And how do you suggest I pick the time to set my timer to, given that drying time is variable when I use the dryness sensor of my dryer.

If you don't want to pay for it, buy a cheap dryer. I'd rather have a high-end one.

Disagreed - I DO want an intelligent dryer. That's not to say I want a heavy-weight OS or the ability to browse the internet on it, but my dryer is in my basement and I can't hear the buzzer. I DO want my smartphone to notify me when the cycle is done so I can go get the clothes. Nerd-things, like being able to see current temp/humidity inside would be a bonus, but just to know when it's done would be a huge selling point.

Disclaimer: I haven't shopped for a dryer in a few years - perhaps this exists now. It didn't when I last looked.

I work for a small company that manufactures things. We have had the same product build by 3 different Contract Manufacturers (CMs) - 1 in the US, 1 in India, 1 in China.

India CM:
Downright horrible. Build quality was horrible. Constantly missed deadlines and turned small problems (that were known ahead of time) into crisis by not telling us until it was too late

US CM:
"OK" - better than the India CM, but still had manufacturing issues. Most expensive

China CM:
Very good - cheapest and best quality

We are a US based company, FWIW. The language and time barriers can be challenging, but we have gotten the best pricing and build quality out of China.

I work for a company that does this for one of our products (not our main product, but a mobile app) simply because the app would otherwise be unprofitable. We typically sell the app or $3, and this app is to control an external device (not ours), so can require some configuration of the customer's environment. It's not something simple like a game, but it actually interacts with other things on the customer's network.

It's not a great situation, but there's just no way to support the users that need help setting up port forwarding on their router, re-configuring AV software, etc, on a $3 app. If we provided regular 1:1 support on a $3 app, it wouldn't make business sense for us to sell the app. If we raised the price to something like $20, I'd bet no one would buy it and we would STILL have many customers that want their hand held through everything.

Funny...you think tech companies drug test. I worked for MS for 5 years - I *NEVER* heard of an FTE there getting a drug test, even on hire. I never took one. I've since left and work for another tech company. Most of the owners (it's a ~30 person company) know I smoke, and I've smoked with some of them. I have friends at Apple, Google, and Amazon. Again, no drug tests.

Tech companies basically can't drug test - they would have to fire 1/2 of their employees.

Coreboot still applies microcode "binary blobs" from CPU vendors, so this still isn't truly free - http://www.coreboot.org/FAQ#Is_coreboot_applying_x86_microcode_patches.3F

I own an Asus WinRT tablet - I actually love the tablet software, but hate the hardware. I say this as a person that owns multiple other tablets (2 Android tablets, a HP Touchpad, and brought but returned an iPad) WinRT is "enough" Windows to be useful that I can use it in place of a laptop in a pinch, but still enough tablet. My beef is the Asus hardware sucks, such as:
Poor design (dock connector digs into my hand, needs adapter for USB port, etc)
Poor reliability (3 warranty repair trips, including one time it didn't even work when it came back)
Poor support (Warranty turnaround time slow, have to provide my own box/pay for shipping, etc)

I very much like Windows RT, but hate the Asus tablet and wish I bought an MS Surface. Asus, you're the problem on this one, not MS.

You really need to look at the competition. HP is miles ahead of IBM in terms of servers (and IMHO the best maker out there). The iLO alone absolutely destroys the IBM RSA and the Dell DRAC in terms of functionality.
If you want price, you go with Dell
If you want features, you go with HP

IBM gives you the features of Dell at the price of HP

These really aren't hard to do. I can take one off in under a minute, and I'm not even that good at it. SMT stuff is nowhere near as scary as people make it out to be.

I went to college with Robert, and ordered one of these on day 1 of the kickstarter. Tell Robert to get his ass in gear and make the downconverter - I need it to use for my intended purpose (tune 75MHz) :-)

I've heard this before, but I've never seen the reasoning - why do the generators need full overhauls after running for a few days? Aren't these the same engines that are in trucks/construction equipment and run for thousands of overalls without an overhaul?

This is exactly why they are doing this. What you are doing currently is considered theft of service.

So, to some extent, it's already being done today. Most commonly is a technology called Switched Digital Video deployed by some (mainly Time Warner and Cox) but not all MSOs. What this literally does is only "turn on" channels (generally less popular ones) when they are being watched. If no one is watching them, they are shut off. While this is not over IP, I felt it warranted mentioning as it fits into your goals.
Up next, we already have some MSOs (mainly FiOS) that deliver video on demand over IP, so there is already some desire by MSOs to go there for linear channels, too.
Lastly, AT&T UVerse actually is a video over IP solution (It's essentially video over IP over VDSL2+). There's no reason that traditional MSOs can't go this route (and in fact, many are looking in this direction for the future).
While I would personally love to see the competition from a fully switched network, I'm not certain this will happen. In the case of SDV, if a channel is already on, you will tune the existing channel - so you won't see 10 copies of the same channel switched on for 10 users. This means there is potentially a real infrastructure cost to the owner of the wires if they are required to allow others to use their channels. The same thing with AT&T UVerse - you join an IP multicast stream.
Also, any claims of bandwidth being exhausted on coax are generally false - the problem is the analog channels. On most cable systems, analog channels take up more bandwidth than all digital channels, data, and other services combined. On a completely digital system, built out to 1GHz, there is potentially about 5.5gbps worth of bandwidth available (using current modulation technologies that are already deployed). And this would most likely be limited to just the local HFC node (few hundred houses), so it wouldn't even be shared through that large group of people.
5.5gbps is enough for about 350-550 HD streams simultaneously (depending on if they are MPEG2 or MPEG4, bitrate, etc)

It's not that simple. There are multiple code branches of Windows (LDR vs GDR) and the old files can be needed for future servicing. Assuming the OP is talking about the WinSxS folder, the OP basically just irreparably broke servicing (adding/removing features and hotfixes/service packs) on this Windows install.

DO NOT DO THIS.

Have you ever tried to open one of the glued-together cases? That's by far more difficult than getting a girlfriend