So you're saying there's something new now that wasn't possible before?

Well, compare it to the other electric cars, and I don't mean golf carts or the ones that were being built in the 19th century. Compare the Model S to its contemporaries, who can and do use the same battery technology that makes electric cars feasible now. The Model S has a much larger range. The Model S accelerates faster. The Model S doesn't make the annoying high pitched sound the Prius does, and is relatively silent. The Model S looks better. The Model S isn't trying to get its range by being smaller and lighter, and is a nice spacious car. Tesla is making it such that you can drive everywhere it not by compromising and making it a hybrid, but by building an infrastructure of chargers and battery swapping stations.

What's exciting about the Model S isn't that it's an electric car. You're right, there's nothing interesting about that. What's exciting about the Model S is that it's a no compromise electric car. It's not just a great electric car, it's just a great car, period. You can't say that about any other electric car. If they weren't electric, you'd steer clear from them because a short-range, small and heavy vehicle is a horrible idea. But if the Model S was an internal combustion vehicle, people would still want to buy it, at that same price point. It wouldn't be making press, but it would still be a great car.

In terms of competition, verizon buying time-warner is a much bigger deal than the blocked attempt of at&t buying t-mobile. This purchase can't possibly be allowed to proceed.

Please. People still argue over whether men has been to the moon, or whether NASA faked it. The proof is there, but humans are irrational and simply don't accept evidence that goes against what they would like to belief.

I'm fully willing to accept there are things which are untestable. Evolution isn't one of them. The age of the Earth isn't one of them. The age of the universe isn't one of them.

If you want to argue straight out creationism as a literal interpretation of Genesis? Well, every single prediction you can make from that model is directly refuted by every piece of evidence we can dig up. It's exactly equivalent to arguing that the moon landings never happened, it's just stupid.

Do you have a source? Every google article that I hit while searching "HID vs. LED" says that although HID is a bit more efficient (not blow-away efficient) than LEDs at light-generation, there are a ton of losses in the lamp, related to light being reflected back, and absorbed by lenses and protective covering. Comparing actual lumens output from the lamp, instead of generated lumens at the source, LED seems to come out the winner, by a lot.

It's possible I only hit biased sites. This one website listed warmup of 5-10 minutes for HID, but I assume they've solved that problem if they're using them as headlights. I wasn't able to find an HID-favorable source, though.

Correct, and that's true whether the theory is proven or not. The point he was making is that theories don't become laws. They're separate concepts. That evolution happens is a fact, and an observable fact. The details of which mutations happened when, where exactly an extinct species lies in terms of being an ancestor to a current species of part of a failed branch closely related to the said ancestor, the role of epigenetics, these things can be revised. As scientists discover more evidence, they refine those details.

The analogous part you're looking for here would be the law of natural selection. That's a directly observable thing, which is that new species come about as a result of mutation and environmental selection of existing species. Just like the law of gravity, nobody is every going to say gravity doesn't exist, or that evolution through natural selection doesn't exist. The details of how those things happen get refined, but the main thrust of it will never go away any more than Newton's Laws went away with the Theory of Relativity (hey look. Theories superseding laws??? Madness!!)

Buddy, we can reliably quantify so many things about it, it's not even funny. We can build a family tree of species using the same DNA evidence and methods that can be used to build your family tree. We can date fossils at 60 million years old and we can even quantify that uncertainty at about plus or minus a million years. We can quantify the rate of mutations happening in a population. We can examine similarities, and we can tell when certain genes appeared or disappeared. For example, did you know most mammals can make their own vitamin C through absorption of sunlight, as well as vitamin D like we can? Actually, we have that vitamin C creation gene as well. So how come we get scurvy if we don't get vitamin C through our diet? Turns out our vitamin C-making gene is defective, as a result of a mutation. The same defect exists in other primates like chimps. So we can examine the DNA of related species, figure out which ones have the defect and which don't, and you know the mutation first occurred in a species that was the common ancestors to all of those that have the defect, but not all the way back to a common ancestor that encompasses species which do not have a defect, and maintain a working gene.

In a way, there is a lot of confidence in creationism. It's provably wrong, we have 100% confidence in that. It can't be refined into something that works, the fundamental idea is incorrect. In the example I gave above regarding figuring out when a mutation occurred, I could have used an example of an additional feature, instead of the removal of a feature (same method. Compare species that have and don't have the feature, feature must have developed after common ancestor to both groups). I chose that one, because it completely disproves not only creationism, but also intelligent design. A lot of creationists like to say, "of course we have so many similarities in DNA. They were all created by the same creator, who re-used the same genes." But given the vitamin C problem, that creator just happened to make a mistake copying that common gene around to his favored species that is supposed to rule the earth. And before you can say, "maybe he didn't want us to be able to have that feature, because he wanted to force us to eat vitamin C containing fruits," you'll have to explain why he made the same mistake with the non-planet-ruling primates.

Although I agree the Cracked explanation is perfectly plausible and very likely, Occam's Razor says no such thing. It's a pet peeve of mine when people state it that it that way. Occam's Razor makes no claims at all on likelihood of correctness.

What Occam's Razor does say is that when choosing between hypotheses which all give the exact same predictions, you should pick the one that involves less variables. Not because it's more likely to be true than the others (it's not, there's no requirement on nature to make things simple), but because there's no point in doing extra work to achieve the same result. The moment there's any difference at all between the predictions, Occam's Razor can no longer be invoked. At that point, you've got to eliminate theories by attempting to falsify their predictions. For example, if one theory says the incident was the result of an avalanche and another says it wasn't, you should now look for characteristic signs of an avalanche at the site. The evidence should rule out or support an avalanche theory, but "an avalanche is the simpler explanation" isn't evidence for anything.

When you do invoke Occam's Razor is when the hypotheses make no testable difference. For example, you and I examine a black box that allows us to input a number via a keyboard, and watch a screen for an output. We type in 1 and get 3. We type in 24 and get 26. We type in 127 and get 129. Now you develop a hypothesis: "The black box outputs the input plus two." I develop a differnet hypothesis: "the black box first adds 5 to the input, then it subtracts 3." The predictive power of both hypotheses are exactly equal, and you can't devise a test to figure out what the exact computation happening inside the black box is. So, Occam's Razor says we should pick your hypothesis in order to make predictions, because adding the extra work is unecessary. However, it could very well be that my hypothesis is the one that is right...it just doesn't matter.

Well, I gave you the wrong idea about the dialog, if you think that's true. They certainly made the option to "ignore" seem like the worst of all choices, a scary and dangerous decision. If you ever clicked it, it would further nag you about how that was likely to be incredibly unwise and ask you to confirm that option. Then, on every subsequent scan, it would keep flagging that file anyway, and you'd have to ignore it every time.

Personally, I never treated anti-virus software as software to *clean* viruses. I use them for their virus scanner feature, and if they ever come up positive, it's time to reformat the box and start from scratch, hoping your BIOS is clean. The way I see it, if your system has been compromised, your anti-virus could be compromised. I think clicking, "delete" and getting that nice message on how your system is now clean at the end gives the user a dangerous feeling of false comfort. They're really not that much safer than if they had clicked ignore, they're fairly likely to be just as screwed.

Yeah, I'm not all up in arms against Microsoft for deleting this particular program, mind you. If anything I said implied that, then I was unclear in how I phrased my thoughts. Microsoft appeared very responsible in dealing with this particular case, down to contacting the Tor developers and making sure there was no legitimate reason why Tor would ever have been installed in that way. Kudos.

What gives me pause is that they have the capability of choosing to delete anything off a box. Because there's no guarantee they're going to be responsible with that tool tomorrow, and the next thing you know, a false positive gets deleted. I don't think such an action should even be legal, without explicit consent.

Well, that's certainly the Apple philosophy. I'm not saying that disparagingly, and I recognize the advantages of that philosophy, but I will like to point out that it's a preference, not a universal truth. Since you subscribe to it, you're probably very happy with that move to the Mac. I did the Mac thing myself for many years as a result of Apple switching to x86 compatible machines, and as a result of Mac OS X being UNIX. My latest laptop, however, is not an Apple, precisely because I personally hate that Apple philosophy, and it got in my way much more often than it was ever helpful.

I am a software developer. My philosophy, as a developer and as a user, is that a developer doesn't make decisions ever, regardless of whether they're easy or hard. A developer makes suggestions, when the choice appear obvious, in the form of defaults that can be changed in an advanced menu. If it's a hard decision, either because you're not sure what should be chosen, or because the stakes are high (files are going to get deleted, overwritten, the user will have to log out or reboot, etc.), then you don't even pick a default. You ask the question, and allow the user to set his answer as the default in the future, if he so chooses.

Once again, I'm not trying to tell you my philosophy is right and yours is wrong here, I'm just explaining my own preferences. My philosophy is right for me, and I look to use, buy, and create software that abides by it. This is Windows vs. Mac, KDE vs. Gnome stuff...you always have to trade off control for initial user friendliness, and people draw the line of where the cutoff should be differently.

You know, I haven't seen a virus scanner log on any of my computers come up with any positive results since early 2000s, so maybe things have changed. However, the way it was done back then, and the way I assumed it was still done today, is that the anti-virus would flag the potentially malicious files, and then tell you in big red letters, "We detected virus blah. What would you like to do? Ignore / Delete / Quarantine"

In this mode of operation, nothing is being done without explicit user authorization. I actually don't even see anything wrong with having an option for automatically deleting anything that it detects as malicious as long as it's not the default option, which would therefore still be considered an user-authorized action. However, to have any anti-virus software delete files or uninstall software without any consent other than the decision to run anti-virus software is most certainly unacceptable. Even if you disagree with me from an ethical perspective, even looking at it from a practical viewpoint it's a bad idea. After all, there are such things as false positives in virus-scans.

Even if it's difficult to sell the 'appropriate' part, which implies telling them there are lines they shouldn't cross (which I don't think is necessarily possible in militant religious groups of any denomination), I don't understand how we can't convince them that it's not effective. Everyone in the western world is vaccinated against polio, and they can't infect us. They can infect their nearby locations in a weird attempt to go, "nyah-nyah-nyah-nyah-nyah, your vaccination efforts are all for naught!" That strategy isn't likely to gain them much goodwill among the locals though, as they all start noticing that nobody who got vaccinated is getting the disease. They don't even need to notice this by themselves, it's a great vector for propaganda.

Well, I assumed the same, but my own linux install takes up a whole lot more space than that.

Basically, if all you use your box for is browse the web and open some documents, then I don't see why even bother taking Chrome OS out. It does the job, right? Heck, you can also go the tablet route. However, you decided you wanted a laptop, and you decided Chrome OS wasn't enough for your needs. So, what are your needs?

On my linux install, first of all I run gnome 3, which takes up a bunch of space. Then I have Eclipse installed for coding, along with the android sdk. I also have code:blocks for when I'm not doing java. I have Mono and MonoDevelop for C# coding. I store code and associated resources...

Let's say you're not a coder. You're a gamer? Ok, you install Steam and associated games. Wine, probably, in order to run the windows only games. I doubt you could install a single game on that drive, actually.

You like editing video? Again, that's out. It won't be able to store the project files.

I don't get it. What the hell did you install in place of Chrome OS on the 16-32 GB hard drive? That's an impossibly small amount of storage, which is why Chrome OS takes the online apps approach so you don't have to actually install anything.

I don't need to. With very few exceptions, 80's and 90's games are the only ones I play. Every once in a while I make an exception for something modern, like the Mass Effect series or the Arkham Asylum / Arkham City. The rest of the time, I'm playing games like the Genesis Sonic games, Mega Man (I really enjoyed the new Mega Man 9 and Mega Man 10 that Capcom released), Contra, Super Mario Bros, the original Legend of Zelda, Phantasy Star...in terms of computers games I tend to bust out the classic adventure games like King's Quest, Journeyman Project, the Tex Murphy games (really excited about the upcoming one).

I mean, taste isn't objective, and I have no problem with the fact that you like modern games more. I do want to point out that there are people out there who genuinely enjoyed those old games, and we're not motivated by nostalgia, we're not being fooled by rose-colored glasses. I genuinely like those games. I liked them when they were new, and as games evolved, I just didn't like where they were going. I remember when Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, and Quake were coming out, and I remember thinking, "these games are somewhat fun and all, but this 3D stuff is a gimmick, and it's only entertaining because there aren't many games like these. The genre is going to be forgotten in ten years." One of the many times I was utterly wrong about predicting the market, but my personal opinion didn't change. They feel gimmicky and unecessary, and I'd much rather play platformers and 2D adventure games. I remember how much King's Quest VIII angered me, and how I didn't even play it for more than ten minutes because controlling a character around and fighting made it a bad game. I just wanted to solve puzzles and unwrap the story.

Long story short, the types of games I used to enjoy are rarely made anymore, which means I still play the old ones. I'm not looking to have kids, but if I were to have them, they'd definitely be introduced to these old games, just because that's what they'd see me playing. I have no illusions about molding their preferences or anything like that, I know kids will want to play what their friends are playing. That's not a problem, they can play what they like.

Speak for yourself. As a coder, I find the widescreen switch finally made laptops usable for doing. A 4:3 aspect ratio made things impossible for me.

Sure, when I was sitting in a desktop, 4:3's were nice. That's because I always worked with a two-monitor configuration, though. Ever wonder why two-monitor configurations are so popular with coders? You get to code in one screen, have a browser on another screen for reference / browsing / running apps while simultaneously making changes. Then when we had to do work on a laptop, it became minimize / maximize / alt-tab hell.

With widescreen monitors, I get to have my code window taking half the screen, so it's horizontally narrow and doesn't violate the "comfortable 10-12 word limit" you mention. On the other half the screen I can have my browser or whatever else open. It's most of the benefits of a two-monitor in a mobile device. Screw movies, I never watch them on a laptop anyway, I have a TV for that. Widescreen made coding on a laptop not be a pain in the ass. The only complaint was the generally low resolution, but it looks like we're finally breaking out of that.

They may have downloaded the beta, realized the exploit had been patched, and released the jailbreak as a result, before a bunch of people update to 7.1 without thinking.

Pure speculation on my part, but the point is that we should wait to see if they say something about it before complaining that they were impatient. There may have been good reasons.