I'm not sure USB and Thunderbolt are redundant. They may occupy different spaces, but Intel/Apple have not done a good job making the distinction clear with their marketing.

For example, I believe that you can have a USB hub, but the Thunderbolt design pushes you in the direction of daisy-chaining. Thunderbolt is treated as an extension of the bus, providing very fast two-way communication, while USB is much more limited. The end result is that USB is more fit for simple peripherals-- e.g. mice, keyboards, external hard drives. Thunderbolt seems better suited for devices that you would otherwise want to be internal, e.g. docking stations, high-end RAID, external video cards.

I'm not sure there's anything that USB does that Thunderbolt can't do, but it seems that you can produce simpler/cheaper peripherals with USB. Meanwhile, there are things that you can do with Thunderbolt and not with USB.

I think you're right that most people haven't been searching for this kind of camera, but I think you could have made the same argument about digital cameras in the first place, as well as computers in general. Things were just fine before. Professionals who were used to doing things the "normal" way saw them as more trouble than they're worth. They were expensive and had technical shortcomings when compared to the conventional solution.

However, it allows you to do something new that you couldn't do before. I'd say there's a good chance the technology will be refined and you'll see this sort of thing become cheaper and better. People will find cool and interesting applications. Something neat will probably come of this.

I think it's noteworthy that people outside of NYC are usually more upset about the NYC "nanny state" than the people who live here. The trans-fat ban was a big talking point for conservatives, as evidence that the government was sneaking into every personal decision you make. However, it was ultimately a decision by a local government (don't conservatives like local governments?) to regulate the restaurant industry. While conservatives around the country had a collective freak-out session, I don't think New Yorkers were talking much about it, and there were many who viewed the decision positively. We eat out all the time, and many of us would like to know that the food doesn't have too much unnecessary harmful crap in it. It's worth pointing out that it wasn't a ban on fatty foods-- I believe you could have replaced the trans-fats with bacon grease, and then everything would then be legal.

The "soda-ban" was similar, except that I think New Yorkers found the ban to be a bit silly. I'm not going on a scientific survey, but anecdotally, the people I've heard from largely don't care. People don't seem to really oppose the "ban" or feel like it impinges on them, but it's more been a question of, "Is this necessary?"

The horses are more controversial, but again I don't see why people outside of New York see this as a sign of governmental overreach. Some people think that the horses are being mistreated. There are animal cruelty laws everywhere. Then there's also the question of whether horses should be on the road. They shit everywhere and sometimes they mess up traffic. I'm sure if there were constantly horses on the streets of your home town, you'd occasionally get people questioning whether it was a good idea.

So I just don't really get why you're upset. It doesn't sound like you live in NYC. If not, these rules don't apply to you. There's some controversy within NYC, but I think most of the residents (most of the ones I've met) have some understanding that, with such a large and diverse city, you need some regulation. With all the restaurants, you need a health code-- complain if you want about the implementation, but I'm glad they shut down restaurants with unsanitary conditions. With all the traffic that passes through the streets, you need traffic laws-- argue if you'd like about whether it's good to have horses on the road, but there should be laws about that kind of thing. Even a libertarian with half a brain should understand that a city this large can't operate without some laws. And if you don't live here, I'm not sure why you would care.

I live in NYC, and I'm a bit indifferent. I don't know about the horses in depth, but I'd tend to say that if the horses are treated badly, then make laws/regulations on how the horses should be treated. If it's a problem to have them on the street, then don't allow them on the street. I don't see think that having horses pull carriages is cruel in itself, but I also don't see the need to jump through hoops to keep the carriages around if they're presenting real problems. They're slightly charming, but smell like horse shit.

I'm not against the horse-drawn carriages, but I kind of like this car. It's charming. Can we have both?

Yeah, I *hope* my interpretation is correct and he's saying, "If you're into CS, then don't change to another major because you think it'll be easier and you think getting good grades will set you up better for the future. A more challenging course load with mediocre grades is more impressive in the real world than getting great grades while studying something you're less interested in, but that you think is easier." I would certainly agree with that advice. Your grades might possibly come up on your first interviews fresh out of college, but they very well might not. Over the span of your career, your college transcripts quickly become irrelevant.

If you're a CS major taking "Advanced Basket Weaving" in college because you're interested in that and you like that kind of thing, then good for you. Go do that. It may even be interesting and difficult, and someone might be impressed that you have diverse skills and interests. If you're taking it for an easy A+, then you're probably making a bad decision, because nobody will be impressed that you did well while taking the easy road.

Note the context:

I think it's important not to drop out the first part of that sentence. The message here is not really about the superiority of CS over English (at least I hope it wasn't), but the idea that "If you're worried about your post-graduate future, worry less about grades and more about what you're studying." There may be very rigorous, interesting, challenging English programs out there. From my experience talking to some CS majors, it seems that not all CS programs are very good. Making a strict comparison between different subjects isn't easy.

I think Hotmail is now Outlook.com, which is... I hesitate to say it's good, but it's not really bad. It integrates with Skype, Onedrive, and Office Online. It looks nice. It works fine. It has social media integration, and it performs the task of routing and storing email. If you have an account, you can use it to sync your settings in Windows 8 to other Win8 computers.

I'd use it sooner than Yahoo Mail, but I don't use it. I think I mostly don't use it because I don't trust Microsoft.

Of course, it's worth noting that low tax rates aren't the only consideration. If you have crappy schools and a low standard of living, then you might have a harder time drawing good employees. If you have crappy infrastructure, then you might have a harder time conducting your business. If your business requires an affluent population and other businesses to deal with, then a sparse population with little economic development doesn't make for a good location. Cuts to the local government are often not a good thing for businesses, even if it means lower taxes for the businesses. There are reasons why lots of businesses still locate themselves in big cities with high taxes and lots of regulation.

I don't know about the companies in China and Japan, and I don't know about stocks, but the general idea that Yahoo isn't actually worth much is unsurprising. Do people still use Yahoo.com or Yahoo mail? Yahoo IM? I understand that, like AOL, Yahoo owns other sites that are doing well, but what's Yahoo's strategy? How are they making money in the face of Google and Gmail?

And where are we all without the construction workers, janitors, and migrant farm workers?

I think the problem is that, in all those links, there isn't an obvious link to a clear explanation of what Freedombox actually does. There's a vague "vision statement" about ideological goals. There's a set of directions that tells you how to plug it in (hint: you plug it in). There are video presentations which I can't watch conveniently, but I assume will explain something-or-other. There isn't really a clear plain-english write-up of what's supposed to be accomplished by using one of these, nor the details on how it works.

Is it some kind of pass-through Tor client? A VPN-like encryption scheme? Does it actually host web/email/chat? I get that it has something to do with privacy and communications, but... what?

I don't think that's quite fair. In some places, rent is just very high. Some people pay a half of their net income (or more) on rent. So you might meet someone paying $1,500 in rent per month and only making $50k. Or you might have a couple sharing a $2,500k/month one-bedroom, each only making $40k each. Now I'll admit that those people are better off than the truly "poor" who can't make ends meet, but it's hardly "super-rich".

I'm sure it's not always the case. There are various reasons why people get hired to jobs-- some better than others. However, I'll tell you that I wouldn't hire someone as a sysadmin who hasn't had experience as a sysadmin unless I knew that they had prior troubleshooting and support experience in a real-world setting. There are lots of reasons for that, some of them more obvious than others. I'll also comment that my position seems to fit along with other people that I've known who would hire a sysadmin or network engineer, though that's still all anecdotal.

Yup. Honestly, I've found I just don't like programming. I don't even like scripting and web development. I like logically solving problems, product design, and I'm even interested in some of the math involved, but I don't enjoy the process of actually coding or the project planning involved. I actually prefer the support side, though it's not tons of money, and it's been a long time since I was tier-1. Also, even when I was tier-1, I wasn't doing the sort of work where people read a script sitting in a huge support farm.

Starting at a higher point... I think it probably depends on the industry. In my experience in IT support, it's definitely not the huge determining factor. We're always looking for young people who can be trained. I think you have a better point in saying, "have vastly greater chances of reaching the upper echelons", but I suspect it's for a weird mix of reasons. I do expect that there are bosses who won't promote you to a certain level without having the "college degree" box checked on your records. I also think that, to some degree, there are qualities that help you be successful in business and also make you more likely to go to college, e.g. a tendency toward conformity and willingness to jump through required hoops, or the idea that people with a certain kind of intelligence are more likely to be able to finish school and do well in business.

Actually though, it's true that there are businesses who will hire IT purely based on college education and certificates. Those people tend not to know what they're doing.

Well if your update is broken, then you wouldn't be getting updates if Microsoft had continued to produce them for the pre-"Update" version. So...?