In fact often the exact opposite - one of my friends back when we where studying told me that he remembers lectures better when doodling (he got top marks in his masters degree), back then I started doodling and found that I have the same experience, doodling "removes" the bored part of me and helps me focus on whats going on.

These days I do the same during meetings and I find that I cope better with the meeting and often remember better what went on.

In the US (not all the state I think), there is turn-on-red which means you can always turn right (provided you are on the most right lane) but you must yield if the traffic light is red. Turn on red is the common thing and it is specified when it is forbidden. Whereas in France, the opposite is used : you can not turn unless the right green arrow is lit.

I believe the rule is turn on red in the US because the roads are new and built with good visibility. When there is no visibility turn on red is forbidden. Whereas in France at most intersections turn on red would be dangerous due to the lack of visibility. Therefore turn on red is the exception.

Strictly speaking, you could probably hide an micro-SD card somewhere in a car where even dismantling the entire car would not result in someone finding it. Ever. It's too small and the pieces of the car too big.

Likewise, strip search won't find micro-SD cards, because you can hide them inside the seams in your clothing.

As I have suggested in the past WRT to smuggling stuff on an airplane, and suggest now for this:

All security measures should have a bounty for violating them. You should be able to go to some government office, buy for $5 a specific thing you're 'not allowed' to get through security, like a gun-shaped piece of metal, and attempt to carry that through security. We can make them all orange with FAKE on them so there's no confusion with actual security risks.

If you get it through, you get $50 when you demonstrate this and explain how you did it. If you get caught, they take it away and you're out the $5.

And they'd have to publish the stats. And they have to, after six months, publish the actual methods used. (I.e., they have six months to fix any specific hole.)

If enough people succeed, the entire attempt to stop that thing from getting through security is ended. Because clearly anyone who wants to can get that thing through anyway.

In this case, as the entire premise of 'blocking data' from crossing the border is inherently nonsensical, people would just FTP and walk into the government office, point to the data on a remote server, and collect their reward.

Likewise, this would stop the idiotic 'remove shoes' and the 'no liquids' rules, as any idiot can figure out ways around those very specific rules.

For liquids, of course, it's easy enough to simply have a lot of people and collect the liquid on the other side in the restroom. They can even buy bottled water for a non-suspicious container.

For the shoe bomber, the whole premise is smuggling X amount of materials in without it going through the x-ray, but, rather, carried on your person through the metal detector. There's obviously pockets, and fake stomachs, and strapped to legs inside long pants, but I point out that there's somewhere that women can easily pad out with more material than would fit in a shoe sole which would not arouse much suspicion.

Okay I will give you that- not unit testing is pretty stupid. I guess there is a happy medium between the astronaut and the duct tape guy.

My netbook is an "appliance". Generally it is powered off. If I need some information (notes, contact info), I power it on. Old rom-based systems (like my old model-100) would be on instantly. Ready to work.

My netbook takes 17 seconds to become ready. It won't go on the network (that takes just over 30 seconds), but I can access information in 17 seconds.

But it's not fast enough. If someone has asked a question, I turn it on, and then WAIT. I can issue the command to find the information needed (5 seconds to load the program, 5 seconds to enter) - the time to reply is now on the order of 30 seconds. If it were "instant on", the time would be 10 seconds.

It makes a big difference in the social interaction.

More bizarre, it takes 15+ seconds to turn OFF. If I don't give it the 15 to 30 seconds to turn off, I get a 10 minute+ penalty on the next power up.

I don't (really) care about server systems, or "desktop" systems (though I prefer the instant-on thin client). But I am partial to (almost) full keyboards for entry, and thus use a netbook. Yes, it "sleeps" but I can't guarantee that it will be used or plugged in on any schedule. So, I prefer to turn it off when not needed, and turn it on when needed.

A super-fast on/off for my netbook is important to me. There are two buying points for a netbook for me: (1) keyboard quality and (2) on/off time.

Your mileage will, of course, vary.