Freedom Clip: Clips onto your Keurig over the DRM sensor hole so you don't have to mess with extra foil.

https://www.gourmet-coffee.com...

At least he didn't eat something off his foot this time...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

OpenOffice relies on Java.

IIRC LibreOffice has ripped most of it out so that it's not required, but some "wizards" and other features will be unavailable.

https://wiki.documentfoundatio...

Ask IBM Storage Solutions how fast tech people forget a crappy storage product.

HGST is still fighting the "Deathstar" moniker 12+ years later. I still hear of people who won't touch them with a 10 ft pole, even though besides that one model line they have had a solid performance history both before and after.

Any big company that makes an actual, physical device will use C or C++.

Android? Under the hood it's C++. That Medical Device? C++. Your Water Softener? C++. Your thermostat? C. The industrial controller in roller coasters, factories, power plants, and locks? C++. Pretty much every military system out there? C++ (or Ada...). Pretty much every compiler and Virtual machine out there? Under the hood C or C++.

The Cafeteria at my old work processed all credit transactions at the end of the day in a batch. We had to cancel our credit cards and I accidentally ran the old card through at the cafe. It worked fine, but I got an email the next day asking for me to come down to settle it because the card had been declined.

They weren't processing hundred dollar transactions though, and the risk was low as almost everyone was an employee of the company.

While I in general agree with you, you're conflating the issue between protocols and physical wiring.

DeviceNet, ControlNet, and EthernetIP are all the same protocol (more or less) just over different physical buses.
CANOpen and EtherCAT use the same protocol (more or less) just over different physical buses.

CAN describes a physical layer for CANOpen, DeviceNet, and a few other protocols.
Ethernet is used as the physical layer for EtherCAT, EthernetIP and ProfiNet.

Implant a RFID in both hands of criminals. Have guns detect the RFID, and go "safe" when in range.

Now criminals can't fire guns...

Unless they buy an older, cheaper gun... or surgically remove the RFID.

"Internships usually require students to be in their junior or senior year"

We look for the opposite. We usually won't hire a Senior as an intern (We're engineering so we PAY) as it takes a good half-semester for someone to get up to speed on our stuff. We'll look at a Junior only if they are REALLY good. Usually we interview at the sophomore level and try to get them to work at least 2 summers and a semester (either full time or part time).

We have one intern who's been working continuously (Full & Part time) for 2 years and will get a full time offer to start as soon as he graduates.

What? You're completely discounting Municipal Franchise Agreements.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...

Cable service for most municipalities was put out to bid, and then the highest bidder was granted exclusive rights to run cable. Usually there is a Telephone franchise as well, so that's why most areas have 2 companies: A "Cable" company and a "Telephone" company offering 90% the same services now- they both have local monopoly agreements with the Cities for the areas the service. They used to not overlap services, which is why two franchises were granted. If the Telephone company offered TV service from the get-go (1960's), Cable companies wouldn't have gotten franchise agreements and wouldn't have taken off.

There are some SMALL areas where there are overlapping customers, and this is mostly for historical reasons. Otherwise you'd see urban areas which are split between two companies slowly have expanding service as they expand their "last mile" each time they upgrade service.

Inside the tube it's not atmospheric pressure, as there is no gas in the tube of a proper siphon: it would be Fluid Pressure.

I have an non-rented version of Aereo right now in my house.

I own a TV Antenna in my attic, and a HDHomeRun box that sits in my wiring closet. The TV antenna goes to the HDHomeRun, which then converts the microwatt signal coming out of the antenna a few time, first separating out the channel i want to watch, then digitizing that signal, then streams it over TCP/IP to my HTPC, which then saves it to a HDD for later playback.

If I move it across town and access it via a VPN does it suddenly make it illegal?

The antenna array is exactly what makes it a 1-1, non-public performance of the data. The data I store on my DVR is a unique copy of the data vs the data stored on my neighbor's DVR with the exact same setup. Theoretically, because it's a digital signal once it's decoded the data may look exactly the same, but the data path was unique. If they used one antenna and only encoded each channel once, then they'd be in violation. That's what the Cable channels do now: 1-many performance, which is why they pay retransmission fees.

Last time we were at Barnes and Nobel, we looked at a number of books (we promised my son a new book if he behaved well on our mall trip, which he did).

We looked at several books, but they wouldn't price match Amazon so we left with one book (a cheaper one) and added the rest to my son's Amazon Wishlist instead of buying 2-3 more expensive books.

I'm surprised more bookstores haven't embraced JIT Printing: Don't see what you want on the shelf? We can print & bind it for you in 10 minutes. Make it have the ability to choose paper weight, cover (hard or softcover), font size, etc and you may be able to add enough value to sell it at a higher profit than a mass-market printing. Just being able to offer a back-catalog or out-of-print options is a huge win IMO.

Who gets to choose though?

Do I get to deny coverage to my employees for other legal medications and procedures based on my religious beliefs? There are religions that don't allow blood transfusions. Can I not pay for them? My employees are still able to get them at market rates, I just don't want to pay for them. There are alternatives that would work in a lot of the cases (Saline solution).