I've always wanted to be able to text the douchebag that just cut me off and tell him/her what a douchebag he/she is.

Or be able to leave a nice little voicemail or text to tell the douchebag in the parking lot that he/she parked like a douchebag taking up two spots.

Of course I'll get a few of those myself, but it might be worth it, just for the occasional satisfaction of calling out a douchebag.

I worked with this group and I can tell you they're not into marketing, but the press people that prepared the release probably are.

The bulk of what this NRL section does is technology demonstrators. They were also the first to air drop a drone from another drone. The odd number is probably an exact accounting of the time spent on powered flight; climb, cruise and loiter segments are the most significant for accounting for energy use during flight. Gliding and coast segments are not so interesting.

Props to my old crew at NRL, and to the memory of Jim Kellog who developed the first prototype of what became the Ion Tiger.

Exactly. I had a PhD and was even proposing changes to the C++ standard, and getting them accepted, but couldn't parse and XML file. Let him go 2 weeks into his probation period.

Maybe I misunderstand the nature of these contests, but what I produce in 4 weeks is different than what I produce in 4 days. I have to make serious trade-offs that will impact the software design significantly and will not reflect what my vision would be for the "big picture" goals like clarity, maintainability, modularity, safety, error handling and all manner of best practices.

I wouldn't want a prospective employer to judge me based on the stuff I can churn out in a flash, unless that's the nature of the work they have in mind for me.

If I could swap the batteries for topped ones like propane tanks at Lowes or Walmart every two or three weeks that would be a workable proposition for me, depending on cost. These places are already all over the place and have large storage volumes to store the stock and the empties. That's a reasonable infrastructure shortcut and these outlets would love to get you in the door to buy other stuff; that's why they have Redboxes and the like. I think they'd be on board. Soon you would see refueling stations that would not need all the environmental hoops of gas stations and would just be a matter of storage volume and inventory control, as well as providing the distilled water.

If it's even half that easy I'd bet the lobbyists would fight this tooth and nail, since it would almost pull the rug from under the oil industry. I'd almost dare to be an early adopter.

Other than Windows itself, they're still second or third place in pretty much every domain they've gotten involved in that I can think of off the top of my head. Apple's been eating their lunch in the home user and mobile space. They're still behind Google in search and mobile as well, and won't hold a candle to them in cloud services, at least for a while. The console market doesn't seem to be that hot, and they're second or third there too.

I mean, they've got Exchange/Office, as mentioned by a previous poster, but generally speaking it seems to me that many of their attempts in other segments will likely continue result in burning cash to continue to be behind the lead dog. How long can that last?

Messing up Windows is like killing one of their golden geese.

addressed to me. Most people respect that in return. Does that count as a reasonable expectation of privacy? Could we apply the same standard to e-mail?

Yes, so the IR laser bounces off and the visible light screams "Shoot here, please!". At least they can toss back a few and have a party while they're putting it together.

These things look like blocks that could eventually mature into a technology you can just swap in and out. The issue of initial deployment would be much more easily reachable if a facility just swaps used blocks for new ones. Eventually, (a "station" so to speak) only involves storing new and used cells and providing water for the process, and maybe some chips or chewing gum for on the road. Not nearly the same environmental implications and regulations of putting a fuel tank underground. You could have these stations anywhere, maybe even built into hardware stores, SuperStores, etc. I could see that as a shorter path to infrastructure development.

I remember having to make the excruciating decision of which format to rip my entire CD collection when I was building my HTPC back in 2007. I listened carefully through high-quality studio headphones at the difference and concluding that lossless was going to be the better format for my setup. If I could tell the difference through the headphones, then I figured there would be even more of a difference through my Pioneer Elite receiver and Mirage DefTech speakers.

When I hooked it up, it paid off big time. Sounds heavenly. When I sync from my HTPC to my library and play it through my Samsung Galaxy S3, I convert down to 160 or 192kbps and it sounds as good as I can expect it in a mobile format.

Point is it depends on the setup as a whole. Like any performance chain, your worst component will determine the overall system performance. Furthermore, it depends on the listener. My wife couldn't care if it's coming from my system or from her Coby boom box (WTF?), and I'm the one who's hard of hearing. Big whoop to her.

I agree to a degree. I always facepalmed every time I saw the clumsy way in which the case was presented to the people. But in the context of calling a bluff I would think it's necessary to pretend to accept the opponent's premise.

I disagree with your theory, but there's something about it I like.

You're probably right; oil was probably a cherry on top.

Also right on Iran and Iraq being old enemies, and yes, I'd much prefer to keep them aimed at each other, that is until the whole ME explodes on account of those two. That's why I would see the U.S. weighing the long-term benefits of removing one wildcard from the equation.

The arms race "starting" is more in the context of Iraq reconstituting itself militarily after the first Gulf War, which was followed by a relative lull in their military spending, not in the absolute timescale. More of a natural extension of their long-term opposition, progressing past Iraq's use of chemical warfare of the Iran-Iraq war. That's why Saddam was stalling inspectors and making it seem like they had more to hide. This same arms race is what many people are fearing now between Iran and Egypt and Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

http://books.google.com/books?id=qFCkQRQApSwC&pg=PA41#v=onepage&q&f=false

Seems the FUD on oil and the Iraq war has proven to be quite sticky. Fact is, there are many other oil-rich countries that would have been a hell of a lot easier and convenient to take over than Iraq. Seeing as how the accusation is that the U.S. fabricated a case, it would have been just as easy to fabricate a case against any of them. If I had to plan such a thing, Venezuela would be the first to come to mind, but it's not the only one I would consider.

The war in Iraq was about one thing; Iran. Stabilizing the Middle East by reducing the amount of megalomaniacs by one. By calling Saddam's bluff (which was aimed more at Iran than the U.S.) the coalition slowed down a Middle-East arms race that was just getting started, but was going to speed up quickly once Iraq rebuilt its military capacity. One of the stated goals of the first Gulf War was to reduce their military capability for 10 years. Did the U.S. go about it the right time? Not optimal, but necessary, since it had been roughly 10 years since the first Gulf War. Did the U.S. go about it the right way? Definitely not. Rumsfeld screwed up the war strategy big time, starting with using half the troops that would have been needed for securing the borders. Nation-building and long-term occupation? No thanks; trying to quit.

North Korea presents a decent enough military threat overall, only because they've starved their people in order to pay for their military capability and have thoroughly indoctrinated them into fighting to the death to stay enslaved, but their tension with Japan and South Korea still does not amount to megalomaniac A vs megalomaniac B.

I would say most inquiries are motivated by wanting to achieve a specific technical task/goal. (eg. Get working directory C++ ). When developers enter their search queries, it's in the form of a question and the first results that come up (in my experience) are Stack Overflow entries. Official documentation is setup more like a technical reference often with only a few less than-practical examples, or examples that don't exactly fit the context of the specific technical task/goal you happen to be pursuing at the time.

I like the thorough technical reference for when I need to know all the available options and parameters, and related topics. Sometimes documentation sets also come with examples that exercise many of the practical development scenarios that closely match the developers' goals. The documentation for the toolkit I'm currently using (LEADTools) is a pretty good example of that. Otherwise if the people writing the documentation are not practical developers they may not be able to write a good enough set of use cases and examples to complement the technical reference well. So you open up a browser and search and there is pretty much the exact same question you're asking, answered in about 2 or 3 Stack Overflow entries, with suggestions, debates, links to other references, etc. Often times it's what you needed and a little more. And off you go...