Oh please, everyone who suggests using a stylus...

Have you ever used a decent capacitive screen (e.g. Samsung Galaxy, or any iDevice)?

They are very precise and very responsive. Devices that require a pen also require you to pick up that pen first. I used a PalmOS device when these were still popular, and typing did work - but pulling out the pen was a serious hassle, and the tiny pens felt awkward.

The only precision problem modern capacitive screens have is the curvature of the human finger, and the user's inability to properly see (or even estimate!) where his finger touches the glass. That's something I believe can be learned/trained, though, so it's important kids learn to use touch screens much like they learn to use a pencil.

I think Palm's simplified alphabet would work awesomely on capacitive touch screens. It's just that patents block most of the innovation in this field (and 8pen is also patent pending... he great...)

This is actually how they did it for years - it costs the same to make a chip with more or fewer features, processes are so decent now they just deactivate parts in the chip's firmware and sell those for the high demand of low end chips.

They just made their firmware a little more flexible at what this so called "binning" can be made to do.

aaaah-zoos.

I'm German. :-)

It's actually not, Cricket was the name the Canadians gave it when they sold the kits for the plane, Cri-Cri was the designer's daughter's nickname!

I use social networks to stay vaguely in touch with people, as opposed to not staying in touch AT ALL.

It's also a great way to provide one additional channel of communication to all those morons who don't seem to understand my email being mail@realname.tld and constantly insist they "lost" it despite regularly mailing me.

"Mud" is a technical term for all sorts of drilling fluids specifically designed to keep the pressure on an oil well.

In this case, they used a special type of "Mud", even, "Kill Mud".

But it still failed (and the failure has quite possibly damaged the Blowout Preventer atop the borehole further, potentially increasing the amount of oil gushing into the ocean.

It's named ANY_KEY.

I come from a fairly hilly area in Germany and my stick shift cars have always been fine . In fact, without the transmission "randomly" switching gears, you can reduce slippage on icy roads a lot. Rear wheel drive is more of a problem in winter...

By fairly hilly, I mean driving 10% inclines pretty much daily, up to 22% (just been up such a slope this wekend, and there's a town you're driving through).

Be polite.
Be efficient.
Have a plan to kill everyone you meet!

Totally, even when going into Switzerland or Poland, they have a quick look at your ID and let you pass. Random inspections and searches do happen, but even then it's not a very tense thing. I admittedly don't know what it's like to get into the UK nowadays, though, seeing how they developed a very similar paranoia to the US.

Frankly, what's going on there at the US/Canada border reminds me of the old FRG/GDR borders, or at least the Pre-Schengen-Agreement Germany/Czech Republic or Austria/Hungary... borders.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schengen_Agreement

What the hell, you guys have been neighbors all the time, you speak the same language, you are both developed countries; and all of the sudden the border security just climbs and climbs and climbs...? What reasons are there?

Scary, to say the least.

Getting out of your car when pulled over or at the border seems like such a big deal in the US, it sure as hell doesn't in most European countries.

It has always baffled me that it is that way in the US (I'm from Germany). My sister was once yelled at - at gun point! - to get back in the car when she got pulled over near Detroit for speeding once.

Whenever I get pulled over (rarely, so far mostly routine inspections, and one 10km/h speeding ticket), my first instinct is to actually get out of the car because it's impolite in my eyes not to. I had my car and baggage searched at the Czech border once and we were of course standing around the car while the officers were looking through our bags, glove compartment, etc.

I suppose I need to keep my instincts suppressed on my upcoming trips to the US, though I don't plan on getting pulled over in the first place. :)

Decent in-ear Phones do not emit a lot of sound, but block most incoming noise.

I use them every day. The best models are unfortunately at times so efficient that it requires people to tap your shoulder to actually get your attention when you're really focused.

Man, I hate that. :-/

This is an illusion! Don't believe it; it doesn't get one particular fact right: the rich do not pay taxes proportionally to their income as the lower middle class does.

MOST of a country's tax revenue comes from the broad masses; in fact, there are many millionaires paying *fewer* dollars TOTAL in taxes than most middle class citizens.

Tax tricks and loopholes tend to get more useful the more assets you have to calculate against each other.