It's not intentional of course, but Blackberry's failure will do more for productivity in Washington DC and to bring the people living in the Beltway bubble back down to earth than all the NGOs, PACs, and citizen action groups combined.

I like to dream, too.

What exactly does "separate" mean? Modern cars have multiple CAN and LIN (and FlexRay and Ethernet) networks, but they are bridged by modules that gateway specific messages/signals from one network to the other. Your entertainment system probably reacts to the state of your vehicle (are some functions not available when in drive? Going above some speed? Doors open?). Separate very likely does not mean "air gapped" like you'd mean in a high security computer network.

That said, I'm not totally convinced by any of the hacks I've seen that there is reason for panic. The one I saw where they were able to control remotely required physical access to an ECU to reflash firmware. Give me physical access to any of your electronics, and I'll make it bend to my will.

Right. Go watch a sitcom from the early 90s (when I was a kid). Now when I see one of those I think... "WTF were people wearing?"

LabView for the Macintosh shipped in 1986, and not only still exists but has a very solid niche in some circles. LabView is such a pure visual IDE that there are not visible lines of code as such; it is all wiring diagrams.

My day job is writing LabVIEW for measurement and automation tasks... I'd chime in that LabVIEW does have text code now in the form of formula nodes and MathScript nodes (which uses Matlab). These are really useful for more complicated math expressions... the wiring gets pretty nasty as your math gets more complex.

This might not be the GPs problem, but in my office, the reason for not upgrading is tied to expensive hardware that doesn't support the newer version of Windows or has known issues on everything except one configuration of Windows and PC.

We're an engineering company, so a lot of the issues have to do with compatibility with hardware that is custom or rare... so, our experience may not be typical.

Think of the ISBN as the primary key for looking up a specific book on ... just about anywhere.

If you want to buy your textbooks before the first day of class (which you do), you need to be able to look it up and verify you're getting the book that you want. There's always the asshole professor that assigns reading from a book on the first day of class, and you wouldn't have the time to buy it from Amazon, get it shipped, and do your homework before it would be due. Your only other option is to mooch off your classmates, which I wholeheartedly endorse.

Just to reiterate what others have said... the campus bookstore is always a gigantic fucking ripoff. Don't deal with them unless you absolutely have to. Use the internet. Buy/borrow from people who have already taken the class. Ask around if you even need to buy the book.

I am not aware that enforcing uniform patterns for floor tile installation has a measurable impact on energy usage.

So whats the optimal floor tile installation for the learning environment? Of all the things that could be so much better with the American education system, I think the tile and physical building parts are... minimal.

I don't work for Sprint, but it already exists. They have two unlimited plans (one is unlimited voice and everything, the other is 450 anytime voice minutes and unlimited everything else). I've had service with them for a few years now, and have been generally happy with it. I'd like to pay less for service but I don't think I'm going to do any better on another carrier with the amount of data I use.

If there is competition around your area, they seem to ignore the caps. We have Comcast, WOW, and AT&T U-Verse available in the area. I got Comcast when I moved in (sadly, WOW is not available in my building, but is available down the block). I've blown past their cap multiple times, and haven't heard a thing from them. Something tells me that doesn't happen in markets with less competition.

Take some responsibility for yourself? I'm betting that on the first day of class, your professor told everyone that assignments would be posted online and you should check regularly. Maybe the first one catches you by surprise and you learn better next time. I feel like I'm way too young to go on a personal responsibility rant, but seriously, in the real world excuses do not get you far.

Or maybe your professor really was an asshole and expected you had ESP.

I've been over the cap for the past three months and haven't heard anything from them. My area also has AT&T U-Verse and WOW. Related?

(I would switch to WOW on principle alone. They offer a comparable level of service and seem to be much less evil, but they don't serve my apartment building.)

Outlook has all the disadvantages of bloated Enterprise software, but none of the advantages. I can't even get it to consistently remind me about events in my calendar.

You know how I know you don't use Lotus Notes daily? I'd be grateful for a switch to Outlook.

It goes both ways. The professor I had for Differential Equations gave out her own "textbook" and it was the most useful and concise resource. There was a "required" traditional textbook, but I don't think I used it for anything other than recommended homework problems (didn't actually buy it.. just borrowed it from other people to copy the problems out of).

I have absolutely no problem with the DLNA server on the ReadyNAS NV+. I can see the DLNA share from my computer, and it works as expected from my WDTV. If you're seeing a flat list of files, it is probably a setting on your client. The structure that I see is the actual folder structure of the directory the DLNA server scans.

Don't even need a check for that in some places. My apartment complex can automatically withdraw rent from your bank account or charge it to a credit card.