It seems like NVIDIA have decided to become more "open" as of late releasing various pieces of documentation and header files as well as NVIDIA guys participating in the Nouveau mailing list. They are also working on the best way to make the firmware for their cards available for the Nouveau developers to use and distribute.

Do you see this as a sign that NVIDIA have genuinely changed their attitude towards Open Source or do you think this is just the actions of a company desperate to get more companies to use their Tegra SOCs?

We have the same problems of high rents, lack of housing stock, builders of apartments targeting the higher end in order to maximize profits, people unable to afford to buy properties and governments that won't do anything to solve the problem (whether that be by removing red tape and increasing the supply of land, reform of planning policies so its easier to get new residential developments approved, reform of zoning rules to encourage developers to build higher density, changing tax and other laws to stop the investment property speculation bubble or whatever else)

The real problem is that the systems contain hardware that isn't compatible with the standard Windows drivers yet is still showing up in a way that Windows will think it is and will pull drivers via Windows Update.

USB (even USB 3.0) is a documented standard that is supported out-of-the-box by Windows (and is likely part of the Intel chip-set they are using in the laptop), why would it need special drivers?

Too bad Section 1706 of the Tax Reform Act of 1986 makes doing that very hard (at least not if you want to not get in trouble with the IRS)

The replacement for airplane fuel is biofuels (made in a way that doesn't hurt the planet due to their production). A number of airlines have flown (and continue to fly) aircraft using biofuels (either 100% biofuel or biofuel/regular jet fuel blends). Even the US military has flown a number of test flights with biofuels of various sorts.

I thought I was a guru level C++ programmer (I have been programming C++ for around 2 decades) but even I am constantly finding out about new things I didn't know existed.

Ummm, I think Danial Andrews (current premier of Victoria who has just green-lit a MAJOR rail tunnel right under the Melbourne CBD) would disagree with what you said about parties that only build roads, roads and more roads.

But I do agree that in general governments in this country (at all levels) don't care about public transport anywhere near as much as they should (or anywhere near as much as they do in big cities elsewhere in the world)

If you think its only happening in the USA, I suggest you visit Australia. Many parts of Australia are being artificially held back from the kind of higher density inner city living that is badly needed (mostly by NIMBYs who don't want to see apartment towers in "their" suburbs and by backwards thinking planning bodies and councils)

They do when their boss says "we need you to be in xyz by tomorrow to visit a customer, you have 3 hours to go home, pack some bags and get to the airport in time for your flight in zero-legroom-class on bargain-airlines-r-us, if you dont like it you can go find another job"

What the government should do is:
1.Eliminate laws like the Wright Amendment (that restricts what airlines can do when flying out of Dallas Love Field, Fort Worth Meacham and Addison in order to protect Dallas/Fort Worth International) and any other similar restrictions (such as restrictions on the size or gate count of airports and restrictions on which airlines can fly to/from a given airport and where they can fly from/to). Let unrestricted competition rule and let the most efficient airports (and the ones that can offer the lowest cost in airport fees to the airlines) survive
2.Eliminate the laws that prohibit foreign ownership of domestic airlines and allow any airline to fly on any domestic route as well as the laws limiting which airlines can fly on which international routes. Let unrestricted competition rule and if some carries cant handle the increased competition from new players, they don't deserve to be in business
3.Reduce red tape and regulations so that US-based carriers aren't disadvantaged by #2 above (i.e. every carrier regardless of where they are based or who owns them would be on a level playing field)
4.Eliminate all subsidies to the airline industry. If there are specific air routes that aren't viable without subsidies but where there is a genuine need for air service on the route, offer any airline willing to fly that route a subsidy for flying it (so that all the little towns don't loose their air service because its unviable to fly there without a subsidy). Allow a level playing field where all airlines have to compete on their own merits without subsidies (any airline that can't survive without government subsidies doesn't deserve to say in business and if no airline can survive without the subsidies then there is something wrong with the system as a whole that needs to be fixed so the costs for everyone come down and they become viable)

There are a bunch of reasons why a switch back to animal fats isn't going to happen.
First is lobbying by the likes of Monsanto (who produce all the GM crops that go into the oils like Canola and Soybean that will still get used as part of the oil mix even with the trans-fat ban)
Second is the years of anti-animal-fat FUD that has to be overcome to convince people that animal fat is somehow OK.
And third is pressure from vegetarian groups who pushed some of these chains to ditch animal fats in the first place.

Except that even if you use only music where you have explicit permission from the copyright holder (Creative Commons or otherwise) the rights enforcement goons will still come after you and sue you (and since they are much bigger and more powerful they will probably win or at least make it too expensive to fight rather than settling)

Congress cuts funding for a program that (at least on the SpaceX side) is well advanced in producing a man-rated booster and capsule to replace the Russian rides to the ISS and yet they INCREASE funding for a program that has yet to even produce a full-size prototype, doesn't have a proper mission yet, just some thought bubbles AND is costing far more than it would cost if you just said "this is what we want the rocket to do, who can build it for us"

I think there are 2 things going on here.
First is that there is an election comming up and the votes of a bunch of ATK workers in Utah who have been promised jobs in the SLS program to replace the jobs they had in the shuttle program are somehow important enough to matter (which is a reflection on just how broken the US political system is). Hence the increase in funding for SLS to get it to the "actually building stuff" phase much faster. (and to assure the workers in question that their jobs are safe)

And second is that SpaceX has the lead in producing a crew rated capsule right now (their crew capsule and rocket are a modified version of the capsule and rocket they are launching to the ISS already whereas Boeing has to develop a capsule from scratch) so the cut in funding and the delay is a chance to give Boeing time to catch up (since Boeing is too politically and economically important to allow SpaceX to win this race on its own)

I have a Core 2 Duo E6400 as the CPU in my main box. Its old and I want a Core i7 but I dont NEED one for the things I do. I did recently upgrade with a new Samsung SSD 840 EVO 250GB SSD and a new NVIDIA GeForce GTX750 which (combined with a complete reinstall of Windows) has made my system feel almost like new again, much faster than it was.

I have heard it said that upgrading from any kind of spinning disk to an SSD is the number one way to get more performance out of a computer and I 100% agree on that. Even though its not a top-of-the-line SSD or a top-of-the-line motherboard, its still much faster on things like app startup and windows bootup than it used to be.

What will probably get me to upgrade is when a game I want to play (like the new Fallout game they just announced) requires more CPU than my system can deliver.

Assuming the cameras are sufficient resolution to capture the small defects before they become larger defects (or cause a failure) and assuming there is still a way to a human to get up there and look at something if the photos aren't clear enough and there are still questions, I see no problem with this.