True. So *you've* consented.

But you're not the only party, no matter who owns the car. Has the other party consented? In some states, as long as one party has consented, you're fine. But in many states, that's not enough.

Standard starting salary for a lecturer (non-tenure track) at the largest public university system (California State University) in the US is around $45k.

Just for comparison.

Well, you're right there. But are people actually using Gnome 3 or Unity? :) As far as that goes, are people actually using Windows 8?

Also, just out of curiousity, do proprietary drivers for Windows also do the same kind of regression for old hardware that we see in Linux? I don't mess with Windows enough to know.

Of course, when switching from one version of Windows to another version of Windows, the cost of training the average city employee to use that new version of Windows could buy you a dozen copies of Windows. Especially if you're factoring in training on the newer versions of Office.

The interface changes between Microsoft versions are as radical (or more radical) than the interface changes in transistioning between XP and Linux.

Exactly. It was an option on the Ford I bought a year and a half ago -- the difference is that if you completely take your hands off the wheel it will give you a few seconds of operation before it alerts and tells you to pull over, you're too tired to drive. It was intended to help keep you from drifting lanes, not to do the driving for you, but it's really the same technology.

It sounds like GM has decided that it's reliable enough they don't have to cut you off after a few seconds. Or maybe that the public has more confidence in this type of technology since it's been in the news more.

I think they did you a favor. My point is that ICS on hardware that can't support it is pretty unpleasant to live with. I really wish they had *not* decided to upgrade the Bionic to ICS. Evidently they considered the Bionic to be powerful enough to justify the upgrade.

They were wrong.

I agree about locking the bootloader -- at one point they promised "no more locked bootloaders." I think their arguments later were in the category of, "Oh no, *we* didn't lock the bootloader, it was the carrier."

It's the miles of separation that's the biggest issue. If I'm in the air and I see another aircraft a mile away I think I've cut it pretty close.

The best pilot in the world flying as close to me as I routinely experience in ground traffic would scare the bejeezus out of me. Yeah, the Blue Angels can do it, but even they don't spend a lot of time going in opposite directions at those distances.

Personally, I've never understood all the rancor directed at Motorola (or anyone else) because they didn't roll out the latest version of Android immediately. My OG Droid got updated (eventually) past its hardware's ability to handle it, as did my Bionic. Some of the early Droid updates really did address some serious problems, but most of the updates were more along the lines of "Ooh, shiny!" and weren't substantively better. I was very sorry to get ICS on my Bionic -- it became painfully slow, almost unusable. Gingerbread worked very nicely.

My daily ritual for the last 6 or 7 months has been to deny Motorola's request to upgrade my Droid Maxx to KitKat. The Maxx under Jelly Bean has been by far the best phone I've ever owned. All reports about KitKat indicate that it is a step down. Less battery life, removal of features like OTG USB mounts, a less useful interface, etc.

Motorola has been pretty quick to get those updates out, and I wish they hadn't.

My 89 Acura had it on a 5 speed.

You bring up a very good point, and that is console sessions. Swype convinced me to drop the hardware keyboard (I stopped using the physical keyboard on my OG Droid almost immediately after discovering Swype.) But Swype is *not* particularly good for console use (especially the beta version a few years ago that insisted on capitilizing the 'I' in exIt)
On the other hand, the Hacker's Keyboard gives me access to contol keys, alt keys, and so on, more than the old hardware keyboard ever did. And I can switch between keyboards trivially. Hacker's Keyboard if I'm using ssh, Swype for everything else.

My first smartphone was the OG Droid, and one reason I went for it was that it had a hardware keyboard.

Then I found the Swype beta, and the hardware keyboard was never used again.

That's been my experience as well. Base install of Mint might take 15 or 20 minutes, futzing around to get just the desktop setup I want maybe an hour or two. Cloning the result to different hardware is no problem under Linux, but has always been a problem under Windows.

When I create a base Windows machine to clone, now *that's* a time sink.

Author Eric Flint makes the argument that it takes practice to get good at anything, including writing. If we want good quality creative work (books, music, etc.) then we have to create an environment where authors and musicians and other creative types can actually make a living while creating.

If they can't, it doesn't mean we won't have books or music, but it does mean we won't have *good* books or music. Plenty of "idiots who want to try" can and will step up to publish albums or books, but Sturgeon's Law will have to be revised to say "99.9% of everything is crap."

When I was a poor college student driving a VW bug I had a great manual on everything to do with working on VWs. A hippie classic.

The author thought that everyone should be driving a VW bus, "spread-eagled across the front like an Aztec sacrifice." He figured that would bring the accident rate down sharply.

About 40 years ago (when I was a college student) I was pulled over in Michigan while on a freeway.

The cop had three beefs with me:
1) I was exceeding the speed limit.
2) I was in the left lane traveling slower than the flow of traffic and he wanted me to move right.
3) I had out of state plates.

Number three was the one he was most upset about. He didn't write me up for any of them, but gave me quite a talking to.