept. He served his purpose though, splitting the Republican party. Obama seems to be trying the same for the Democrats, but the two parties still have a solid lock on the political process, which is the problem in my opinion (not that any third party has put forth a good alternative).

I didn't mean to imply that Canada had less resources. It certainly should have resources comparable to the United States.

I love your emphasis on YET...

I've been to Montreal, had a great time even though I was working. I was staying a block from the hockey stadium during playoffs (I didn't even try to get a ticket). It is a vibrant city, much more so than St. Louis, Missouri.

More thoughts.

Why has the United States led the world in terms of moving forward (technology primarily - our social policy history is terrible)?

I posit that it is because we formed as a nation that could do anything. And we are a young nation. After the war the rest of the world was rebuilding or just continuing (status quo). The United States has/had a "move forward" attitude. We invented the internet, holy shit!!!!! (ignoring Al Gore of course)

At this point we are no longer a young nation. And we are caught up in the trappings of the powerful, those with all of the money. The Supreme Court itself has made this assertion. Hubris...

Bites you in the ass is poignant. We are being driven into the ground. I hate to say it, much less living it.