The book that this app is based on (Modernist Cuisine at Home, the ~15lb book, not the 50lb reference) is actually a great book for the home cook. It has a great deal of information on technique that defies the traditionalist view of how to cook just about anything. While $80 is still a ridiculous price for an app, the book is a reference for any one who is a serious home cook.

I graduated in '91 studying molecular beams. There was so little work in the field then, that I went into peptide chemistry. Nothing has changed, and I doubt anything will in the future. More people want to study high energy physics than can be supported in the field. Nothing new. Nothing to see here, move along......

I've had bladder cancer (Stage 1 Grade 2 transitional cell carcinoma), and I make jokes about it all the time.

As a former cancer researcher at a big biotech pharma company, I also call bullshit. First of all, claiming that "antibodies are cheap and not complicated" just shows your ignorance of the science. The concept may be simple, but the actual production of pharmaceutical quality antibodies is VERY complicated and requires a massive infrastructure. And the average cost to bring a biologic drug to market is about 750 million dollars. As far as paranoid delusions of some company hiding the cure for cancer, I'm also a cancer survivor. Do you think if I was working on something that was "a cure for cancer" I would allow it be buried ? Do you think the entire company could be convinced to hide such a discovery ? Every nearly practical development in biotech seems to end up generating two or three spin-off companies. How are they going to be silenced ?

I would think the appropriate way to determine how dead you are is measure your brain activity and multiply by your credit score then add your net worth. When that reaches zero, congratulations, you've become a productive member of society and the six rich folks getting your organs thank you.

I was a database app programmer (remedy systems) for far too long. I burnt out just as you are doing. I now teach kung fu. Now when I try to explain something, I get to hit the audience. There is nothing quite so enjoyable as being able to throw the customer to the floor.

You are mistaken if you think this will be a problem for the Heartland Institute. With the crowd that they are interested in playing to, the denigration of science is a plus. For the hard-core tea baggers and the biblical literalists, science is the enemy. Science is a liberal plot to disprove everything that they KNOW is good and true. If the Heartland Institute plays up the "we hate science" agenda, and they get traction with publicity, just watch. They money will roll in.

I don't understand all the Art bashing here. I worked under Art when he ran Genentech research, and later when he was promoted to CEO. He was a genius at getting other geniuses (and no, I'm not counting myself in that category) to give their best, most creative work. He made Genentech a fun, exciting place to work. We all worked hard (very hard), but were well rewarded and felt the work was vital and exciting stuff. I think he has exactly what it takes to help guide Apple. He's not some bean-counter, suit wearing executive. He's a scientist at heart, and as hard-core a geek as any one could want (he was known for using UNIX mail even after the company rolled out a custom mail interface).

There is a ton of information available here: http://www.uspto.gov/web/patents/howtopat.htm

Having spent eight years designing call center applications, I can tell you the one metric you'll want to point your bosses at is the potential to increase first level call resolution. You should balance any increase in call handling time with the potential for greatly reduced call escalation. The key to this is involving the second and third level escalation points in your wiki.