I've read a few things about it today, and it's going to be mbed based, which has me chuffed because I'm a big mbed fan, and that means that the USB port will obviously be for programming and power. And once it's programmed, the battery means it won't have to stay plugged into a computer to flash its blinkenlights.

The CPU they're using not only has a Bluetooth module, it even supports programming over Bluetooth. At that point you'll probably want a battery to make up for the lack of a USB connection.

What I don't know is if the USB can be used as a regular USB device port, to make little HID devices and such. But in my experience, a USB port used for programming usually can't be used that way, and boards will have a second USB port just for this.

Imagine all that happened, and then I wasn't there to receive it. Because: life.

And it still doesn't address everything from bad weather to drone malfuntion...

If you had actually bothered to read my posts before commenting, you might have noticed that at no point did I suggest Firefox must or even should try to keep up with Chrome's bleeding edge features. In fact, I think the drive for quantity of features over quality of implementation that Chrome exemplifies is the worst thing to happen to the Web since the stagnation of the IE6 era, and I would be the last person to suggest that Firefox mimicking that policy is desirable.

And no, the quality of Firefox has not always been as questionable as it is today. I do this stuff for a living, and the bug tracker does not lie. Issues in all real world projects I work on jumped sharply in the period after Firefox transitioned to Chrome-style rapid releases and have never settled back down to their previous level, and I've never identified any other plausible explanation for that.

For dispatching a single rush package sure, it could be faster. But what does it do when it arrives? drop it on my front step where anyone can get it, or does it ring my bell, and politely hover at my door? Will it ensure i sign for it (typically rush packages are traceable)...

What if I'm in an office building? Does it drop it on the busy front steps, or does buzz in and drop it off at reception?... What if im a tenant in a skyrise the 30th floor?...does it take the elevator to the 35th floor?

Just doesn't make a lot of sense.

And for traditional daily bulk delivery; you are delivering along a street / superboxes etc... and the 1 ton truck probably carries half a ton of mail on its route, if not more.. how many drones will that take?

What is the drone range relative to a truck? What does the drone do on rainy days or windy days? How does it cope with snow? sleet? hail?

What happens when it malfunctions and has to land? (or crash)? Is my high priority rush delivery now sitting in someone's back yard or on their roof or in their swimming pool? Or up a tree? (that's what happens when you fly as the crow flies right? It may not be be next to a major road.) While a human postman is dispatched to find it..?

I may be missing something, but i just don't see where this makes sense in general. Maybe extremely cherry picked niches... but that's it.

The Public Sector does a lot of things well, but it is not great at many others and thus private/public partnerships are an absolute requirement for government to run effectively. If the Public Sector were really out to avoid all outsourcing, it would be detrimental to the core competencies of its staff.

So, if we're to take a step back and say that a lot of government's utilize SIRE or GovDelivery to host, manage, and deliver their documents to the public, are you instead suggesting that the Public Sector bring these functions in-house and build infrastructure and management solutions to do this themselves?

You believe that web/email hosting solutions should not go to IaaS organizations and instead should be handled by high-cost internal IT groups which may not be as inexpensive or effective as those in the Private Sector?

I think your view is incredibly short-sighted for many of the functions of the Public Sector. While the Public Sector *must* do a better job managing the Private, that is besides the point; they simply cannot do what you claim they should, especially while being mindful and reacting quickly to their citizens.

That's what it sounds like he's saying. I'm wondering if something got cached wrong somewhere, then he touched it and it rebuilt the cache, but I know nothing at all about SQL Server, any version.

I'm curious though, if he was inserting the rows into another table, what was the 5th row? all nulls or a duplicate of a previous row or?

I actually meant before the Mozilla Foundation and by extension Mozilla Corp, but either way works. In any case, yes, one of the things I really don't like about the way Firefox seems to be heading recently is the kitchen sink strategy. As you say, that was what led to Firefox (and Thunderbird) taking over from the old Mozilla suite in the first place. I've no objection to having a co-ordinated range of communication tools, but I'm not sure why they all need to be built into the browser like some sort of 21st century Zawinski's Law, particularly when that browser famously has a vibrant ecosystem of extensions for those users who do prefer to customise it.

all those will be fine, it'll only be covered up if it turns out to be related to skin color or sexual orientation.

i'm surprised it's not called "faithbook.com"

It would get flooded by people with a lisp* looking for Facebook.

* The speech feature, not the language.

UI work is often like interior decorating: people shuffle stuff all around until they are happy, and THEN change their mind again, sometimes out of whim or sometimes because they asked for something impractical and had to learn the hard way because they don't like receiving advice from the experienced.

Also, what kind of fringe benefits do I get? If someone offends me, can I make a call? Can I buy cheap stuff of the back of a truck? If someone kidnaps my daughter, do I get to make a phone call to a Liam Neeson clone?

You get your choice of payment in silver or lead.

"As you can see in my PowerPoint slide, the...ah, ah, Aaachoooo!... Hey, where's my laptop?"

If you work from home, you are competing with inexpensive overseas labor at "3rd-world" rates, and have to price yourself as such.

It's unfortunate it's come to that, and is largely why commute traffic exists. Imagine all the fuel saved and reduced pollution if most could work from home. It's a shame.

Sort of like how Hacking Team had a separate watermark/backdoor into each tool they sold to governments.

I'm sure the government's solution will be to outlaw backdoors in stuff they buy while mandating backdoors for everyone else. Not being a flaming hypocrite has never been any politician's strong suit.