The difference between "some of them will die" and "all of them will die" is drastic. The first implies that some of them have a reasonable chance of survival. The government provides the training and supplies such that potentially all of them could survive with a reasonable expectation is that some of them will survive. I'd be ok with a voluntary mission with similar chances. I would not be ok with a mission where the expectation is that noone would survive.

But does it come in Mauve?
http://search.dilbert.com/comi...

I thought everyone got 80 virgins......

The 7-11 I used to frequent had a ethernet jack near the soda dispensers......this jack was where the nearby ATM was plugged in. It would have been quite easy for me to insert any sort of device between the ATM and the jack. There was enough space between the jack and the ATM and there was also a valid reason for me to be in the area that it wouldn't look like I was doing anything with it. While it wasn't an official bank ATM (unaffiliated), I still could have been malicious had I wanted to. [I also never had a reason to use that ATM and am always wary of using an ATM that isn't physically at a bank...not that those are drastically safer.]

I offer as a solution not covered by the patent the following. This solution is released free of charge to any and all podcasters / podcasting software / podcast playback devices:

Create a REST based url which requires a random number to be passed as the final argument. Without this random (non-predetermined) argument, the compilation file (aka RSS or ATOM feed) will not be returned.

From the patent statement linked in the summary: The compilation file was stored at a predetermined URL known to the Personal Audio player and was updated as new episodes became available

I didn't read the article, but the summary says MORE THAN 30K. Maybe they matched them 1:1 which lead to the extra valuation.

I've always mentored people because I don't want to be a star among numpties; it is harder to judge my true worth. I want to be the best player on the all-star team. The only way to do that is to make sure everyone around me is as good as they can be......and to stay ahead of them.

I agree. I think the current "future" is Single Page Applications with HTML and Javascript (subject to change at a moment's notice).....whether it's Angular or Knockout based, SPA apps seem to be the way to go (for now). It's probably the closest we've come to the write once / run anywhere......it works on the desktop and on the device, doesn't require anything other than a decent browser, and requires very little infrastructure (a basic web server).

This, but also get a mentor. I more or less took a guy through this type of exercise and had him rewrite the same application four times to teach various concepts. But by being his mentor, he was able to grok the design considerations of the new technology to even know what to look up......

Rewriting an app the same way you always have but in a new platform doesn't teach you the best practices and new approaches. And not having the knowledge or experience to know the better ways makes it really hard to search for them. A mentor's job is to point you in the right direction.

I'd argue that you really need a non-insignificant portion of the company to work harder. I used to work for a rather large company and received options and also participated in the stock purchase plan. But my little blip of ownership wasn't enough for me to work any harder than I already did. Sure, I liked it when options vested and/or the stock price went up.....but I looked at that as "vacation money" or "new toy money" and not as a reward for working harder. Had I received options in the realm of the executives, then sure, I would have worked hard to make sure they stock price was jumping by leaps and bounds.....but for us peons, it didn't make much difference.

It is legal tender for those debts, but it isn't required that all debts accept it. Something that ISN'T legal tender for all debts is sex (in certain locales, others may allow it). You aren't legally allowed to pay for a debt with sex.

Go check out the Nokia 520. http://www.amazon.com/Nokia-Lu...

That's not a contract price, that's to buy it straight out. If you play with the phone, it's responsive and for the money, the specs aren't bad (5MP camera, dual-core 1Ghz CPU, etc.). There are apps that won't run on it, but most will. And it's the Nokia design. If you want to play around with Windows Phone development, it's a great dev phone.

Great performance on lesser hardware. Windows Phone is more responsive on comparable hardware than Android or iOS. If it's free to license, I think you'll see Windows Phone make a good run at the lower-end phone market......it already does fairly well there in Europe, we'll see what this does for their position in India.

I've solved plenty of problems in novel ways. I've also solved problems based on a post I found on Stack Overflow.

My main complaint is that software patents don't reveal how to implement them. So I can't know whether I've devised a new and novel way of sliding to unlock or not. Software patents are akin to patenting "engines" and suing for billions when the rotary engine even though you invented the carburated combustion engine

I think it just adds another layer to the storage tree: near/quick memory all the way to far/slow memory. You have your various layers of cache on the processor, RAM, RAM disks, SSDs, Hard drives, Tape drives, etc.