...also the crappy alignment of the last text bubble. :)

I have some of these bulbs and they are fine for me. I have noticed they don't dim all the way down though.

I mean that if you were to move the dimmer from 100 to 0, the bulb would dim down to 30 and shut off below that.
But basically it works fine, you just have to move the dimmer from 30-100 instead of from 0-100.

I have noticed that virtually all the new LED light bulbs that replace normal incandescent bulbs are dimmable.
(This is true for the bulbs I've seen on sale).

This is not true for Compact Fluorescent bulbs. You need to buy special and expensive dimmable bulbs
(that frequently whine when dimming).

Even if there are failures, I suspect the cost savings is still great (both in power use and maintenance costs). Also the lights have a warranty.

The analogy would hold if you licensed your house. Or possibly a reverse mortgage.

What are you TALKING about?

The CEO is definitely the one calling the shots for stuff like always-on DRM, free-to-play, in-app purchases and other decisions of this kind.

He implements "big" policy and mediates the power struggles between for instance marketing and engineering.

There are numerous examples of this, but one that comes to mind is Steve Jobs' architecting of Apple so that Jonathan Ives would "win" when it came to design decisions.

I use these earplugs:

http://www.earplugstore.com/eclsupvcfopl.html

and have been very successful blocking out noises.

I was going to say the same thing.

On the other hand, they could just start school an hour later, couldn't they?

Early school is bad anyway

I predict EA will die.

Maybe they won't, but I've quit buying from them.

It seems like they're like those cities/countries where they raise the taxes, and people leave. So to
cover expenses, they raise the taxes again (and more people leave). It's a death spiral.

in an office, just snag some reams of copier paper.

I think gambling laws should be expanded to include this kind of thing.

I see gambling as pay-as-you-go entertainment. Yes you could win, but people just gamble the winnings to extend their play time.

Lincoln had lots of help from a hidden source..

You see, under his hat, he kept Little Lincoln A.

Little Lincoln A kept Little Lincoln B under HIS hat. And so on.

In this manner, any task could be attacked efficiently.

Source

http://xkcd.com/1109/

I use my microwave oven all the time, and it's computerized, but the user interface sucks.

How about:
- a touchscreen interface
- never-ending reminder beeps that something finished and is still in the oven.
- allow the sounds to be changed
- require confirmation if you punch in > 10 minutes (did that once 30 minutes instead of 3, almost started a fire, smoke smell permeated in the house for weeks)
- smoke detector, arcing detector, boil-over detector
- temperature detector built-in (maybe alert you when the temperature dropped to non-scalding)
- make multi-stage stuff easier. Like if it needs to stand for 2 minutes, allow that to be easily added to the end before the alarm.
- notifications on my phone?
- custom recipes/presets
- scan the barcode for commercial frozen food to get cooking instructions, recalling your last settings for that food.

all this crap should NOT require an internet connection. (I can just see them trying to tie it into the manufacturer website)

I wonder if an induction cooktop could modulate ... something... to move a stirrer ... magnetic or metallic or something.