Are you really implying that copyright law shouldn't be enforced because there are worse things going on in the world?

There are serial killers out there, but I sincerely hope the police make some sort of effort at catching the guys who stole $4,000 worth of tools from my father-in-law last week.

Whatever your opinion on copyright law, you've got to admit that copying another person's work and SELLING IT without them getting a cut is a dick move and shouldn't be tolerated.

If you RTFM you'll know that the summary is misleading. A quote from TFA best explains the claims:
"The patents Kodak holds are incredibly broad, effectively covering images that are stored centrally and can be ordered online,"

As an American all I just read was someone willfully ignorant of American politics sharing his uninformed opinion. Which is the norm on the internet.

I really don't understand why so many Europeans think it's so black-and-white over here.

Where do you live that housing prices have skyrocketed? We had the bubble generated by speculators and the fools who bought all their flipped houses, but that popped years ago.

My parents and in-laws are buying up foreclosed properties at a fraction of their original values. We're fixing them up to rent out immediately (rent houses are in demand) and sell one at a time once the market improves. The market is GREAT for people looking to pick up some money-making properties. Between the two families we're expecting to see an additional $250,000 profit in the next five years. If the housing market keeps on this way for a little while longer, that number will likely double. This project is going to pay for my kids' college, and that's not for another 12 years.

My only complaint is that there seems to be very little consequence for poor play in modern games. Halo with its shield for example. Batman: ARkham Asylum is the same way: you finish a fight sequence, your health goes back up...it's quite hard to die in MOST parts of the game. I think for the most part the author misses games where consequences lasted more than 30 seconds, where losses stayed with you and you didn't get a free reset every save point.

Of course there are plenty of games where that isn't the case, but it's easy to find a lot of examples of games that serve the lowest common denominator.

I agree. The alternatives there provide sync across computers but only for the same browser. I use both Chrome and Firefox extensively and I will greatly miss the ability for (fo)Xmarks to sync my bookmarks, passwords and tabs across all my browsers, regardless of whether its Chrome/Firefox.

For now, I'm using Firefox sync as my primary syncing mechanism and importing into Chrome whenever I update something in Firefox. Its somewhat annoying, but I guess I'll deal. Maybe I'll switch back to using primarily Firefox.

I go to CMU and I did my capstone in Embedded Devices last year. One of the other groups was doing something that was almost exactly what the OP asked for. The project was called Jeules and you can probably still contact the team members to get some more information about it.
Their wiki unfortunately is locked down now, but it used to have the exact parts list and some of the circuit diagrams to build the system.
http://jeules.org/

Thoughts I didn't get in that post because I was distracted:

No need for two cameras when getting pictures/videos of the kids. Also, the smile detector built does a fair job of taking posed pictures automatically while video is being recorded.

I don't have a DSLR but hope to get one end of this year.

I use my camcorder. Digital camcorders make for great point-and-shoot cameras and can snap pictures even while recording in HD (though mine can't do so at the highest quality...but then who needs the highest quality for casual recording?)

As an adult who went 28 years before getting ADHD medication, I rather liked the whole "no appetite" thing :)

I think it's important for ADHD kids to learn to deal with their differences (note: imho ADHD is not a disorder, or a problem, or a deficiency, we're just a particular set of personality traits that do not do well in modern social norms that require most people to sit still and perform repetitive tasks all day every day) without medication. After I was diagnosed at 28, friends who have ADHD kids started asking me about medication and such. I strongly suggested they avoid it as long as they can; I think it's important for the kids to be able to recognize the differences in their own behavior when using medication, and to learn to cope with their tendencies without it first.

I took Concerta for four months, then stopped. I learned how much of a difference it made in me, and learned to recognize in the morning when I was going to have a particularly ADHD day. When I start the day like that, I pick up a coffee on the way to work. That's all the stimulant I need.

If you can't park in the space without crowding out the NEXT guy, find another space.

1) You can buy a new car for a LOT less than $25,000. You can buy a good used one for under $10,000.

2) Here's a thought: don't waste $500 fixing a ding. Buy some touch-up paint and paint over any chips. Nevermind the dents.

Americans can be so stupidly wasteful sometimes. Spending thousands of dollars getting minor cosmetic imperfections taken out of car doors is just absurd. Imagine if we all let our cars take a few dents and spent that money on something useful.

I do it on purpose when some jackass who can't park straddles the line and leaves me squeeze into my car.

Seriously, it's not that hard to hit the middle of the parking space.

By Frozen Bubble, do you mean Bubble Bobble, the original arcade game which was then ported to consoles and made the authors large wads of cash?

I never implied that simplicity meant low quality. There are some games with very "simple" gameplay that are are fun to play again and again.

My point stands: if a game is for sale and you play it for more than a few hours, you should buy it. The author(s) invested time and money into creating the content you are enjoying and deserve a reward.

If it's too expensive, stop playing and wait for it to come down in price. If you want to play it so badly you can't wait, BUY IT.