In deciding to cut a new path with Unity, Ubuntu had some good reasons to break with Gnome as its primary UI layer. Gnome caused about as much stir with its initial 3.0 release as Ubuntu did with Unity. If Gnome, KDE, or other UI technologies are able to fix the issues that drove Canonical to create Unity, would they get more official, supported status than they now have? In other words, would Canonical ever consider moving away from Unity?

I like the sound of this initially. One drawback to current App stores is they are locked to a single platform (ie. OS). Apple's App store only works on Apple devices. Android's various marketplaces only work on Android devices. the Windows App store apps will work only on Windows devices.

Here Steam has the chance to let the same apps work on any OS you want as long as the app developers will support it. Login to your Steam account anywhere and install that must-have-software on any machine no matter where you are or what you have. And if your application can be easily distributed through one channel to all your users, so much the better for you! I hope Steam finds success here.

While I'm not an expert in fashion for males or females, you don't have to look far to notice that there are lots of tech CEOs that just throw a sports coat or blazer on top of their t-shirt and jeans. No one questions their authority or style, and it projects the confidence of a real owner. You already have the jeans and t-shirt, so I'd suggest picking up a few sport coats or blazers to wear with them. It adds that aura of authority, and is easily removed/swapped.

What I want to know is how will the Obama Administration actually pick the top 2,500 or 10,000 teachers for the program. What criteria or measurements will they use to select them? Is it a subjective measure? We've had fights in all 50 states about measuring teacher performance, But the Obama plan seems to gloss over that problem. I could see whatever process used to select the cream of the crop also used to justify salaries for the n - 2500 teachers.

My guess is the lender. And in the vast majority of cases these days, the lender is the government. The school doesn't have an incentive to hurt the success of their alumni, and the only party gaining from forcing (former) students to pay up is the government.

Sounds like Universities are now becoming lackeys for the Federal government. These days, the vast majority (80% - 90%) of student loans come directly from the Federal government. Private lenders were taking advantage of students, so the government stepped in and pretty much owns the market. And the government won't generally let you off the hook for these loans -- even through bankruptcy. The government wants its money back.

The same government that subsidizes student loans also sends grant money to the Universities. I'd bet dollars to donuts that the government is willing to put the squeeze on universities to find some way to force students to pay. It shouldn't surprise anyone to find out that the Feds might withhold funding from Universities if their students don't pay back loans.

Like the summary, and others, have pointed out: there's no good incentive for Universities to not send transcripts for students behind on their loan payments. So why else but pressure from the Federal government would Universities do something that harms their alumni and their reputation?

I've also lost a lightsaber in the past.

I had a fight with my dad, and it got pretty heated. He ended up cutting off my hand, and I dropped it. I felt really shafted. It was a traumatic experience for me. It worked out in the end, as it turned out it was his lightsaber anyway, and I built my own shortly thereafter. I also got a new hand (you can't really build a lightsaber with just one hand -- I should know!)

--Luke S.

Anecdote:

My wife was allowed to take her yogurt through security in her carry-on, even though it was more then 3oz of yogurt. The reason was she had put it in the freezer before the trip. Since it was still frozen, it didn't count as a liquid, and therefore wasn't subject to the usual rules.

Your TSA experience may vary, since there's certainly inconsistency in how rules are applied.

It's funny that you ask this, because the Supreme Court just heard a case on precisely this topic. Read the ScotusBlog analysis on what the Justices argued below:
http://www.scotusblog.com/2011/11/argument-recap-for-gps-get-a-warrant/

Honestly, I wish I understood the filesystem better.

I came from the Windows world with very little programming experience. Even though I've used Ubuntu as my other OS since 10.04 (and experimented before then), I still don't understand the filesystem beneath it. Everything is in something like /bin, /etc, /lib /home, or some other very short folder. I could at least make the connection that /home is for my stuff, because that's where all my stuff is saved by default. But just about everything else is a mystery.

When I install a program, where does it go? In Windows, I've been trained to look in the "Programs" folder. In Linux, I have no idea where it went. Did it go into /bin or /lib? Or somewhere else? What are those separate directories for? Why is the .conf in a different place than the program? If I want to install something myself before it hits the distro's repository, where do I put it?

What Ubuntu lacks (along with just about every other distro aiming to convert Windows users) is some built-in way to teach users how to do the things they used to do in Windows. I don't mean things like "how to open a Word doc" -- if you can't find LibreOffice in the menu or use an online doc-editing tool, Linux is beyond you. But advanced users of Windows could use the boost to get them on the same level as beginner-to-normal Linux users.

I have thought of writing some kind of book or website tutorial on just this topic several times, but I can't -- I don't know the answers to these questions. If someone or some group did this, that would help make Ubuntu a more mainstream desktop OS.

An article I keep bookmarked for these occasions:
Divided Government Is Best For the Market by Donald Luskin. He basically does the analysis and comes to the same conclusion you drew anecdotally. When government is divided and gridlocked, the economy does best.