I watched 10 minutes of it the other night (on accident I swear!) and had to spend another 10 minutes explaining to my wife why I was laughing so hard. They were tracking down some cyber-bad guy (ugh) through the internet and one of the characters stopped working to do the obligatory "I'm going to explain how the internet works to the seasoned tech-illiterate detective who fears technology" part of the episode. He then proceeded to explain how data flows through many points on the internet to get where it needs to go (okay so far). He told the cop that these points are called (I am NOT kidding) "Router-hubs". These router-hubs each keep a "shadow copy" of every document (shut up shut up SHUT UP!) that flows through them for months (what the hell?) and that they could find the document they needed by going to some random data center with one of these router-hubs (it hurts to type that) and getting the shadow copy.

Then they went to some random building start doing things on a computer next to a long row of what appeared to be rack-mounted LED lights. Oh, and there was a smokey haze in the DC for some reason. Probably some atmospheric bullcrap. Anyway this show does have entertainment value, but only if you look at it as a parody.

The real question is "Why not?"

Maybe I'm interested in the migration patterns of the neighborhood squirrels - and just how far my wifi extends outside my house.

2 laptops, 3 phones, 1 iPad, PS3, Wii (not really allowed on the network anymore since it's 802.11b only), sprinkler controller, 3 Rokus, 2 surveillance cameras, 1 Kindle, 1 Apple TV, Nest thermostat. The cameras, PS3, and one of the Rokus are usually on ethernet, but I move things around occasionally.

I live just outside of Provo, UT and I had Comcrap install my internet service about a week after Google announced their fiber service was coming here (I had just moved). I'm not in the service area (dammit) but I asked the Comcast tech about how his office is feeling about it. Basically he said the bosses at the local Comcast office are scared to death. In Provo Comcast started offering cut-rate prices about 2 months after the Google Fiber announcement. My grandparents took their offer of $75/month for 30 Mbps internet, cable TV, and home phone service.

I'm not saying that you shouldn't change careers - but look at the business end of IT in the education market. I work for a large university and I just switched roles from a SysAdmin to a Business Analyst for our Office of IT and I'm 33 years old. I moved from the front-facing tech side of things to where I am basically the interface between the engineers/technicians and the "customers" (deans, departments, students to a much lesser extent). I get the project requirements from the customers and work with the engineers to provide what the customers need. I'm still in IT, but I'm in a position where I'm having a large impact on the infrastructure and our service quality (we have 32k students). Being already in education you'd be at least basically familiar with some of the unique things that occur with licensing, purchasing, etc. We tend to get better/cheaper terms than corporations and individuals. It's a challenge, but it can be a fun challenge. You don't sound like an engineer, but you DO sound like you can at least be conversant with them. Being that translation layer between engineer/normal person can be a lot of fun.

My father-in-law has a very nice Lexus he bought 3 years ago that has a built-in GPS. Unfortunately his GPS has gotten out of date, so he took it to the dealership to ask about getting it updated with new maps. The dealership wanted $800, half of that was labor. Turns out there is NO WAY to update the GPS in his car. They have to open up the dash board and replace the stupid computer. They're not smart enough to have a mechanism to update a built-in GPS - you think they'd do something as logical as OTA updates? Hah!

Oh my gosh...I typed a huge long reply to this and then the comment system ate it.

I have had this happen to me a lot. Enough so that my cousins and some of my friends refer to it as my super power. We saw two different types of lights (same day, different times of day) turn off in a movie theater parking lot as I walked past them, or parked under them.

My original reply was much longer and more detailed than this, but I don't want to retype it.

Apple has an app store for Mac OS as well. It uses the same sign-in as the iTunes app store.

My father-in-law has a 2009 Lexus RX 350 hybrid and the in-dash system is already showing signs of obsolescence. The most glaring thing is actually the built-in GPS. It doesn't take long for those maps to get out of date and guess what Toyota's solution is to upgrade the maps? Replace the computer. It would cost nearly $2000 to get updated maps loaded into his car. Toyota didn't think to have some simple way of upgrading the mapping data via USB or anything. They have to take the dashboard apart and install a new computer to upgrade the maps. That's just stupid.

Is anyone else amazed by the sheer scale of an operation like that? Not just Foxconn itself (which I know is huge) but the effort and cost of installing 40,000 robots.

Any idea what the small distorted square shape is on the left 1/3 of the screen at 38 seconds? Looks like some unfinished effects work. It moves along with one of the dwarves (dwarfs?).

The university I work for has developed our own home-grown learning management system. The beta is going...so-so and we're supposed to drop-kick Blackboard in 2 months and go wholesale with our own LMS. As a tech I'm somewhat concerned.

Yep. I got my CES badge at the airport 2 years ago. It was really convenient. They had a table setup by the baggage claim. The line stayed short since they generally only had people come up when a plane landed so it kind of went in surges that were mitigated by the time it took to get off the plane. Worked really well.

I work IT in education. The general attitude at the institutions I've worked for has been that if you end up putting in extra time for some reason you can make it up by pulling half days or leaving early without taking vacation time. Education may not pay the best but the benefits sure are nice. On top of liberal policies, free tuition, and excellent health insurance, I also get 6 weeks vacation time, and 2 weeks sick time each year (and they roll over!).