The problem with using bookmarks and stuff is that's it's extra maintenance overhead. Sure, if there's a page I keep referencing, I'll bookmark instead of Googling for it again each time (though I have no qualms about that either).

But if I'm in the middle of reading something and I get interrupted and don't get a chance to go back for a few days, or if I think it's important (a link say), but I don't quite have the time for it yet, or if I have it on auto-refresh for the updating content (/. article, or forum post, or even a site that doesn't have search bar capability but that I search on regularly), it's going into a tab. Bookmarks/favorites mean I actually have to create the bookmark, find the bookmark when I want to read it, and then remove the bookmark later. That finding the act of one bookmark among many is much more of a pain than scrolling through my tabs to see what I need to finish/catch up on.

And that's only the simple case. If I'm in the middle of reading the content and am interrupted, I have to go back to the position in the page.

And to top all that off, since I'm already using bookmarks for one purpose, to mix a different purposed bookmarks in there makes all of my bookmarks worthless. It's thumbing through my RSS feed in my main browser screen. Other people might stand for it, but it breaks all sorts of workflows for me.

But that's why there are tab-saving extensions that restore tabs on crash and all that. Tab mix plus is the better extension (at least on Firefox; I know nothing about Chrome).

Vegan or not, those calories have to come from somewhere. And unless you're solely eating out of your own farm (using your own farm-produced manure as fertilizer), your food's probably going to have a sizeable carbon footprint.

Sounds like a solution would be to switch to hybrid/all-electric. Hybrids use the electrical motor at low speeds, where you do a lot of stop-and-go. And when they run the gas engine to recharge, it's fairly constant. The only problem with hybrids (at least the older ones I've driven) is the pickup, means the car eats gas the moment you try to do something strenuous.

Tesla seems to have solved that problem. I can't wait for the Model 3.

Does it not get stiff enough for you anymore?

Those professions have boards and certifications. Programmers like to put themselves on par with other technical skilled labor (full disclosure: I'm a programmer myself), but programming as a skill is closer to design (think graphical design or interior design) than any technical skill. But instead of colors, we work with 1s and 0s.

Nor is programming is so different from writing professions like journalism or editing. Writers say things; programmers do things. Writers work with words; programmers work with numbers. Writers are constrained by linguistic grammar; programmers, well, are constrained by mathematical grammar.

That's the long and short of it. We're not engineers. We're not doctors. We're not lawyers. We're artists and designers. We're craftsmen, not tradesmen. Our reward isn't the work itself, but the ultimate output. And when the output is unrewarding (as it is working for most corporations), then we lose interest.

Imagine asking a violin maker to make a french horn. That's what most corporations ask of us, and they don't really care what the french horn sounds like, only that it looks enough like one. Besides the paycheck, why would anybody of any caliber take them up on that request?

Sounds to me just like the viruses of the 80's and 90's, pre-internet days. Back then, it wasn't about stealing passwords or holding data for ransom. It was about causing mayhem, and wiping a computer some time after infection, or otherwise damaging the computer's ability to operate normally was the norm (until Windows 95 came along and called it a feature).

It's not just a virus. It's a retrovirus.

*ducks*

I don't mind ribbon. It's pretty good in many ways, though I think getting to any of the advanced options (options open up a separate dialog box) is inconsistent and otherwise unintuitive. This aspect is more like Windows 8 charms, where it seems the advanced options UI just didn't get done in time. But for the basic operations, "ribbon" is basically a glorified toolbar that holds more than your usual UI widgets. If anything, I'd rather they go all-in with ribbon and entirely do away with the separate dialog boxes for advanced options.

But this whole effort in moving everything to the "cloud" reeks of a move to rent seeking. Which businesses are more than happy to pay for, but on my personal machine, I'd like to own my software. Open/LibreOffice is great for basic stuff, but I wish it had the polish of Office (it's just a bit harsher to use, UI-wise). As long as they don't do away with Office, I'm perfectly OK. Actually, my favorite version of Office is 2K7 (over 2010 in fact) even though the ribbon in 2K7 is a bit rough around the edges. 2010's "home tab" is terrible.

That having been said, it's a shame they don't have collaborative documents built-in to their software (Google Docs) now that they have serious integration with their cloud service. If they did, they'd corner that entire market. Nothing beats a shitty (and increasingly-shittier) web front-end like a native application with a native UI. Nothing.

All things indicate that all of the wizards were Maiar, and hence Saruman was one as well. It would follow that Galadriel's power, which is merely over the elves would not work on the Maiar.

For the palantir, I read that as cautioning others from fooling around with objects whose power is beyond their own understanding. Since the palantir fell into the hands of the Rohirrim recently, Gandalf would have (and did) want to study it further before determining whether it was a boon or a bane.

The description of the mithril coat I see as similar to the experimental body armor made from non-newtonian liquids: it's normally soft and supple, until somebody applies force to it, at which point it hardens, perhaps such that the force is ultimately reflected. Except maybe mirthril is lighter, thinner and metal instead of polymer. Effectively, it's metal kevlar.

Only they can't do that.

Here on the other (this) side of the pond, we have constitutional protections from self-incrimination. Which means that we can't be compelled to reveal something that we choose not to. And if it happens, the evidence acquired by such means can (and likely would) be thrown out in court.

Now, these protections don't extend to stupidity, so the cops usually get what they want anyway. Which is all the more reason why circumvention of strong encryption and mass surveillance largely is unjustified and should be fought against tooth and nail. It has no bearing on successfully catching real criminals, but it certainly will pick up undesired thinking.

Then it must have been a mininova.

How about instead of an implant, just put it into something the size of a credit card. And as a bonus, make it digestible too so it can be disposed of quickly when necessary. And then, for ease of use (to prevent key loggers and such), make it so that the only way to add new passwords is to physically input it into the device.

Oh wait...

I think you've identified the problem quite well. I don't think the carte blanche "public financing" is a sufficient solution however. If you look at countries with public financing, it's not as if money is any less of a problem in their elections. The biggest wallet is still the strongest competitor. Even without PACs and SuperPACs buying up the airwaves, even if everybody knew everything via the most democratic form of communication, i.e. Internet, there are still numerous ways for money to enter the election (in the latter case, via astroturfing).

Running for office is currently a popularity contest. In fact, the very mechanism is called "popular vote". The best person doesn't necessarily win. Rather, the most popular person does. Popularity comes about in multiple ways, but in the end, it boils down to marketing. Marketing is not necessarily telling the best-sounding lies (though it's likely the case considering these are politicians we're talking about). Marketing also involves raising awareness and manipulating the narrative. Any campaign is dead on arrival without a good marketer with a good marketing strategy, knowing who to say what to when.

A good marketer requires money. Or promises of benefits. We're all intelligent people here. We all are talented. We all command a price (though money is but one type of payment), and understand and implicitly acknowledge that the price of our talent is higher than the price of those with inferior talent, but also lower than those with superior talent. There's no reason to believe that this does not apply to marketers.

The only way to remove money from politics is to remove popularity from the process. There are many ways to blunt the impact of money (public financing being one such, spreading money around more evenly is another), but so long as there is value in talent, money and power will remain correlated.

Now, as for the methods of reducing money's influence in a popular election, those would be public financing, reducing income disparity (the two I previously mentioned), improving education, and democratizing communication. Tying the number of representatives to a fixed population size (rather than fixing the number of representatives and floating the population represented) will also eliminate other corrupt practices like gerrymandering. Going to a ranked voting system would also help, but that's more to eliminate the two-party dominance. These last two reforms would indirectly reduce the amount spent per party though they would not reduce the total spent nor the impact per amount.

1) Nobody says the tenants are buying the homes.

2) Nobody says Lucas is trying to recoup the costs of construction.

3) The total cost per unit is probably much higher if you factor in the value of the land.

FYI, low income housing is usually rentals. Many low income people have trouble saving for a down payment, much less get a loan from a bank, no matter how small the amount borrowed is.

The main problem with cheap rentals is the building's maintenance costs. Government subsidies are used to help with that usually. If Lucas isn't willing to bleed in the long term, at best, he's going to have to price the rentals for middle income, working class people. Which may still constitute "low income" in that part of California.

What you say is true when it comes to organizations that have a strong managerial structure.

In this case, I think it's the programmers (I cannot call them engineers because real engineers tend not to pursue new and shiny for the sake of new and shiny) themselves who are to blame. Their reasons for completely destroying old productive systems are a dangerous combination of the two factors mentioned: 1) new and shiny as I mentioned and 2) making their mark, as you've mentioned.

Developers can actually be motivated by either one and not fall into this trap. But with both of theses combined into one (often-subconscious) goal, this is the kind of atrocity that results: complete abandonment of what exists and works with a poor or no replacement.

In the movie, he's going to sue the lead characters for being violent.