"not even an improvement over an old invention."

Right. Because the Macintosh was exactly like the Xerox Star, right down to the three-button Mouse and Smalltalk commands. Which Jobs licensed for a very agreeable amount - and he then directed the improvements that led to the popular GUI-driven personal computer.

The iMac - a minimalist, low-cost, laptop-derived machine with a CRT that was extremely easy to set up and which was design-forward - good-looking enough to put it in the center of your living area and not hide under a desk. Yeah, that was totally already done.

I wonder sometimes if Slashdot has gotten any better, then I come over and read stuff like this in the 'discussion' and realize it's just the same old, same old.

For all his faults, he was terrific at determining what people actually wanted to buy and directing engineers to create that.

Your invention is worthless if no one uses it.

Yeah, you're right. Engineers would be so much better off if we just let them develop their ideas, market them, and fail in peace.

"Oh and I can see the fanbois are out modding again and taking everything personally."

Been here long?

Airliners carry transponders that squawk. Same diff.

"Either that, or the money is really going somewhere else and the F-35 development program is a scam."

CHEMTRAILS!

"But how many US pilots have been in an actual dogfight since, say WWII"

John McCain. You might have heard of him. He ran for president a while back.

Positive ID is obtained with IFF. Not sure why you'd have to wait until visual range for that.

TFX. The Navy's desires were built into the F-111 and they decided they wanted the F-14 anyway. This is the same story.

Procurement isn't about getting the right weapon. It's about exercising a decision-maker's ego and getting votes back home.

How it works is that Google gets to use the successes in a later design and avoid the failures.

Rather, that's how it would work if Google were actually a hardware company, which they emphatically are not.

Say what you will about Apple but at least they admit they build hardware and aren't ashamed to do the R+D necessary to ship great hardware. They push the envelope and break it at times, but at least they don't do embarrassing things like 'hey, let's impress everyone with our design idea that will never ship' homage to someone's 20% project.

Also, Apple couldn't care less where you are or what you're looking at when using their hardware. ;-)

YHBT

HAND.

So, there's a two-lane road 90 minutes away from the nearest Interstate at Disney? News to me.

So much ignorance.

"Forklift.

A big one."

Obviously someone who has worked with HEaT crew. :-)

" - communal effort
    - civic responsibility
    - participation
    - immediacy"

None of these things makes 40,000+ cars fit onto a rural two-lane road any faster.

Thanks for not coming, though. We need fewer clueless folks and more self-sufficient people at Burning Man.

"It's to reduce the amount of time people have to spend sitting in their cars (as opposed to wandering the playa on the last day making new friends, etc.)."

Most of the reason the exodus goes so slowly is because people are doing exactly this. Zoned out, not paying attention, idling their car out of gas, listening to the radio and killing their battery in the heat, etc. When the lanes begin to move and compress, tempers get out of hand. Last year when BLM stopped the Exodus on Monday because of rain, the line extended to the apex, and getting things going again was horrible. People were taking showers in their RVs, blocking lanes. Getting stoned on someone else's car, then losing theirs. Getting jump starts before pushing their vehicle out of the lanes. Etc. Every boner move you can think of that destroys the ability of the column to respond to being let out.