It is necessary to do it that way, otherwise they wouldn't get permission to install malware. Without that dialogue box the installed malware wouldn't be legit.

Too much of a fire hazard. I don't see any local fire marshal wanting to sign off on such a thing. I'd go with a gas detector that sounds an alarm and releases CO2 into the chamber. It would rapidly displace whatever they managed to pump in. The cold steam hissing out of the box would also give them one heck of a startle.

Nice first step, but I'll be more impressed when the results are in agreement with predictions from the 1890s

Internet of Things has actually managed to surpass my hatred of "The Cloud"

You need to put the two together... for synergy.

Not bad, but I think Barb's was actually pretty good.

I dismissed them as neckbeards and accountants.

I'd argue/debate/discuss it with you, but I find it an issue for the history books. Besides, I think I'm stuck in meetings for five of the next eight hours :(

You don't follow my logic because it isn't what I said. It's not my logic. It's just something you inferred. "When the economy is bad, communism starts to look better", is not the same as "The economy is bad. Communism will be better. Join the Party with me".

Not only is that obvious on its face, you can see it in the statistics: the more "statist" and regulatory governments have been, the less well economies have done and the more income inequality we've seen.

That's an awful lot of un-quantified stuff. You can have fun measuring these things in oh-so many ways. I propose to measure oppression in Stalins per acre, and economic outcome in chickens per pot. Fair enough? Let's get some real analysis started now...

East coast snow storms are notoriously difficult to predict. I'm not surprised that even with modern technology they still can't get it perfect. In addition to the dynamic nature of the low-pressure circulation interacting with the coast and the gulf stream (like a hurricane) you've got the all-important freezing temperature line. It's even worse than "a line that might shift" though, because if the cold air intrudes under the warm you get freezing rain, not snow.

I grew up in that region (DC area) and it was always like this. I have no envy for those forecasters.

One of my fondest memories is of the 1978 storm. Hit in the afternoon, 2" predicted. 6PM, forecast increased 6-8". Next morning? Most of us had 24", some hit 36". I wonder if modern tech could have done better.

More often than not though, it seemed like DC always got cheated out of snow when I was a kid. Rain, sleet, snow that got rained on and turned into a soggy mess. Beautiful snow that you could play in on your day off was just all too rare.

Four inches five times does not mean you've got 20 inches.

No, it all came down to price, not multitasking. There was never an argument that CLI was better than a GUI except from neckbeards and bean counters. Average slobs knew the GUI was better. It took from 1984 until the early 90's for the hard to get cheap enough to tolerably run a GUI OS.

Person who puts the public at risk of death for their own profit complains when public wants to know where they are.

Speed traps are public safety hazards (a hazard on the roadway which causes people to suddenly and without warning hit the brakes) whose purpose is to generate money, not to increase public safety nor to reduce speeding. Just as an example, having inflatable police cars along the roadway is far more effective at reducing speeding, but does not generate revenue. This becomes even more obvious when you consider whether you're likelier to be pulled over on a nice dry summer day or a dangerous blizzard (at the same speed).