Okay, how 'bout this for project Ara: a module that will learn to parrot me, that can fake me going about town and carry the phone, leave a fake triangulation trace, fake usage, mail, web, settings twiddling -- the works, everything indistinguishable from the real live thing.
There should be a market for this.

I'm sure the gNarly Super Apps company will be making that module for you in no time...

The spectrum from most devout religious to least:

Deist: one having belief in deity
Theist: one having theological belief (deity not necessary, "generic spiritual")
Atheist: One without theological belief
Anti-deist: against the idea of deity
Anti-theist: against the idea of religion

A: prefix meaning "without"
Acapella: music without accompaniment
asexual: without sex
Athiest: person without theism

Atheism is not a religion, like 'not collecting stamps' is not a hobby.
I don't collect stamps, and I don't make a hobby of not doing it. I don't care about it at all. Nor do I care if other people want to collect stamps.

I am an atheist, and I actively like people who are gullible enough to believe devoutly, devoutly believing they will burn in hell for harming or stealing from me. I wish more idiots did. (as well as the brilliant religionists, whom I'm very glad are wise enough to follow the 10 commandments because they're a good idea for all my neighbors.)

I was going to blow off your comment, but your last point is valid.

No sarcasm here (really) -> You have to remember that not everyone is as smart as you.

Lots of folks only know enough to realize they'd bankrupt and lose their medical business trying to reverse engineer and develop software.

Sometimes 'in-house' just isn't an option. An unbelievable amount of the time, it's as unworkable as in-house developing your own transport vehicles instead of buying them from car manufacturers.

I know of a critical application to an eye surgeon practice (2 surgeons) that scans the retina and 3d maps it for the surgeons to track swelling measured in single micrometers. Happily for them, it's running on 7 (this decade's XP). Unfortunately, the 'house' to 'in-house develop' in is a medical outfit that knows nothing about how to do in-house software/hardware/optics development..

Regardless of the price, there is simply no way on earth they're going to be able to reverse engineer that machine/software setup, build the machines and write the software. They're doctors, and the imaging machine development had to cost at least a million, minimum, before you even start talking about patents to license. Hell, reverse engineering and replicating a 1960's sports car is a 1/3 million dollar project, and that is for a company that has already done it and knows exactly what they're doing. Learning how to do their first car cost several million dollars in real money through the bank account.

Even when you start talking about something as simple as billing systems, you still have metric f***tons of paperwork and legal crap for HIPAA compliance, and you have to spend another few tens of thousands of dollars in brib..., er, compliance studies and certifications, with approved Health Department pet consultants who are often relatives of DC power brokers.

It's just a mess.

And all the above assumes that the doctors WANT to become software developers.

Seems to me Steam could easily say:

Hardcore compatible and pro gamers:
Here's your hardware list including specific parts for everything to build the "Official Steam Spec Competition Console" This is exactly what is used in tournaments, including what RAM, SSD and CPU with legal speeds and sizes. Running anything else in tournament play is cheating.

Power gamers:
Here's the high end stuff we use at Steam HQ and we absolutely know works, expensive stuff, but no worries

Regular:
Here's the stuff we follow and will get done in a hurry if we hear a problem

Everything else:
Here's the minimums. It should work, if you have probs, check ubuntu boards for help.

Won't work, and probably not gonna:
Here's the stuff that we've given up on. If you keep it running, you'll probably learn a lot. Good luck.

+1 insightful.

Even though that's not what he asked for, that's the best suggestion so far. Yes, the parent poster obviously realizes that firewalls are still needed on the PC's. Castles need moats as well as walls.

He's worried about security, and this will *HELP* do the job on all his PC's, and automatically provide some protection to every box that happens to connect to his network. It will also do it's job no matter what gets plugged in, and even provide some protection if he happens to plug in some malware (at least it'll have a tough time phoning home).

Thanks.

Grishnakh, now that the hooraw on this particular thread has blown past, I suggest taking a close look at Henry Ford's expressions of opinion before using this particular example again.

https://www.google.com/search?...

Not trying to shame or crank you, especially with your uber-cool username. You make a valid point, it's just that the example wasn't quite the best. Thanks for your valiant, but futile, attempt to add intelligence to the discussion.

^^^ Parent +1

I've always wondered why the 3DConnexion guys (who I think are now Logitech) won't release drivers so their stuff can work in games. I'd think writing joystick/gaming mouse drivers for the SpacePucks would be pretty trivial, and the hardcore gamer crowd would exponentially increase their sales.

Hopefully they already have, and I just missed it...

I've found that aluminum baking pans with a raised edge all the way around just a bit bigger than the laptop footprint are perfect for laptops on pillows. They can breathe the way they normally do on a table, and the raised lip keeps them from sliding off. If the lappy has rubber feet, all the better.

I agree. I'm offended by people with 6 digit ID's too overly liking or hating linux too.

Oh lord. It used to be commonplace for parents to regularly place Disney VHS tapes. The same movie, multiple times.

I honestly wouldn't be surprised if kids found a way to wear out Disney DVD's. They can certainly grind the players to dust.

I'm pretty sure that my 8 core i7 counts as an 8 node cluster.

It certainly does for this meme.

^^ +1 insightful, for having correct priorities. I wish I had mod points today.

Larry Correia (multi NYT bestselling author of Monster Hunter International) did a point by point slam on this article:

Fisking Slate over Public Schools

Naked link to same article:
http://larrycorreia.wordpress.com/2013/08/30/fisking-slate-over-public-schools/

The woman who wrote the slate article is married with 3 kids in New York. Strangely, last year she wrote in Slate about how happy she will be to stop paying $5000/month on private preschools.