Maybe he needs an income stream that is hidden from his wife. He wouldn't want to clue her in on how much he spends on hookers and blow.

I'm waiting for things to calm down before ordering. Though i do believe they will change the world.

Copyright Infringement is a crime (or at least an infraction) that you can commit in the privacy of your own home. The relative rewards are quite large (you get free stuff) and there are some social pressures to do it (your friends are talking about that tv show / movie / etc.) while the chances of getting caught are, realistically speaking, very low.

Maybe, just maybe, there is no problem with the law. Maybe, just maybe, the problem is with its enforceability.

be sure not to lose your time travel return pod so that you can return to 2002, when your comments were equally naive, but at least it was a more common delusion, especially on slashdot.

I never referred to my studies as "bra input" like they did but I guess that's what it takes to get funding. All my research has been self-funded...

You can be certain that every major intelligence service has multiple operatives working for Google. The ones from the NSA may be doing so less covertly.

Don't forget liability when the s$#! hits the fan and a lost child or evacuation announcement has to be made and the PA override fails. Rolling your own sounds penny wise pound foolish.

I'm sure that's a comfy couch but it doesn't need to fill the frame. How about zooming in on the speaker?

...I'll be by to take it because you don't seem very bright.

You announce on Twitter when you leave your house ("Off to IKEA!"), you're too cheap to pay for ADT (or even ADT signs and stickers), yet you don't mind paying for equipment so you can sit around and monitor your home.

Let me know when you get the webcams up and running...I'm sure you'll fail to change the default password. I'd rather use the webcams to see when you leave rather than following you on Twitter.

The biggest flaw is that this is an expensive piece of custom equipment. No criticism of Dr. Jansen intended; he made the gadget he wanted to have. But I would like to see a design that is less expensive and mass-produced

Dr. Jansen agrees with you. From the Mark 2 Design Philosophy section:

Accessibility (cost): "To create something that was as inexpensive as possible, so that people might easily have access to them without having to worry about the cost".
Comment :: This is something I don't feel I did very well on. A ballpark estimate for the component cost of a single Mark 1 was about $500 when I constructed it, which feels like too much. For every household to have their own Tricorder, it feels like something around $100 to $200 is a more accessible price range, and to have one in every child's hand such that they might easily learn more about their worlds both in and (especially) outside of school, that number likely has to be under $50. Thankfully, much of the cost comes from sensors (which are rapidly decreasing in cost), and from PCB production (which is almost negligible in quantity).