My young kids don't even ask for the TV - they only want the tablets. We sometimes reflexively put something on TV for them, and they often ask if they can't watch it on the tablets instead.

Heh, don't buy stock in that company.

I'm doing a very minor thing at work right now in the same vein. We have some ancient equipment that would cost $60-70k to replace. It still works, but the data collection PC just died. It had a workflow involving macros, Windows 2000, and several serial ports. I need to get it all working with the Win7 replacement - but at least it is all simple serial communication and the equipment seems amenable to USB adapters, and the communication is well-documented. There are two stations, so it isn't exactly time-critical - but I totally get why people would not want to spend money until absolutely necessary.

I don't think many people would wait until their last spare to start retrofitting their system. At the same time, you want to stretch your investment as long as you can get away with it.

In the case of old style PLCs, there have been a number of transitional technologies, since so many people were in the same situation.

This is good advice. You want a whole bunch of other people to be in the same pickle as yourself. That means there is a market, and where there is a market there will be a vendor catering to very old system support.

That depends on the application. If he's making an industrial control system, then no, he probably will not be maintaining it organically. It will get built, qualified, and then expected to run for the life of the process. Think nuclear plant... what is more painful, re-qualification or running obsolete tools? Plants built in the 80s (power, sewer, etc) are still running DOS control systems with ancient serial PLCs.

That's brilliant, actually.

Linux is at the heart of many embedded devices, most smartphones, and a whole crapload of servers. Given the staying power of golden oldies like COBOL running on mainframes (or virtualized mainframes), I don't think that there is any doubt that the Linux kernel will be around.

I'm as skeptical of "green" marketing as anyone, but I fully recognize that early adopters ultimately help the technology progress. Solar panels spent over 50 years in development before finally becoming cost effective over their lifetime.

I'll try to be more sarcastic next time.

All of them, or just the ones who are in power?

I'm going to invent a new word called draggling, and that is how they will extract even more from the ground. Fracking is a stupid word, too, and we never heard of it until they "ran out" of oil the first time.

While that is certainly true (even I have a patent), no amount of IP protection is going to keep knockoffs at bay when the process is literally a miniaturization using a contract manufacturer - probably in China.

Yeah, good luck with "same thing, only smaller".

He needs to sell as many of these as he can in as short a period as possible - there will be no repeat customers because it will take almost no time at all for other companies to copy this thing and undercut his price. There is not much IP here - just a slick miniaturization.

Your personal inconvenience is only one part of what I would use to judge "competence". The airline-hired companies had a lot more incentive to provide customer service, since that is where their bread was buttered. Effectiveness at detecting explosives or firearms would be a very important thing to measure.