Degrees of damage. Hell, it's the oldest joke in the programmer's book:

1. Would you complain if this was an "Ask Slashdot", or taken from a respected programmer's blog? Does the name behind the thing matter that much?
2. Slashdot is now owned by Dice. The Golden Rule says the one with the gold makes the rules. You're free to seek greener pastures or linger on.

Unless they need you to be productive shortly, not in 2-3 months while you learn generic programming and STL/Boost.

Maybe this prototype won't be recovered, just like the Enterprise never reached space.

Instructions unclear - accidentally ate the whole thing. Having dreamy thoughts about how big I am getting.

You misspelled “cowboy user”.

You can deny service (and thus the incoming call that activates the device) without removing the signal; all phones would remain attached to the network ("have signal") and none the wiser.

Of course, a smarter device could require as its dead man's trigger a recurring call and go boom when it no longer gets it for some time. The game goes on.

I was (perhaps a bit pedantically) objecting to the apparent argument that any shape will do because your fingers will wrap around it. I can think of shapes that you could hold but wouldn't like working with.

That means that the shape(s) you've been using is/are adequate (possibly for most normal hands of roughly similar size). The ordinary mouse I use at work is symmetric and gives me no issues, but early mice wouldn't work as well for long hours, and I know from experience that tiny "laptop" mice kill my thumb adductors. OTOH (no pun intended), I know people who work *better* with tiny mice, either because they have small hands or because of injury.

Lastly, TFA is about gamers. They mouse like their lives depend on it (some do make a living off it) and it's not unthinkable that the situation resembles other activities like shooting or golf to some degree, where subtle differences in performance and myth complicate gear choices.

That doesn't mean that every shape is equally suitable to handling for hours. Ergonomics is not exactly a new field - maybe precisely because of that we tend to take it for granted.

in a nutshell

Which I hoped Firaxis would do with the X-COM series. Imagine, after the initial joy of seeing my shiny HD troop transport land, seeing that my guys can't pass, drop, throw or pick up an item, or do whatever the hell they want within their time. Which reminds me, I should check up on UFO:AI.

Then kill every criminal whose cost as an inmate is substantially less than the expected contribution to the economy after release.

You misspelled "retaliation" there. Nobody is being indemnified and no dead come back to life when the killer is killed.

Paging Keanu Reeves, Kristen Stewart...