Game Informer is still being pushed pretty heavily by GameStop.

If you need a spreadsheet, then use a Spreadsheet format. If you need a Presentation, then consider a format appropriate for that task. RTFs are for text documents that require formatting, and this injudicious mingling of datatypes is exactly what's wrong with Microsoft Office document formats.

That's a problem with Adobe's support for Flash in Ubuntu, not specifically a problem with Ubuntu, itself. Were Ubuntu the popular OS instead of Windows, likely you'd see the problem in Windows but not Ubuntu.

RTF. It has strong standardization, and so far as I know, it's universally readable.

Also, it's much easier to pass legislation for a fee, than it is to pass legislation for a tax.

We really do need punctuation to denote sarcasm on the internet.

That idea works well in an ideal system where everyone earns an income within a fairly narrow range. In the real world, however, the range of individual income goes from losses each year to millions each year. Sticking with an income tax is really the way to go.

I dunno, I've got only 2GB of RAM in my machine, and it does just fine. That's not to say I don't notice the lack, but I can watch a movie on one monitor while playing a modern game on the other, without either suffering significantly. I think that 2GB is the absolute minimum I'd build a computer with.

What makes you think that removing the money will stop the weapons and the violence? This isn't organized crime. Money is not the motive. The motive is crazy. Religious crazy, narcissistic crazy, and maybe even some good old fashioned just plain crazy. Without the money, some plans will change but the violence will continue, regardless. A man who commits violent acts once he has a weapon in his hand had violence in his heart, before he had a gun in his hand.

If you want to promote peace in Africa, then you must first identify what groups of people are the source of it. When you have gathered that information, you may then choose whether to deal with them by diplomacy or force. Anything else is an impotent effort.

Yes, but we are speaking English, not Latin. In English, Telepathy refers specifically to the direct transference of thought messages from one mind to another mind, without first traveling through intermediate mediums such as text or speech, perhaps even disregarding the need of language. To suggest that using a cellphone is a form of telepathy, is much the same as suggesting that shouting to a person across a large room from you is a form of telepathy. While this is apparently true for the definition of "telepathy" that you present, but this definition is not usefully distinguished from another established English term, "communication," which simply means to convey an idea or concept from one person to any number of other people over any range by any means or medium.

The concept of "Technology-enabled telepathy" therefore requires that one person be able to exchange thoughts with another person directly, with only the technology as an intermediate medium.

If they are going to be selling apps which may be expected to have an executable component on Apple or Linux machines, then yes.

I design cabinets and store fixtures. It's what I do to earn a living. My company makes mid to high-end products, and we've made store fixtures for Verizon Wireless, Supercuts, Restoration Hardware, Zadig & Voltaire, Macy's and Briggs & Riley. I can tell you about the manufacturing process.

Tool changes are meaningless. CNC machines have multiple pockets to hold tools, and can switch to a new tool in short order. In a typical design, the programs I send to the machinists will have 3 different tools (5mm brad for line boring, hinge mounting holes and drawer slide mounting holes, 7mm Lance for confirmat connector holes or 8mm brad for dowel holes, and a 1/2" router compression bit, sometimes upshear, depending on the material, to cut the profile). Dowels will be installed in a different machine, or 5mm holes 35mm deep will be drilled in edges to accommodate confirmats, depending on the chosen construction method. Later, if a tool has to be changed by hand, it takes seconds, and the assemblers don't think twice about it. Tool changes are cheap (admittedly, they can take a few minutes on the panel saw, but doing so is fairly uncommon, as most wood will generally be cut by the same blade).

Even the cost of most of the material is relatively trivial. A 4'x8' sheet of Industrial Grade Particle Board costs less than $25, and it can be had pre-laminated for less than $40, maybe even less than $30, depending on the laminate (though some types of laminate can bring the price up considerably). Melamine is very cheap.

The big price of things is in labor. When I put a cabinet out into the shop, if it's rushed, it may take 12 working hours to get from the CNC machines and panel saw, down to Packing at the other end of the shop. Doweled construction is faster than confirmat construction, but not always appropriate (the joints are relatively weak, and if the piece of furniture gets moved around a lot, it will pull itself apart).

Very fine work will take much longer. A pair of 12' tall by 6' wide hardwood doors (which we do from time to time; we have a retail customer who likes to put them on their stores) may take several weeks. Mind you, a pair of doors that size, while it may seem simple, is in fact, not. You can't just nail a few pieces of milled lumber together, stain it and ship it out. The doors are very large, and require a metal frame to support the weight, which must be welded together. The doors are then built around the frame. That's just the simple of it, not even accounting for hinge mounting locations (which must be attached to the frame, not the wood, or else the frame is pointless added weight), knockers, and so forth. That sort of work is done mostly by hand, as there is no practical way to machine the parts. Those sorts of projects become very expensive.

In any event, the number of machines used is determined in the design phase, which is completely separate from the assembly phase. Normally, any given part will go through a CNC machine or panel saw, then through a banding machine, and finally through either another CNC machine (with different capabilities) or through a doweling machine. As for hand-finished edges... The banding machine does the bulk of the work, but the operator still has to smooth the rough edges. Plus, the machine only works with straight parts. If there's an irregularly shaped edge, it has to be banded by hand, which is very common on countertops.

Carpentry has thinned out. The old fashioned way, is for a single man to plan a cabinet, cut the parts, and assemble them, possibly with the aid of an assistant or apprentice. It's not a bad method by any means, but it is slow, and difficult to do on a large scale. Now, the design work is handled by one man, cutting the parts by another, and a third does the assembly. Each man can specialize in their part of the process, and come to do it very fast. This is Henry Ford's assembly line methodology at work. We produced 8 stores worth of good quality desks and fixtures for just one customer (while making products for other customers concurrently), in the last month. This is without operating at capacity. I should also point out, that I can design cabinet parts with a precision down to 0.01mm. Try that with hand tools, instead of CNC machines.

This sort of economy is inevitable. With the improvements in technology, we will eventually come to a place where Capitalism can no longer be sustained. That's going to be a troubling period of time, and I imagine that it'll take at least a decade to settle out. Once we've mastered automation, and all of our basic needs (not to mention our superfluous needs) are met without the requirement for employment, we'll have two roads that we can conceivably go down. The first, and I fear, the most likely road, leads to a world along the lines of H.G. Wells' The Time Machine-- a future where we have destroyed ourselves. This road begins with mankind simply sitting back and becoming lazy. At some point many generations down the road, something will go horribly wrong, and no one will remember how to fix anything. I suppose Pixar's Wall-E is also a possibility on this road. Down the other road, is Star Trek. A world where our automation technology has abolished poverty, and everyone works to the betterment of themselves and their world. To accomplish this, it will be very important that everyone be encouraged to choose and ply a profession. It won't matter what it is for any given person, though arts and sciences would be the most important, I think.

The only thing that really bothers me about the second road, and indeed, this is a problem down the first road as well, is the distribution of real estate. The only real answer I can think of, is that the government would have to be in charge of that function, which just doesn't sit right with me. Still, with the right policies, I suppose that in a few generations' time, it won't be much of an issue.

Either way, automation technology (and by extension, Replicator technology, of which, 3D printing is the infancy) has tremendous ramifications for us as a race. It will either hoist us higher, or destroy us.

We do not yet have the technology to support an economic system that is better than Capitalism. We could conceivably develop technology which would make a Capitalist economy exceptionally difficult to continue (extensive and reliable automation technology, or if we want to jump straight to the end, replicator technology a la Star Trek), but until that time comes, Capitalism is the best we'll ever do.