This is the first time I feel like I understand Microsoft's motives in the Windows 8 fiasco. Until I'd read your comment I'd been thinking along the lines of: Microsoft doesn't want to pay for long-term development of both PC and Phone operating systems, so to save long-term development costs, they're creating an OS that will work on both hardware platforms. That line of thought never really made sense to me because Microsoft makes money only on Windows and Office, but they continually spend huge amounts developing other code that has never and probably will never make them any money. Why would they suddenly become so stingy when it comes to making separate user interfaces for PC and Phone, especially when they are risking alienating virtually their entire customer base?

Now I get it. This isn't about coercing customers into using a cheaply-developed UI, to save Microsoft money. It's about (possibly illegally) leveraging the Windows monopoly to coerce independent developers into creating Phone-compatible apps - thereby potentially expanding Microsoft's monopoly into another line of business. It's all about "developers, developers, developers!" and to hell with "users, users, users". Ballmer is betting his company on this - and possibly risking another antitrust action.

Maybe a trip to the Tech Museum in San Jose or the Exploratorium in San Francisco.

I was thinking a tiered system. There'd be tier 1 pilots watching a couple dozen monitors each, and the second anything becomes even slightly interesting on one of the feeds, immediately hands off that feed to a queued-up and ready tier 2 person. The tier 2 person triages the feed into one of the following:

1) False alarm - hands the feed back to a tier 1 pilot.
2) Possibly interesting - continues to pilot and watch.
3) Definitely interesting - hands the feed to a queued-up and ready tier 3 pilot.

The tier 3 pilot does the actual combat flying.

I'm guessing each tier would attract pilots of a particular personality type: tier 1 would have concientious laid-back personalities, tier 2 would have more moderate personalities, and tier 3 would have gung-ho gamer personalities.

In the Von Neumann architecture, software consists of both "code" and "data". Suppose that only the "data" component of software was protected under the first amendment. This would mean that any laws passed would have to apply to only the "code" - a difficult task, but perhaps manageable. So the software:

printf("Candidate A sucks.");

would be immune from regulation unless congress passed a law prohibiting any software of the form:

printf(MemoryAddress);

Great comment, I wish I had mod points. :)

Ok, I'll bite. Where is that?

I've been trying to monitor my sleep quality and recently discovered this totally cool product: http://mobihealthnews.com/14561/bam-lab-mattress-monitor-for-heart-rate-sleep-apnea/

It seems almost too good to be true. Unfortunately they do not sell to individuals and would not provide any pricing or purchasing info to me. Maybe a competitor will pop up to serve the individual purchaser market. Since they currently only sell to health care institutions, I imagine they charge a lot, but the device seems very simple: an air matress connected to a pressure sensor, with a circuit board and embedded software to monitor and analyse the sensor data and to communicate with a PC.

How about some kids in the car throwing eggs, rocks, what have you at other cars on the road and buildings and pedestrians, etc..., exhibitionists exposing themselves, people blasting their stereos way too loud in quiet residential areas?

With version 1.2 that came out yesterday, yes. The new version supports

Traditional layout (one panel at the bottom)
Flipped layout (one panel at the top)
Classic layout (one panel at the bottom and one panel at the top)

http://cinnamon.linuxmint.com/?p=119

I just upgraded to Linux Mint with the Cinnamon Desktop and I love it! Cinnamon is already nearly as good as Gnome 2 was, and it's improving drastically on a near-weekly basis. Everything just works with this distro. For almost a year now I'd been only half-heartedly recommending Linux to friends - now with Linux Mint and Cinnamon, I've resumed fully recommending Linux to anyone and everyone. If you have any hope left for Linux, I highly recommend trying this now. It's a painless install, and a comfortable, familiar and productive interface.

Huh? I just checked Craigslist today and there are literally THOUSANDS of apartments advertised in the SF city (yes really, I counted over ten pages of listings at a hundred listings per page for Tuesday alone) and THOUSANDS more in the south bay. What are you talking about? See for yourself:

http://sfbay.craigslist.org/apa/

I lived in downtown SF during the last bubble and there really was a shortage of housing then, only a few apartments advertised each day for all of Santa Clara county and maybe a dozen each day in SF. Calling the phone numbers in the ads back then would just get busy signals or no answer. The shortage made huge front-page headlines in the San Jose Mercury.

Huh? I've been using Xfce for a month now, and adding panel entries is easy. Just right click on the panel, then select Panel / Add New Items. The first option in the pop-up list is a program launcher. Once you put the program launcher on the panel, right click on the launcher and select the executable you want the launcher to launch. Or you can specify a custom command line. Not quite as convenient as dragging something from the start menu, but not a huge hassle. I'm using Xubuntu, and the only serious usability difficulty I faced on installation was getting network file browsing to work; some googling provided the solution of removing the Thunar file manager and installing Nautilus with the "--no-desktop" option.

Food delivery jobs too. For example, you order a pizza from Domino's by phone or by website and give your credit card number and phone number. When the car arrives, it calls your phone number and informs you that it's parked outside. You go outside and swipe your cc in a slot on the car's door. If the card number matches the order, the window rolls down and you can remove your order from the compartment behind the window. The window rolls up, the car says "thank you" and drives away. This might not be so great for people who live in high-rise buildings, because they would have to take the elevator down to the street to get their order, but like everyone else, they could save $4 on each order by taking the elevator. The economics should be very attractive, especially for small orders, because customers would need to pay a ~1$ delivery charge instead of the current system of $2 delivery charge (~$1 of which subsidizes the company's paying the driver's state minimum wage) plus a $3 tip. The car could also have video surveillance to deter vandalism/theft.

Here's how it could work: you give your credit card number when you order the taxi by smartphone. When the cab shows up, you swipe your cc in the slot on the door. If the card matches, the door unlocks. Once you've entered the cab and closed and locked the door, the touchscreen lets you type in your destination. There are video cameras surveying the interior of the cab at all times. The video is being continuously stored in a black box, and the dispatching center can request and get a live stream at any time. In dangerous neighborhoods, perhaps the dispatching center would request a live stream for the first minutes of each fare to look for anything suspicious. After you exit the cab, your cc gets charged for the actual fare.

What's to stop trucks from being tipped into a ditch and looted now? Truck drivers are instructed not to resist robberies. Sure the driver will call the police after the robbery, but so could an automated truck contact the dispatching center in the event of anything unusual happening (like being tipped into a ditch). I'm sure an automated truck would be in constant contact with the dispatching center, and have the potential to stream video to the dispatching center on request. The video could be used by the dispatcher to identify a problem, and provide evidence in the case of a robbery. Also, the truck could store video on board in a black box type of device.