I did answer the question, and explained it in great detail "this is how you do it". I never dodged any questions. They also wanted to know how to setup and administer the Mascot Server (www.matrixscience.com). I told them that too. They didn't want to to pay for vendor training. It was cheaper to put me on a plane and fly me across the country than to pay for vendor training on the mass spectrometer and the Mascot Server.

I'm a pharmaceutical scientist and have personally experienced this last year. A biotechnology company flew me across the country and picked my brain to explain how to setup and analyze and characterize proteins by liquid chromatography mass spectrometry. Different people asked me the same questions over and over again inquiring about setting up the mass spectrometer acquisition parameters. I even tried to explain other relevant experience, they didn't want to hear it, all they wanted was to know how to acquire the data to identify as many proteins as possible in a series of samples.

being named "Steve" too, doesn't quite get you there. You, Steve Ballmer, must understand that YOU and Steve Jobs are very different people with completely different goals and objectives, and your company's [Micorsoft] performance reflects these differences. Accept your path for what it is: Microsoft is not a company hell-bent on enabling the individual person exploring and enhancing creative endeavors, Microsoft is a very corporate-business-driven entity best suited for large scale business operations, such as Office and networking. MS has a track record for failure in the consumer segment [who the hell owns a Zune? - a clunky brown piece of shit - if it was worth having, the market would have selected for it] except for the X-box platform. Stop wasting investors' money and stick with what you're [MS] is good at: business software and integrating it together. Face it Steve, Jr., you're not even close to Jobs and you're getting yourself into an area where you're going to fail again. No one is ever going to put an MS logo on their car, college office door, laptop, etc... MS doesn't have the "coolness factor" and never will, YOU'RE ALL MISSING THE POINT, YOU NEVER HAVE 'GOTTEN IT', AND NEVER WILL! Apple doesn't compete in your market, why do you think you can accelerate past some of the brightest minds in the tech industry? Being a pharmaceutical scientist, I can liken Apple as the Discovery Research aspect of the high-tech world, Microsoft is more the Development segment of something that is passed through the pipeline, something more established. Microsoft would have to completely disassemble its way of thinking and come around to opening truly creative thinking and implementing it without being diluted and combobulated with the current MS corporate culture. What you seek you do not possess - it's like an average student wanting very badly to enroll in honors courses, yes, you want it, but you don't have what it takes to succeed or get there, you are pursuing an area completely out of your league. And "developers, developers, developers, developers" isn't going to cut it, MS is certainly not on the cutting edge of creativity or technological [both software and hardware] innovation. No college graduate is beating down the doors of Microsoft screaming "I want to beat down Apple! Just give me enough money an I'll do it." Rather, those graduates are employed by Apple, until they burn out, then the next crop comes in. You're going to continue to get second-hand A-players who are either burnt-out from working at Apple, or who never made there to begin with. Stick with what you're good at: MAKING BUSINESS SOFTWARE. Pursue market areas where MS is going to have dominance and continued success - FOCUS, DON'T DILUTE. I can always make a ruckus at the next shareholders meeting, and believe me Steve, I'll step up to the microphone and give you a piece of my mind.

I'm a 43 year old scientist, and recently started working in New York City. I discovered analog mechanical watches back in the early 1990's and really liked the idea of a self-winding accurate time piece due to not requiring a battery, appreciation of mechanical engineering, and a little style. Now working in New York City and receiving some fashion style advice from a coworker helping to increase my chances of finding Mrs. Right, she has steered me in the right direction. Guys, girls notice you how you look too, and this includes the clothes you wear, your confidence, the shoes you wear, and the watch you wear. Yes, wearing a watch in times where everyone has a cell phone is redundant but it also says some about YOU, and the ladies will notice this. Go buy a good analog mechanical time piece and pass it along in the family for a few generations. Take very good care of it and it won't necessarily go down in value either. I have a nice small collection of vintage American pocket watches, one of which is a Waltham Appleton Tracy & Co. railroad watch. American railroad pocket watches are rather accurate time pieces for the time period. I would like to get a watch with a Tourbillon, but these are out of my price range. Here are some helpful links: http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Price-Watches-Cooksey-Shugart/dp/1574324594/ref=dp_ob_title_bk http://www.zenith-watches.com/en/#/home/ http://www.iwc.com/en-us/ And for the financially successful Geek with money to burn: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AlD0cMHGIM Enjoy your new watch and appreciate the design, time, and engineering that went into making it. It might even help get you a girl.

"Police Vulture Training Not a Success" This title sounds like this article was mis-filed and really belongs on "The Onion."

This IS SO WRONG! GE must be filled with corporate hungry capitalists willing to sacrifice the well-being and safety of the United States of America! I hope some American politicians wake-up and have the balls to challenge this corporate giant. Idiots - they never learn from others' experience - they must experience for themselves at OUR expense. Where is the USA government protecting the people and interests of our country and the TAX PAYER?

Don't pay the termination fee! Tell them you lost your job and your destitute. What are they going to do, pursue to the ends of the Earth and the end of your life? Big deal, they'll send threatening letters from collection agencies, and they'll ding your credit rating. So what! Your credit rating isn't worth as much these days in a bad economy. And over time you can rebuild it.

I was laid-off from the largest pharmaceutical company in the world in a round of massive lay-offs, lost my home to a short sale (yes, you, the American tax payer are paying for my mortgage), and after speaking with Certified Financial Advisors and Mortgage Crisis Counselors, Banks, companies, etc... have very little recourse to pursue you unless you owe many 10 of thousands or millions of dollars. If you don't have the money, you don't have the money. If you don't want to pay the termination fee, then don't pay it. Verizon will not spend the money to hunt you down, drag you into court, or have a State Marshall serve you with papers to report to court.

The key to losing weight is the control of metabolism. Acetyl-Coenzyme A Carboxylase (ACC) converts acetyl-CoA to malonyl-CoA, where malonyl-CoA is the first committed step in fatty acid biosynthesis. Malonyl-CoA inhibits mitochondrial fatty acid oxidation through feedback inhibition of mitochondrial carnitine palmitoyltransferase (CPT1), and therefore plays key roles both in controlling the switch between carbohydrate and fatty acid utilization in liver and skeletal muscle and also in regulating insulin sensitivity in the liver, skeletal muscle and fat. Inhibition of acetyl-coenzyme A carboxylase not only switches metabolism from lipogenesis to whole-body fatty acid oxidation, it also prevents the synthesis of triglycerides which contribute to atherosclerosis, a leading cause of cardiovascular disease.

Useful links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acetyl-CoA_carboxylase#cite_note-pmid9449982-1

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malonyl-CoA

Sorry I wasn't more specific, hemoglobin will not transport CO2 by binding to the iron in the heme macrocycle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heme) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macrocycle). I did my graduate work in metallated porphyrin chemistry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porphyrin). And thank you for pointing out the Bohr effect. I didn't expect the discussion to get 'this' technical, but it was nice to see the interest.

As an experienced scientist, placing any form or CO2 in water is a very bad idea. Eventually it will change states from solid to gas or from solid to dissolved in water, which then is known as carbonic acid. This is exactly how your body deals with CO2, it is dissolved in your salty blood, where it is expelled as a gas from the lungs. Only hemoglobin transports oxygen to the tissues, it does not transport CO2 in any way shape or form. CO2 will influence the affinity oxygen has for hemoglobin, and in the presence of higher concentrations of carbonic acid, hemoglobin more readily releases oxygen to the surrounding tissues. Hemoglobin will also transport CO, carbon monoxide, but the binding is through carbon-metal (iron) back bonding, not through the oxygen. I didn't even mention the unknown effects this would have on marine life.

The only way to curb CO2 in the atmosphere is to stop burning fuel and let natural vegetation grow. This also means letting forests GROW and not clear cutting for land development, wood, and paper.

Potentially a great idea, but what happens when the opposition/enemy figures out how to block/jam the First-Person-View Fly-By-Wire carrier waves used to control these planes? YouTube has some excellent videos on First-Person-View model airplane flying with conventional technology for the home hobbyist. Just type in 'FPV RC plane' to get a list of videos. I suppose if the enemy/opposition were to block the carrier waves, they would be lobbing bombs at themselves in a very uncontrolled manner.

YouTube videos of very fast Saab 93s:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2IJeMgcvTs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZTySckvN5I&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abTnQ-N4WNk&feature=related

Turbochargers are the most efficient way to increase torque in any engine, even more efficient than superchargers.

I remember reading quite some time ago that some cars, specifically with turbochargers, and the right computer programming can reap some benefit of using alcohol. Saab, where most if not all of their cars are turbo charged, in the last few years has a smart computer that can tell what type of fuel being burned and adjusts the boost accordingly. Don't know if the extra boost required to reap the benefits of EtOH causes more wear and tear, but I would suspect so. Diesel and bio-diesel are better alternatives to gasoline, especially since diesel is made differently now. The Volkswagon Jetta with a 4-cylinder turbo diesel (2.0L) can accelerate as fast as a V6 and it doesn't produce all of the black exhaust that diesels of yesteryear did. Diesel engines are more expensive to build because of the high heat and torque they produce.

I think the American auto industry needs to wake up and start engineering its vehicles for the highest mileage possible by using diesel and hybrid and stop reducing the amount of plastic and sound insulation in cars. It's easy to reduce weight by cutting plastic and sound insulation, which leads to interiors falling apart prematurely and driving the public to foreign vehicles.

I own a 1999 Saab 93 and really like the car - low maintenance, but service is expensive. Also, it's not rusting anywhere. Recently Yahoo recommended Saab and Volvo as excellent cars to own long-term because, well, they last a long time and are built well. YouTube has a few videos of some suped-up Saabs in drag races. One, is a recent All-Wheel Drive 2000-year body style that fries all 4 tires most spectacularly - and it's done with a 4-cylinder turbocharged engine.

I don't eat much "processed" foods. No colas, sodas, candy bars, cheezy puffs, etc... What I do eat are home cooked natural foods with locally grown herbs and spicies. Hell I make my own bread - no high fructose corn syrup in there. The important lesson here kids is start making food you can't find at the local grocer.

I almost for got to mention - I look 15 years younger than most people my age.

AdBlocker Plus exists for the purpose of helping people navigate the web without being inundated with obtrusive flash-based pointless graphics bandwidth-hogging advertisements that don't pertain to my interests. I understand that companies need to make money, but somehow Google and its text-based ads manage to be unobtrusive and are more likely to pertain to my interests. I've clicked on more Google text-based ads than flash-based ads. To me, all these flash-based ads on CNN and other websites are like going to New York City and trying to find the addresses of businesses you're trying to seek, which is one reason why having a Garmin GPS unit is very helpful for those in unfamiliar places.

My message to the advertising world: Change your ways and get away from the 'ALL IN YOUR FACE' advertising on the web, because if you don't, you'll go the way of the dinosaur. Understand that at this time more than any other, people's time is worth more than in the past. If you're going to advertise, do so unobtrusively and intelligently, like Google, or even besting Google. Trying to find the information we need while being bombarded with flashy graphics is very distracting, which is why I'm a strong advocate of AdBlock Plus. I hope the author of AdBlocker Plus does not change the FireFox Plugin, forcing the advertising industry to change the way it advertises. A simple Bolded text headline will do, with an unbolded paragraph below explaining in more detail the service/product being offered.

Nothing pisses me off more than my time being wasted and attention distracted. The advertising world needs to respect people, and if it doesn't, then more really useful plugins like AdBlocker Plus will become mainstream. Here's another note to web administrators and advertisers: If I can't circumvent the obtrusive flash-based advertisements, I stop going to that website. Seriously, the industry needs to change.

Also, Kudos to NoScript!

OK, end of my rant/tirade.