They actually already have force burst sensors for packages, for damage liability on expensive item transport. I think some insurance companies require it so they can sue the transport company if need be.

Everyone changes their stuff around too much for me to want to deal with. So I just maintain my own desktop exactly how I want it.

Debian Testing (until the new stable is out), a custom maintained kernel (was having problems with stability on new-ish thinkpad that new kernel fixed), and windowmaker. I maintain my own versions of a few things like java and some VPN software that works with my company's old server. I also bit the bullet with wireless tools and relearned iwconfig/wpa_supplicant stuff fully so I can work in coffee shops and not need the GUI wireless config (which was actually nice and I do miss). I setup LUKS for homedir encryption and just manually mount it. My workstation isn't rebooted all that often.

Sure, it's a bit of work on occasion to keep things going the way I like it - the deal is, it's a lot of work to keep any desktop functioning the way you prefer. When things are constantly changing "for their own sake" ala Ubuntu, or win8.. and you have to fight to revert stuff how you're the most productive until it's no longer possible.. there comes a point when it's much less frustration and time to just bite the bullet and control things how you want.

I've yet to find anything I want that I can't get working. I have VirtualBox for win7 if needed for the odd work-related tool. The biggest struggle I have is consuming media I pay for ala netflix and the lack of a decent flash player in Linux. I prefer Firefox but often have to load web videos in chrome (which isn't 100% either).

It's somewhat ironic since I've come full circle; when I was younger, I enjoyed maintaining my own desktop env and custom packages.. then I just wanted stuff to work so used Ubuntu+gnome putting up with its quirks for a while.. now here I am maintaining my own setup again. Mostly because desktop UI folk can't just leave well enough alone and want everything to be designed for a tablet or smartphone.

Yeah pretty much. I doubt I'd pay much more for one, but if they're the exact same price it's pretty hard to argue. It's definitely no substitute for SSD but I can see it improving the performance for many daily tasks..

Yahoo is a large company that isn't doing so well. It's had countless acquisitions of smaller comanies which generally keep their middle management layers relatively intact. You have to figure there are hundreds of employees that are essentially dead weight or are at least vastly underperforming, which is made all the easier by being fulltime remote.

I read it more as "trying to shake things up / refocus / cut out dead weight" than "WFH is evil!!". I wouldn't be surprised at some exclusions or a change in the policy when things settle out and Yahoo is on a more sustainable path.

No classes, go someplace fun. Bring a laptop if he must and peck around at the myriad of online 'learn to program X' or something like the MIT open courseware compsci class (which uses python).

The point is - the time between highschool and college is too precious to waste on some class, he should be out traveling as much as feasible imo. After college if he sticks with tech, he'll probably have the intro level jobs that take advantage of college kids by burning tons of hours and will look fondly on his time spent on pure vacation/downtime.

I'm still waiting for my formal apology from them. Such a turd they unleashed on the world - they quit using it internally on any sort of scale because it sucked, but continued selling it and a few places are still infested with it. Including legacy code at my shop.

I still tell people it was the only "digital music service" that I really ever liked. I like to buy CDs so I can transcode them into sensible bitrates for portable devices, but have a full on flac when listening at home. It was really convenient to grab a CD, toss it in the player, then have all my mp3s available instantly without waiting to transcode.

Really a shame that service got buried by the dinosaur music industry. They're slowly learning the lesson; you either adapt to the times and technologies, or you become obsolete and the only role you have is in preventing progress trying to hold on to your fiefdom. Which can't last forever.

This is good insight.

If your child is coddled throughout life they will be unprepared for the variety of challenges life throws. In my opinion, as a parent, your job is to provide a safety net while allowing your kid room to learn on their own. They need to be taught self reliance and understand consquences for actions which hopefully will help them make better decisions later in life.

If your kid is 3 years old though you just need to keep track of them :P

We had the internet long before people like him were trying to massively profit by any means necessary, no matter how low.

No position is good to hang out in for hours. You really should take a few little breaks, stretch and get some blood flowing.

I've always wanted to try some sort of circle desk that you can strap you/laptop into.. work flat on your back, sitting up, roll forward facing down.. always seemed it would feel a lot better than sitting around stationary or just standing up.

Probably not a terrible idea - don't they tend to have lower power consumption / run cooler? I got this thing for my xbmc box;

http://www.quietpc.com/products/vga-cards/msi-n210-md512h

Fanless, which is nice for noise.

I usually don't pay too close of attention to ATI vs Nvidia war, but I had built out a slick HTPC machine to run xbmc on Linux, and videos had all sorts of problems on the ATI card.. especially with decent quality videos. Hitching, crashing, general instability despite trying different drivers and config combinations.

Threw in a fanless nvidia, VDPAU works fine, totally different experience.

So, I'll stick with Nvidia on Linux for anything more serious than web browsing; their closed source binary driver is a little obnoxious, but at least it works.

Not that I really recommend it, but I occasionally use one of these:

Product Name: HP EliteBook 8560p

It has a normal sized numberpad. However it has ridiculously undersized arrow keys.. like 1/8th the size of a normal key.. very difficult to even use them.

Another annoying thing is they have the audio jacks on the right side near the front of the laptop, so if you're using an external mouse, headphone jack/cord bleeds into the area the mouse would be used.

It does have a fullsized keyboard, nice screen, plenty of power and I've not had any real problems with - but it's essentially a desktop, I never lug it around (bit of a weighty beasty).

I dump java all the time. Try kill -3 `pidof java`

A few startups ago, the marketing teams entire plan was "lean on your personal social networks". They'd have been better off standing outside handing out flyers.

If you like the app and think it's useful then it doesn't hurt to promote it a little. If it's just some crap, then don't bother - you'll just desensitize your friends and contacts.

Just saying "I'm working on app X, it's going pretty well!" is subtle and non-annoying, curious people will check it out.

Anyway, a company asking employees to lean heavily on friends/family for promotion is a sure-fire sign of a failed marketing vision in my book, a problem in the business side of the house.