I drive a Jeep Wrangler, which is as secure as a tent. Basically, it IS a tent.

So the passenger's side floor is pretty much always full of Dunkin Donuts trash. I slide my laptop bag under it all, throw a few empty coffee cups on top, and noone's going to think there's anything interesting to steal.

Out-of-sight, out-of-mind works very well.

OBD (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On-board_diagnostics) included in the car? No more trying to get a USB cable to work with a laptop just to read the stuff that's been being recorded by my car for a decade+ now?

Yes, have some.

The camera is important, the piece of glass it comes with even more so.

I have a Panasonic Lumix that I've used for 7 years now, and I was just thinking yesterday that I'm amazed how well it has held up. The megapixel count of other cameras keep climbing, but this Leica lens keeps me in the hunt.

So yeah, the default answer is often going to be "Nikon" or "Canon," but this fairly inexpensive Lumix has never let me down, and I am continually impressed with its photo quality, even at only 4 megapixels.

They're under $100 used, too:

http://www.amazon.com/Panasonic-DMC-FZ1K-Digital-Camera-Optical/dp/B00008IHUB/ref=sr_1_5?s=photo&ie=UTF8&qid=1322265477&sr=1-5

Just for the record, saying "Android and iOS are great consumers of content but they're terrible producers" because of issues with capturing text is missing the forest for the trees.

Graphic artists are having a field day with tablets, and for many musicians, an iPad is the greatest invention since..... ever.

The idea that tablets are for consumption and not production *really* needs to die. As a songwriter, I've never been so productive.

It's not entirely germane to the OP, but it needed to be said.

I have spent years using Solaris, Redhat, Gentoo, Windows 2.0 through the present, etc. I've been at a computer pretty much 11-16 hours a day for the past 20+ years.

The last 5 have been on OSX, and I'm not going back to any of them. You can't make me.

I've been experimenting with Unity, and hate it quite passionately.

...and shout, "Me too! Me too!"

There are no words to describe the increase in your quality of life when you remove the commute. None. You'll be in awe of what life is actually like.

Definitely don't burn bridges, and handle it as responsibly as possible, but opportunities are opportunities, and you need to take the good ones when they come up.

Your job is not your life, your life is not your job.

I see what you mean.

I listen to sounds of nature on my headphones at work. I use a program called Ambiance (Adobe Air app) that lets me mix various field recordings, which keeps me more alert than coffee, and drowns out the blabbering of my cubicle neighbors. It also helps my mood, as it usually sounds like a Spring afternoon.

This has me thinking -- can I add some sort of lights source into my headphones? They're full ear-covering headphones, so I could produce a lot of light in them without affecting those around me, or much of it leaking out.

Does anyone know of a decent small, battery-powered light source I could do some testing with?

"Politicians who supported the industry had tried for years to exempt fracking from the Safe Drinking Water Act, the 1974 law that regulates the injection of waste and chemicals underground. The EPA's 2004 study was used to justify that effort. With the help of then-Vice President Dick Cheney -- the former head of Halliburton -- President George W. Bush's landmark energy legislation, the 2005 Energy Policy Act, included a provision that prohibited the EPA from regulating fracking under the Safe Drinking Water Act. Regulation would be left to the states, many of which had underfunded agencies, looser standards and less manpower than the federal government."

Thank God Halliburton had a Vice-President in the White House, eh?

http://www.salon.com/technology/how_the_world_works/2011/06/27/hydrofracking_and_the_epa

Seriously... "But what happens when Google Docs gets truly robust enough for business and high-end document production?"

Uh, at that point the desktop is just a browser, and people can use a free operating system and a free browser to access it?

Web applications are good for Linux, not the enemy. Logic, it's your friend.

The thing with wheat beers is that they taste best when fresh.

So really, it's great to make your own. It's really not very difficult either, I've made 2 batches of hefeweizen and one witbeer so far, and all have been truly incredible. I add the juice of one orange, some coriander, and a bit of Jamaican allspice when brewing, and OH MY GOD is it good.

I've had some tasteless/bland/boring homebrews before, but since I picked up a couple of Mr. Beer kits (thanks, Woot!), I've been making my own, and it truly is my favorite beer.

All this is going to do is give the assholes who want to lock down the internet more reason for doing so.

When douchebags start screwing around, freedoms disappear left and right. Just watch the legislation that grows out of this, we'll be lucky if we can still get email that isn't from the government in 5 years.

In before the war starts.

Please keep in mind people, they're just computers. Your choice isn't wrong, neither is the "other side's."

The only phrase stupider than "Drug War" is "OS Wars."