Finally a use for patents I can support. This will prevent anybody else from implementing this incredibly stupid idea.

And on a side note, if Google did get this to work would they be able to have the phone automatically call 911 if you were having a stroke?

I'll add in Boe Bots:
http://www.parallax.com/go/boebot

These are really simple to set up (especially if you're not really a hardware/circuits guy) and are a lot of fun to play with. Very limited processor, but that's not such a bad thing to start out. There's quite a lot of add on sensors/motors, etc, so you can accomplish quite a lot.
It's great for building path finding/obstacle avoision types of projects. If you take a liking to robotics though, you'll probably want to move into something more powerful pretty quick. But it is a nice cheap way to get some experience with the basics.

Depending on the quantity of VC available, it could be profitable to rent ~20 cars and park them in your lot overnight.

*I* remember when the only famous Swedes were guys like Ragnar Lodbrok, Sigurd, Ingvar and the rest of the Ynglingr.
I REALLY miss those good old days.
I mean, yeah, sure, they were a bunch of criminals too, but there's no way in hell they're going to let themselves get arrested!

There's always the internet...

Tentacle porn is a reasonably good approximation of the 787s wiring diagram. And in both, bad things happen when the wires go in the wrong hole.

Nice, but you forgot one:
--HTC Pony: Designed exclusively for a hypothetical user base (probably doesn't exist) that will cost millions in development and, if lucky, will sell 10s if not 100s to easily disoriented consumers. At least two Reddit subforums will absolutely love it. The subsequent bankruptcy filing by HTC will ensure the highly collectible status of the phone.

And if they turn out to be overseas, so much the better. We won't have that pesky due-process getting in the way.

In my experience (which is extensive), the theoretical physicists smoke a LOT more pot than the engineers.
The genesis of the membrane extension of string theory came about in the mid-90s due to a late night bake-out and some Cypress Hill. Who else would come up with an 11 dimension "solution" to the problem of string theory?

That's why they're fun. With a solvable game, you play the game. With an unsolvable game, you play the player.

Of course, it's a lot less fun once you're playing the stock market or global thermonuclear war, but no less rewarding.
And of course of course, they're neglecting that any attempt at predicting the behavior of a market will affect the behavior of that market such that the predictions no longer hold true.

Kudos to anyone who can pull off the ultimate hack: invest your money based on your -unpublished- theory of how the market will respond the theory that you ARE about to publish.

Strictly speaking, the very obese tend to die very young from any number of diseases (heart disease, diabetes, etc). Since you can't start collecting SS until 65 or 67 or some other "really old" number, there are a good many who will never collect a single check.

With that in mind, I'd like to present a solution to the problem of solvency in the SSA. As a "thank you" gift, the US gov't should send a bag of Cheetos and a six pack of Mountain Dew to every American who contributes to social security in a given month. People will feel like they're getting something for their taxes, and will trim that big fat baby boomer bubble off the SS payroll. America binged in the 50s. It's time for her to purge...

Do you want it to talk like a real person, or do you want it to use a swear filter? Those are mutually exclusive.

Fuckers.

I'd just set the furnace at the crematorium from "Original Recipe" to "Extra Crispy".

In general I've found asking "why" to be an effective way of pointing out flaws in others' work.

Bad idea: "Hey, dingleberry, stop using global loop variables in all your functions! F#$&!"
Good idea: "Hey, friend/coworker/secret lover, I've run into a weird bug and wondered if you could explain to me how this works..."

First, it immediately defuses the accusatory tone that puts people on the defensive. Anybody who gets their dander up will no longer listen to reason.
Second, while this example was a pretty extreme case of brain-deadedness, there can be situations where something that looks ridiculously stupid was done that way for a reason. You could learn something. And if you expect somebody else to drop their pretensions about their code, you'd better be willing to do it yourself.
Third, if you work through the reasons that code was a problem with them, they're more likely to recognize the underlying cause of the problem and will be less prone to making the same error in the future.

It works surprisingly well, even with the interminably stubborn assholes out there. And any time you do end up pinning a mistake on someone, you need to give them a graceful out if you want them to own up to it and have a good working relationship in the future.

Not a huge fan of this origin story. I'm personally waiting for the Brian Singer reboot.