I think you are right, though the key differentiator is not chatty vs. discrete messages. Chat done right can solve a number of problems that email has:

- Email sucks as an archive. It's fine to store personal emails just for yourself, but when you dig deep and assess how much critical corporate knowledge is locked away in this multitude of personal archives of all employees, you'll be in for a shock. A Twitter-like chat system for corporations (like Yammer) will retain that knowledge for the right group, including its future members. I find that only a small part of my conversation is actually really private between me and someone else. Most of it will be relevant for my team, for another team, for a special interest group within the company, or for the company as a whole. In a corporate Twitter, asking for knowledge is automatically the same as sharing it, as soon as an answer is given. In email, any answer is lost for everyone but yourself.

- Email is fine for communicating 1 to 1 or 1 to many, but it is a poor vehicle for many-to-many conversations. Chat systems (again citing Yammer as an example... by the way I have nothing to do with Yammer except that my current client uses it) can solve this by having private, ad-hoc chat groups in which participants can be invited or drop out as needed. New joiners will see a clear, linear history of what has already been discussed, instead of a steaming pile of replies-to-replies-to-replies in multiple sub-threads, all intertwined in a single email exchange.

In our team, we've tried sticking to the rule that forbids the use of email for anything that will still be relevant one week from the day of sending. The idea is that any such messages belong to the corporate memory, which means email is out as a vehicle for storing it. Instead, people use Yammer or email links to documents stored in a central repository. It worked out quite well, both improving recall from our corporate memory, keeping everyone on the same page and aware of each others' work, and improving the quality of discussions by electronic means.
But we too found that it is extremely hard to break the email habit. One thing that email still has going for it in the corporation is that everyone has it, and everyone is expected to read it several times a day. You might get told of for missing an important email, but being told off for missing an important discussion on some social media thingy? We're not quite there yet.

Alternative: I wired the house with CAT 6 network drops in most rooms. If a guest needs Intenet access, I tell them that there is a patch cable in the desk in the guest bedroom. They don't get the wireless password.

Pretty much the same mix of clients (all Linux except an occaisional AIX or Solaris system for work) on our network unless my wife has to fire up her work laptop that runs Windoze so not too much worry about a "Typhoid Mary" guest.

Cheers,
Dave

IT already has. Most people that buy a BLuRay disc that try to use the "UltraViolet Digital Copy" get pissed as it's already expired most of the time.

I get questions a LOT about it, I point the people at Handbrake and AnyDVDHD so they can make their own that will work on all devices and never expire.

You can proofread documentation. so you don get the following.

Insert batteries in the proper way, happy fun is achieved! Do not go!

Or pretty much everything you see on this site full of examples.... http://www.engrish.com/

OR you can do tech support, China companies would KILL for a native english speaker to sit in the call center and answer angry phone calls.

I would suspect C3 sleep states are supported on a majority of systems by now. Perhaps I was just lucky when I picked up the hackintosh board a few years ago. Now, I simply use a reasonably long idle timer and the system goes to sleep/power off. It takes a few seconds to come back out of that state and wholly beats a cold start.

I guestimate my home system gets about 3-4 hours of usage each day during the weekday. In addition, there are plenty of other device around the house which support other core services.

I don't know if it's so much about being green as it is the sensibility to turn a light switch off if it's not in use.

The GIMP. stop whining and download and use it. You have a free option that is perfectly usable for your needs.

TPB has a torrent of their entire database that is updated every 8 hours. All it takes is one person to release it elsewhere for TPB list of magnet links to get out to those being oppressed.

You would have to code like a moron to make it IE unfriendly.

Code to HTML standards and you will be fine. Not everything has to be WEB 4.0Beta with fricking blinking beeping and sliding crap everywhere. In fact most sites that are crap embrace all that garbage. Look at how much slower Slashdot became when they added in all that garbage that really was not needed.

No you dont.

Simply have a larger sample pool. I.E. have 25 people drive that street and take an average of their data and you will be dead on to where the street actually is.

You never owned anything based on NavTeq maps have you.

Navteq map databases are the WORST in the world. bad data, really out of date roads, missing roads that have existed for decades.
It's why the OEM Gps systems in many cars and bikes is a complete piece of crap.

The databases used by garmin and the others is based on the US Census data. And TomTom is whiny because the open guys can use the same database.

Anyone can build a tomtom for 1/3rd the price of their over priced stuff. And honestly, they have fallen way behind, even the china knockoffs have a better UI than tomtom has now.