About six months ago, or more, I was in a hobby shop in western New York - not necessarily a hot-bed of anything, really; Amish dudes and farming? - and the guy behind the counter tried to impress me with his position as "investigator of potential terrorist activity" based on a sheet he'd been given by the authorities regarding suspicious purchases that could be masked as mere hobby activity. I chuckled - yeah, right, this is gonna happen around here? And you're gonna catch a would-be international terrorist, Gomer? - and groaned inwardly, at the same time, for what we've become.

This is my neighborhood! Go do this shit in your own backyard! Just because we're sparsely populated, out here, doesn't mean we don't care if you ruin our terra firma.

Oh. Never mind. Geez, I didn't even hear the blasts...

Grades shouldn't matter, if the real goal is knowledge.

On a couple of counts: 1. For typing, I can use the built-in "keyboard" easily enough. When I know I'll have to type a lot, like at a meeting, I'll bring my BT keyboard. 2. For creating documents, there are a number of Word-sort-of-compatible apps: Pages; Office2; QuickOffice; QuickWord; Documents To Go; etc. Yeah, it's not 100% Office compatibility, but if I need to shoot off a quick doc with some formatting, a table or two, I can do it. I'd use it on the airplane, or riding along as a passenger on a road trip to put together a rough draft that I'd finish in the office, using Word on the desktop. I realize that the platform and apps are limited, and there's a time and place to do different kinds of work. It's a matter of setting expectations.

If a ready-made X fit your needs, Ok, you'd have a point. However, in what I'm doing, lately, lots of times I either can't find what I need, or it's such a PITA to find it, that I'd love to have a 3D printer - if it produced parts I could actually use. Not all of us stay on the beaten path.

I hesitate to say, "You lack imagination." It's too confrontational for my tastes. However, if I had a quality 3D printer, capable of turning out durable pieces, I'd have almost no end of things I'd create: parts for robotics; automated pan-tilt assemblies; custom gears; custom servo horns; project cases for gadgets I've built; toys for my granddaughter; etc. As it is, I cut and drill pieces from stock plastic, and it's a pain in comparison to custom forming things from a CAD drawing.

"Good with guns"? Out of all the cops chasing them, they hit 2.

"don't want to risk more of their men." Isn't that their job?

I started out with an on-line account, but switched to hardcopy because a) I can hang on to them, indefinitely, and refer back to a particular article or circuit diagram, whereas with electronic-only, I lose access to them after my subscription runs out; and b) I can read them in the bathroom and not feel grossed out about hygiene.

Slight hole in your analogy, there. I can drive a car without a license - I drove a motorcycle without a license for about six months, long ago - just not legally. Licensing doesn't really do much to prevent criminals from doing what they want.

If this report is true, MS is fucking pathetic. I'm not particularly "anti-MS": I just don't care. I think in terms of, "Whatever gets the job done." But, upon hearing reports that their competitors are doing something with a "smart watch," MS now has to slut themselves to create a "me-too" product...? Have they no self-respect? They're like an old whore chasing down Johns from corner to corner, hoping someone will throw a buck their way, while everyone else looks away in embarrassment.

WTF...? You do not own a cat. At best, they live with you. You, the human, are being used. You provide food and shelter. If they like you, they'll grace you with their presence. If not, they're outtaheah. "Own..." Such noobness.

"Destroyed"? Seriously? As in no new development for iOS? No app market? There are limits to hyperbole, you know.

Like what? Seriously, short of code compilation and serial communications - for connecting to embedded devices, which I might, in fact, be able to do with my iPad - what can't I do on my tablet? Word? Got it. Excel? Got it. Drawing tools? Got it. Browser and email? Got it. Network analysis? Dunno - haven't really checked if Wireshark has been ported.

Roger that. At my last job, at a large multi-national working on medical diagnostics, I worked for a couple of years for a woman with whom I got along well enough. Then, she moved to a different group and a raging asshole took over - the kind that would literally look over your shoulder and tell you what to type, or holler at you in team meetings, or lie about what was in the actual scope of the upcoming release so he'd get us to do additional things that would make him look good, but cause us to work extra hours. Late one night, working on another impossible deadline, I got a blurry spot in my right eye but thought it was dirty contacts. Long story short, after seeing various eye doctors, I learned I'd burst a vessel in my retina (BRVO) and the blood was clouding my vision. This happens more often in older folks, but relatively rarely in younger people: I was like an infant compared to the majority of the folks in the waiting room. The treatment for it is direct injections into the eye, every six weeks or so. Yeah, lots of fun. I saved up enough to allow me to quit and coast for a while - it's been 8 months, so far - and at my last retinal specialist visit, the eye was good enough I didn't need an injection. Gee, I didn't have this problem before working for that raging asshole, and it's healed after I stopped working for him. S'pose there's direct correlation, there?

I agree: the crackers out there will crack, regardless. Further, the petitioner never mentioned to what degree he wanted to stop piracy. What level of piracy is acceptable? 0%? Not possible. At the other extreme, if no one is paying, then, yeah, something's fucked up. I'd guess a decent product might actually see around 5% to 10% piracy, but what are you gonna do? The harder you make it for people to rip you off, the more likely it is you'll piss off your honest customers. How does that help them? They're not the ones you want to hurt.

As I see it, I develop because I like to, and if people want to pay me for what I produce, I'm happy. If they want it so badly that they're willing to steal it, I'm happy with that, too. As long as people are using my stuff.