Why do you hope for that? Microsoft pretends to reinvent itself regularly, but one thing remains constant through the decades: Their goal has unswervingly been lock-in from top to bottom, while trying to nickel and dime you the whole way.

For nerds, this means locking you into their programming languages (e.g., VB or C#), or if not that, at least lock you into their APIs (so that you're as good as locked in, even if you're using C or C++). It means abandonment of entire domains that no longer suit them (look up how woefully out-of-date and ignored the C part of their C/C++ compiler is).

It means locking you into their platforms, whether that be the operating system (Windows) or the browser (Internet Explorer).

It means high prices (have you seen the prices on Windows Server and/or Microsoft Azure lately?), which is not-at-all nerd-friendly. It means guaranteed stagnation in those domains where they achieve dominance. It means product churn for the sake of profits. It means ignoring customers and forcing bad implementations on them (*cough*Metro*cough*) and then taking forever to admit it was a mistake and fix it (when is Windows 9 due out? Next year sometime?).

Just because some new-boss-same-as-the-old-boss is singing some unicorns-and-rainbows song doesn't mean the core of Microsoft is going to change. They're still after the same things they've always been after: Lock-in so severe that the pain of escape ensures most people remain slaves, and profits, profits, profits.

If you think you have nothing to hide, you should probably spend a bit of time studying the history of the FBI. Leading an exemplary life has never been a protection from them, if they suspect you may be part of whatever conspiracy is popular at the time. A few decades ago, it was Communists, and having no connection to any Communist organization was never protection from them or their colleagues in organizations like HUAC. It's quite clear that the "anti-terrorist" push nowadays is no more concerned with whether you have anything to hide; if they need a scapegoat and you're handy (perhaps because your name is vaguely like some name on one of their lists), they'll go after you and make your life a hell on Earth.

Having "nothing to hide" is one of the most naive misconceptions going around, and has been for at least a century. Dig into the history of the FBI and assorted other similar organizations. Google can find a lot of it for you. Then come back and tell us again whether you have anything to hide.

(And they probably already have a copy of your pron collection, added to their own. ;-)

Now, now; that's a feature of humanity that's spread quite evenly throughout all societies. Yes, it's the American way, but it's also the British way and the Italian way and the Iranian way and the Chinese way and the Tahitian way and ...

Americans have no particularly valid claim on assholeness (assholicity? assholitude?). Look around yourself, and if you don't see any, it's probably because it's you.

Actually, here in the US not one person in a million can tell you anything at all about what fascism stood for. The term is now just one of a growing list of political insult terms with no actual content.

Of course, the fraction of Americans who can actually define socialism or liberalism or any other -ism isn't much larger than one in a million. Such terms are really just the modern equivalent of tribal names. You're expected to hate anyone with a label different from yours, but you're not expected to actually know the meaning of any of the labels. Once you understand this situation, American political rhetoric becomes much more comprehensible.

If you're a pilot who's "airspace" includes a volume in which a fireworks display is scheduled, please informs us of that fact, because I don't think I'd ever want to be a passenger in a plane controlled by a pilot like you. The possibility that your plane might hit a drone would be the least of my worries. ;-)

Wait; there were jet aircraft flying through the fireworks display's volume? How did the drone miss getting a picture of that? That'd have been really fun to watch, especially when the fireworks started hitting the airplane.

(Given that there was a fireworks display going on in that airspace at the time, I'm kinda doubtful that there were any pilots in the area who weren't well aware of them. And I also sorta doubt that there were any children running around under the fireworks. That's usually strongly discouraged at fireworks displays, and this one was over water. ;-)

It seems to me that if you were to forgo the complexity of automated driving on the byways, highway-only algorithms and equipment would be much easier to deploy. If I owned a shipping company, either locating my endpoints near a major highway or having a human driver take over at waypoints located near a major highway would still make this option extremely advantageous. I've said for a long time that I would much rather be driving next to an automated vehicle that only experiences an "incidents" once every 100,000 miles or so, verses next to my fellow humans who -- these days -- seem to experience "incidents" every few miles.

I've been mostly pleased with Feedly and I even pay them the $5 per month that I and thousands of other's offered to pay Google to keep Reader alive. My motivation is split between an appreciation for a smooth migration of my feeds and decent product and, honestly, partly out of spite that Google would not take my money. Assuming the 24K number is correct and all of those users are on the same plan (do they have more than one plan?), that represents nearly $1.5 million dollars per year, if my math is correct. It still puzzles me why Google wouldn't accept this direct funding and keep Reader going.

I've heard this conjecture before, and it certainly seems to make sense. Can anyone point to any evidence that this might be true?

Scones. They get cooked at around 230C, as do a number of other baked goods.

We renovated last year, and as part of it, we replaced all the light fittings in the house and changed all the globes to LEDs.

The globes may have cost more, but they have a significantly lower energy consumption.

+50 this. If you want a real foundation that can make you a really damn good programmer in college and beyond, try to get an intro into Discrete Math. I'm sure that through iTunes U and other places online there are likely videos and instruction on Discrete Math if there are not any courses available to a HS student.

Computer Science != chugging out code. Anyone who has actually gone through a Computer Science degree (I'm nearly done with mine) will tell you that it's not purely writing code. Analyzing algorithms and computational complexity, doing Math up to or beyond Linear Algebra, Set Theory, and Theory of Computation, and possibly (depending on chosen electives) learning about Cryptography, Database Design, and Artificial Intelligence indicates that learning about how computers work, what code does, how important it is to have efficient algorithms, and the real life applications of coding all is encompassed in Computer Science.

I think there is a gross misunderstanding in society of what skills a CS Grad takes from their degree. To be honest, when I was in High School (96-00) there was no such thing as an AP Computer Science class or test (at least not at my HS) so I don't know how much the class focuses on stuff other than coding, but I can tell you that if someone goes from HS to College expecting a CS Degree program to essentially be a bunch of classes about chugging out a bunch of lines of javascript, they'll get a nice swift kick in the ass the first time they take an Algorithm Analysis class and realize all of the math and proofs involved.

Don't disagree that CEOs are too highly compensated for their jobs more often than not in large corporations. What's that got to do with women in STEM?

Well, yeah, but except for reproduction, most of the differences are essentially trivial. The differences we see are primarily of social origin, not genetic. It is often pointed out that the differences within each sex have a much greater variance than the differences between the sexes. Male and female humans are much more similar to each other than they are to individuals of the same sex in the closest related species (the "great apes" such as chimps, bonobos and gorillas.

It has been often pointed out that the top North American and European female athletes in many sports currently have better performance statistics than the top males in the same sport 50 or so years ago. This supports the claim that the differences are primarily of social origin, not genetic.

There's a useful example of the difficulty of using sports to excuse sexism: American basketball gives a strong advantage to taller players. This is why the pro teams are all male (and now mostly black ;-). But it also excludes 99% of the male population along with 100% of the females. The sensible thing would be to do like the boxing sport has done: Establish height-specific basketball leagues. This would enlarge the sport, and give us some very good players who now can't play on the pro teams at all. And it would likely show a familiar pattern: After some years, we'd have female basketball players who are as good as their male counterparts of the same height. (This idea isn't at all original with me; others have also suggested it. But the sports "industry" ignores it. ;-)

Again, aside from questions involving sexuality, there is little if any evidence that these differences are genetic and not social. Human societies tend to impose radical differences in education from birth. If you want to claim that the observed mental differences are genetic and not social, you can't just make the claim without explaining why they can't be the result of social conditions. And again, the larger variance within each sex than the difference between the sexes argues that the observable differences are only slightly genetic, and mostly caused by different socialization and education.