Android is open source and can be forked to work however you like. Windows, not so much.

Kickstarter barely cares what you try to fund anymore, and the other sites are even worse. It doesn't matter if your project clearly violates copyright laws -- or even the laws of physics -- you can post any project you want. This makes the entire crowdfunding ecosystem look incredibly shady.

That said, this has led to some pretty funny stuff over at Kickfailure.

Further thoughts on this are that it may be a reflection of Microsoft's internal political structure and culture, and power struggles, with every newcomer needing to stamp his or her identity on the product, regardless of whether that's beneficial.

Both seem like symptoms of the same problem: nobody's really in charge. This leadership deficit seems like it largely started with Ballmer, who was more interested in yelling and dancing around like a monkey than running his company.

You mean the company that had widespread child abuse in its building for decades and everyone looked the other way? That BBC?

Mars as the next step is a stupid idea. And that NASA also keeps suggest it as a next step proves to me how unworthy NASA is of funding. Same whenever they keep doing stupid studies on humans spending long periods in confined areas (they can always ask the nuclear submariners about it).

The true next step for anyone serious in making actual progress in space tech is to build a space station with artificial gravity (tethers+counterweights or other).

Once you have that you can test various animals (rats, food fish, humans) at Earth and Mars "g" concurrently to see how well they hold up for months in space.

And if you succeed in making that tech practical and cheaper it means you don't actually have to go to Mars - you can colonize the asteroids.

There's no actually much benefit going to Mars in the next few decades. The "g" is wrong, the pressure is wrong - you can't really use the tracts of land for farming without effectively building a "space station" on Mars (pressurization, shielding etc) - so there's little advantage over a space station with the disadvantage of not being able to pick your "g".

Since the idea is that this universe is a simulation, who says it is a simulation of reality? Maybe we are some kids crazy fantasy world in which the container has to be larger then its contents! FREAKY!

The trick to thinking outside the box, is to stop thinking the box is real.

IF this is a simulated world, there is no reason to assume the rules in the simulation are the same as the ones of the world in which the simulation is running.

ICANN should just reserve a TLD or two for private networks similar to how some IP ranges were reserved in RFC1918. For example:
.private (broad scope - for internal/private use)
.here (narrower scope - limited to a particular location e.g. different starbucks outlets could be using whats.here and at each of those outlets it resolves to that specific outlet's stuff )
Feel free to think of other TLDs for private but different usage.

I actually proposed .here many years ago: http://tools.ietf.org/html/dra...

But seems they were too busy approving "Yet More Dot Coms" (e.g. .biz, .info etc).

That's one of the reasons I have a low opinion of ICANN. Anyone in the field could see this problem years ago, but they have done little to help and maybe even made things worse.

If walking is a "fad," it's older than the human race itself. I think that makes it one of the longest fads of all time!

Look at the amount of ignorance and stupidity around? See the number of university graduates thinking hoax mails/posts are true and spreading them...

So what would any sociopathic channel boss prefer to run? Stuff that most people would watch and talk about, or stuff that only a minority would enjoy?

It's about making money not educating people. That's why actually "public TV" can be a good thing. It's not like the private sector would care or even if they did at first, the $$$ pressures would change them.

Compare National Geographic's narration for their octopus vs shark video-
2006: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
2007: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

I prefer the 2006 narration - less annoying. But I guess most viewers would prefer the 2007 version?

I don't know about small windows- your car has to pass other safety laws and regulations.

As for HUDs I think you can have them if they can only show driver/rider related stuff while the vehicle is in operation, if the screen can be general purpose like Google Glass then it's illegal:
https://www.dmv.ca.gov/pubs/vc...

The law doesn't seem that crazy as laws go considering how crazy drivers can get ;).

While you're taking CS courses in a university, ACM membership is great! But in the corporate world there's often not a good reason to join.

I was president of my university's ACM chapter at one point, but I've let my membership lapse. The value proposition just isn't worth it to me at the moment.

If it was Japan, China etc doing the same thing they'd be charged with "dumping": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...