Microsoft should really consider a re-org that puts their consumer focused products(xbox, phones, etc... not the windows OS though) in a separate division with a different name.

Put aside all of your feelings for Microsoft and just consider for a second how terrible a name like Microsoft is when it comes to cool, fashionable devices. Micro... soft... that's not a name I'd like associated with any kind of status symbol purchase. Sure, it's fine in the enterprise software space where image is less important, but if they ever want to seriously consider competing in the personal electronics space they'll need to change not only their branding but their name.

Nope, just an old ('08?) 24" iMac. I'm not sure retina would make their poor color choices(the blue folders are horrendously loud) or lack of gradients/shadows.

Nope, didn't backup. It's the wife's desktop, so if it died, nothing of importance would be lost. Besides, I backed up a few months ago when I upgraded to a SSD.

Upgraded yesterday. I can't comment on the internal changes, but IMHO the new look is ugly. It even looks like the 'X' in the close button isn't centered. I want my old look back.

I've tried taking SSRIs a few times over the years for depression/anxiety/OCD. I haven't been able to last longer than 36 hours. I feel like I am experiencing all of the anxiety and uncontrolled mental energy of LSD without any of the good feelings or positive emotions. I think I have a wacko serotonin system. Tramadols get me reallly high(like taking an E pill) and I am very sensitive to serotonin-system drugs like LSD and psilocybin.

A lot of folks at work are switching to these and they seem happy.

I'm going for a stand-up desk first. I'll look into the 4k monitor early next year and see how things are then.

People wonder how we'll ever convince Americans to give up ownership and switch to rented, self-driving cars...

We'll do it by:
a) Jacking up insurance rates on people who still want to drive
b) Jacking up the price of vehicles by mandating expensive equipment

In 30 years, you won't be able to afford a car, much less afford to drive it. I'm not making a moral judgement here, I just think it's bound to happen.

I don't have a dog in this race, but I've got to point out that California is actually in a relatively wet period and if it returns to it's formerly dry state then California will be fine. The people, maybe not so much, but California has been much drier in the past.

Yep... and my work machine as well. It all depends on the apps you use. If you are like most people nowadays and only need a web browser then Linux is probably sufficient as a desktop OS.

I should admit that my work desktop does host a windows 7 VM, but that's only because my company chose an IE-only solution for our timetracking tool.

I had a feeling someone would say something like this...

According to TFS, the program is for open source code. You know, the code that is already open and scannable by a web crawler. If the NSA wanted to do this for nefarious purposes(and I'm sure they do), they would have(and probably have) started their own program years ago. They don't need you to upload your open source project for them.

I'm willing to bet the NSA has all the closed-source software source they want as well. I doubt my company's shitty security, for example, is any hindrance to them.

Actually, my first thought is why isn't the NSA doing this?

Securing our nation's information infrastructure is one of their core missions(along with spying on OTHER nations, which I also think they should be doing, instead of spying on US). They have the talent to be able to do it effectively.

So the poor general can't participate in the usual dance of former Washington insiders who use cronyism and connections to enrich themselves after 'serving' in government?

There should be a name for that... like 401(c)... where c stands for crony capitalism.

I've got over a decade of working on networked, embedded devices. With the exception of content security, I have never in my recollection been on a project where a significant effort was devoted to the security of the system.

I've worked for a company who made devices which process electronic payments. I asked them about security and whether they ever did an audit. The SW veep's response was "We use SSL."

No one wants to think about it. Security is a hard problem and it blows budgets. Forgetting about security during development rarely(never, really) costs anyone a job.

Marketing and management need to require it before the money generates the will to fix it.

Not always... We need the horsepower for some jobs we're doing, and we have a GUI. Not all 'servers' are locked in racks and hidden away from the world

Working on a product based around these now...

As far as I can tell, the Nuvoton WPCM450 is what contains the Matrox G200ew clone for graphics output. Thanks to XAA being discontinued in X.org, the MGA driver is practically unusable for X at this point(even with an ancient, 2d window manager).

Yet another reason to avoid this hardware.

If you think you can't train a computer vision system to do it... Sure, maybe it's 20 years before it's cost effective(although for underwater welding...), but it's coming.

If you can boil it down to an algorithm, however complicated, you can get a computer to do it.

Eventually the computer does it better, because it has more sensors than you, thinks faster, has finer muscle movements, and can execute more complex algorithms than you can.

We're about to see this with driving.