How many folks (of a certain age) were so blown away by Tron, that they wanted to do something with computers? Having the PC revolution right around the same time really helped, but there was a huge influx of geeks thru the 80s and early 90s that helped fuel Silicon Valley.

The preferred method for conducting meetings at my workplace is through audio conferences. Conf calls to Europe in the morning, and Asia Pac in the evening. Even if all the folks in the meeting are located in different buildings in the same city -- it's easier to dial up the conference, fire up a web tool to share the document, and answer email when the person drones on .. and on .. and on.

Oh, and he's definitely overlooked the Turkey Dump. Countless relationships between (US) high school seniors continue thru the summer, after graduation. They make an effort to keep things going during their first term at *different* colleges/universities. But when they return to their hometown for Thanksgiving (a US holiday that is roughly 3-4 weeks before Christmas), they realize that all the girls/guys back at college are really more interesting/attractive. Breakup.

Steve Jobs is famous for rigorous standards on the HW and SW for his latest technology -- it needs to be the best, so it can "just work." Yet there is a bit of light shining through the bars of the walled garden ... the connectivity provider. By opting for WiFi only in the device, users may choose Sprint, or even Verizon, to bring 3G connectivity to their device. I wonder if there are any data on how often this has been done using non-AT&T local hotspots? Or if it is being done with iPod Touch devices, which are very close to iPhones without the AT&T service?

So, suppose all the background was the same ... homeowner didn't pay the fee, despite reminders; house catches on fire accidentally; fire dept rolls out to protect the fee-paying-neighbor's house. Except for this one -- instead of 3 dogs and a cat inside, there were 4 human children inside. Do you think the firefighters would have stood by and watched the house burn in that case? Following some of the reasoning here, should they have entered the burning house, pulled the children out, and then watched it burn? Or should they have intervened, using their usual methods and saved both the kids and the property? IANAFirefighter, but it seems to me that they would need to use some water on the structure to make it safe for themselves to enter, in order to save the children inside. Once you've gone that far, you might as well put out the fire.

That was my initial thought ... doesn't order matter? Perhaps a more pertinent question ... is there no penalty for guessing wrong? If not, then one can simply cycle through the permutations of the 3, 4, 5 keys until you get it right.

Absolutely, positively do some research first. There are many folks doing formal algorithmic research, and something like your algorithm may have been published 5 or 10 years ago. That should not be taken as advice to NOT submit ... just be prepared to be rejected because your algorithm has already been described by some uber math geek in Russia, Germany, or another country.

I don't have a game console, you insensitive clod!

Aside from the obvious fascination with anthropomorphic robots, the idea of smarter, semi-autonomous devices is attractive. Astronaut goes out of the lander/base, and deploys two or three bots with science experiments. They sit there and run, perhaps moving their arms/probes, and shifting their solar panels to follow the sun. The bots could be remote driven back to base, to be refitted. Need to upgrade firmware, or swap out spectrometers? No prob for the astronaut, who is on-site. No more Spirit stuck in a sand trap. The possibilities for augmenting the science to be done -- human PLUS next-gen bots -- is a win-win.

Facebook has some ease-of-use advantages to the tools you mentioned, esp. for multimedia sharing as the AC posted above. I can easily see the pictures of my cousins / old college friends / other relatives, and they can see mine -- without following a lot of random Flickr or Photobucket links. I don't use Twitter, because I don't feel the burning need to microblog. I post occasionally to my blog site, when I have more thoughts to share. A critical mass of my family and friends are on FB, so that I can use it to meet my needs. And let's not talk about FB as a platform for social gaming ... Just step away from the farm implements, and no one gets hurt.