That's literally my biggest complaint with the new UI...

I can handle the new start menu without much trouble, the active corners are annoying, but tolerable, they massively improved windows explorer, but THE CONTRAST SUCKS!

I used Visual Studio 2012 for a while with the Win 8 Beta, and I just couldn't take it! I couldn't navigate or find anything! And, most of the Metro apps are the same way! The calendar is dark grey on light grey! I could barely see it on my screen, and I can't even imagine it in the bright daylight. It's simply awful.

I work in industry right now, and in this company (100,000+ employees), Microsoft products are the standard - Word, Excel, etc. My last assignment was to write a data-processing application in .NET (my first big project, I'm actually rather proud of it) (Oh, and don't worry, I use C#.net, not VB :P). We managed to reduce a 6-week process to 24 hours. Anyway, that was an extremely niche need. There are about 12 companies in the world who need the same type of application. Just the department I work in uses DOZENS of little programs just like mine, all written for Windows. We won't be changing our business software anytime soon.

The delay may not have been intensional. Other devices have been found which were not detonated.

Now, I'm not an expert on bomb-making, but I do know something about the cell phone network (currently working on a hackerspace project that involves sending data over SMS). When the cell system is congested, SMS messages can be delayed by anywhere from minutes to hours. Now, imagine that our bomber/bombers had used a cell phone for the trigger on the bombs - right as the marathon ends, he/she send the trigger text. However, as the marathon ends there are also hundreds of people, all in the same cell and therefore using the same towers as the bombs would, are texting, calling, etc with the exciting news about who won. Eventually, the cell activity dies down, and the trigger SMS messages get delivered. Boom.

Basically, if the bomber/bombers used the cell network as the method of controlling his/her/their bombs, the delay could have been completely accidental.

Well... given what we know about their nuclear weapons program, this could very well be one of their bombs. It's about par. :P

I added the sarcasm tags to avoid being modded down by the challenged. I don't think this is the work of North Korea, but it wouldn't be too surprising if it was. Although, if it was I expect they would be taking some credit for it.

Yeah. The great thing about humans is that we're pretty damn adaptable, as a whole.

Things like the mini-ice-age in Europe a few hundred years ago, and the dust bowl in the 1930's, didn't mean the end of the human race, and even some of the worst predictions - more storms, higher seas, more rain where there was already too much, less rain where there wasn't enough, etc - won't mean the end. We'll adapt, because that's what we do.

There's a reason humans are on top right now - we can adapt more easily and consciously than any other creature. So, it won't be good, or it could be, or whatever. It won't be the end, just inconvenient.

Well, you already can't do that, so... problem solved.

I really wish I could mod this +1000, insightful.

I was always under the impression that those calls had mostly been made with the massively-overpriced seat-back phones. I could be (and probably am) wrong though.

This is a flawed analogy. A breathalyzer completely prevents a drunk from using a car, while allowing those who are capable of driving to use the car without restriction. What you're proposing by limiting magazine size is more like limiting all car gas tanks to 3 gallons, regardless of the driver, because if you need than 3 gallons to get where you're going, you obviously don't know what you're doing.

Either way, it should be obvious that there are no good analogies for the gun control debate.

The debate is far, far more complicated than {more gun == more murders}. Frankly, there are no truly good models to look at. Americans are different than Europeans, and Australians, and Mexicans, and Canadians. I'm not being racist, or nationalist, the fact is that every culture behaves differently. For example, it is often said that most of the guns used in Mexico are purchased in the USA, making it seem as if the US's relatively lax gun control laws cause the crimes committed in Mexico. This is a fallacy. Canada also borders the US, and the Canadian border is nowhere nearly as controlled as the Mexican border. Yet, Canada does not have a massive violence problem cause by US guns. Canada is, overall, a pretty safe place to live. So, the logical conclusion is that there are far more complicated forces at play.

Canada has a universal health care system, the US has a jumbled mess of different systems and compromises. Perhaps this has something to do with the lower violence?

Canada also has a lower population density. Perhaps that is also a factor?

Frankly, in my opinion, America has a health care problem. Specifically, a mental health care problem. It's hard for those who need help to get it. There is a very negative stigma attached to discussing any type of mental health issue. People will think you're weird, or strange, or dangerous (maybe in some cases you might be). I would wager that there'd be a lot fewer suicides if people weren't afraid to talk about being depressed. It's not about where guns are available - look at Japan, they have a lot fewer guns than we do, and a lot more suicides. It comes down to culture. I comes down to health care. It comes down to the stigma on mental issues. It comes down to the availability of weapons. It comes down to the response speed of the cops. It comes down to poverty. It comes down to class issues. It comes down to racism. There is no simple answer. Life is complicated, people are complicated, and the world is complicated. Make an effort to see without the blinders of fear on your eyes (oh no! Guns!).

I'm a gun owner, and I'm not saying that you're definitely wrong. Who knows, maybe reducing the magazine size will reduce the rate of violent crime? But maybe, just maybe, the issue is far more complex than you think it is. Who knows, maybe the gratuitous violence that tends to pervade parts of our culture is actually a factor? But I would wager a bet any day of the week that a change is the way we handle mental health issues and how we deal with poverty will produce a larger change in violent crime than just about anything else.

Try not to be so narrow minded. Before you attack anyone else's rights, why don't you take a look at the killers, instead of their tools. Because, let's be honest, if someone is seriously contemplating killing as many people as they can, but is unable to because they don't have the tools, we've still lost. It means that our society has produced someone so screwed up that they just want to kill people for no particular reason. Even if they can never accomplish their goal, something is seriously, seriously wrong.

Look at the killers. Look at the traits and issues they have in common. Then, try to make an informed decision.

The important thing here is to choose Ubuntu 12.04. I've tried several different Linux distros, although I am by no means an expert. One thing I noticed is this: I installed Ubuntu 12.10 on my laptop as a dual boot. Immediately afterwards, I regretted it. Nothing worked. I mean, the OS worked fine, but I couldn't get proper support for Flash Player, I couldn't get Skype to install right, the audio was screwy (jumping up and down almost at random, sometimes the audio icon would completely disappear), Chrome wasn't available for it (only chromium, if I remember, which is a fine choice, but I prefer Chrome), it didn't suspend correctly, in short - it was a mess. So, I nuked it and installed Ubuntu 12.04. I haven't had any problems since. I mean, sure, there's the occasional Linux quirk from time to time, and I hardly touch the software store - I just use apt-get. Basically, it's been a really good experience, but Ubuntu 12.10 was crap. This was a few months ago, so I'm sure it's working better now, but my advice is simple: Use 12.04 LTS.

No one expects the Spanish Inquisition...

I'm currently a sophomore pursuing an engineering degree. During high school, tech in the classroom was the next big thing, and it's the same here at college.

I've had the opportunity (misfortune) to use quite a few different systems over the years - BlackBoard, Sakai, McGraw-Hill Connect, WebAssign... and out of all of those I have only found these services to be useful for two things -

1) Submitting papers online - it is much more convenient (and environmentally friendly?) to submit our essays and papers online, just uploading them to Sakai or Dropbox or whatever than it is to print them out and hand them in.

2) This is where technology has actually been really useful - Math Homework - my college assigns all of our math homework through WebAssign. Basically, we sign in, and it gives all of us students similar problems, but with somewhat randomized constants (e.g. I see "integrate this from 0 to 3", but for my friend it will be "integrate this from 0 to 4" etc). The nice thing is the way the system grades our answers - it actually evaluates our answers to see if they are mathematically equal to the desired answer (within certain limits, for example if it asks me to integrate something, I can't just put in the integral, I actually have to do the work) so, basically if the answer is Pi/3, it will also accept 3Pi/9, etc.

Using WebAssign for our math homework is by far the best use of technology I have ever seen in a classroom. It will let us try up to 5 times to answer each problem correctly, and we get instant feedback on our answers.

Using technology in the classroom only goes so far, in my opinion BlackBoard added nothing at all to my high school english class, it just meant that I had one more site to check for homework ever night. I didn't even like doing our chemistry homework online - the system was far to picky, if you have to draw a diagram of a molecule and your diagram wasn't oriented the same as the system was expecting it would just mark it wrong, even if the molecule was accurately drawn.

I don't blame professors at all for ignoring a lot of the technology they have at their disposal, many times it only makes life more difficult for them and their students, and moving the class homework online very rarely adds anything to the class. However, when technology is used correctly, it can make a HUGE difference - online work is the reason I passed Algebra 101 in community college.

Neither do 99% of the gun owners in the US.

Sounds legit to me! Everyone knows you can't tell a lie on the internet, and the Government would never ever lie to us!

Oh look, it got modded to zero AGAIN. Maybe you should take the hint - the problem isn't a few "humourless assholes"... the problem is that what you said is fucking idiotic.