It's not a perfect solution, but Android Gingerbread did implement an option to log (or notify/crash/dialog/etc) particular actions (such as network access) within the StrictMode API. The best part is that you can enable this through reflection, even on older apps - in theory you could push this back to everything running on the phone if you so desired.

Without wanting to compare Mirasol and Pixel Qi (they are very different ideas after all), Pixel Qi does have a touchscreen prototype out there.

The laptop hardware might be worth $1000. But if you start including the cost of the software and documents on it the prices start going up rapidly.

I write software for a living, and if my laptop was stolen there's a good chance for it to contain 1000's of hours of my work on it (so even at a paltry $/hr that adds up quickly). If you start including the value of trade secrets for clients that goes up even more.

Yes, things are encrypted, backed up and a thief may be unlikely to gain access (or even know what to do with it) but that doesn't negate the fact that the docs are still on the laptop and very much worth something.

Heck, even if you only used the laptop to listening to music and watch cat videos on Youtube, you could use RIAA pricing for your mp3s.

I understand the constant eating just to keep from wasting away, but as one skinny guy (6'0", 135lbs here) to another introduce some more fruits and whole grains into your diet.

I never felt "bad", but about two years ago I started doing steel cut oats for breakfast (follow Alton Brown's recipe) and doing almost all my own cooking; now I feel great. The pipes are all flowing and the body's working better since I gave up that old (similar to yours) diet.

My brother is highly allergic to corn products (more precisely starches) - the trace amounts that can remain in HFCS sends him into severe gastro-intestinal stress. He's been going without HFCS (and corn, rice, soy, barley, oats, wheat, tapioca, quinoa, etc, etc) for nearly 3 years now. While I'm not saying it's an easy thing to do, it's not nearly as difficult as you're making it out to be. HFCS is fairly pervasive and to avoid it does mean that you'll be doing some more of your own cooking - but that's a good thing.

A few years back, my multi-site development group set up a web cam on just a regular PC running windows. Then we just set up Mbone and VIC to run the actual conferencing part. It worked really well and supported as many clients as we needed it to. I'm not sure if it's still around or under any development - but you can't beat the price ($0). And they have clients for most OSes.

And unemployment was also spiking and all sorts of other things. To attribute it solely to gas prices is... well... silly.

The world isn't simple.