What is "The Cloud"?
A symbol on a network diagram? - I'm sure that's how it started.
The way I see it "The Cloud" is just a name massively over-hyped by marketing folk for a hosted server that you have no clue about where it is.
I totally get the concept of being able to access your data everywhere and it's a great concept. It doesn't always work. Usually failing when needed the most.

There is a Cloud Computing Concept that I do trust It's called Private Cloud Computing. There is really nothing new about it. We have all been doing it for ages.
Its just simply running your own server. Most business do this and you can do this your self with your own server plus the aid of today's modern high speed internet connections.
If your internet fails you still have access to your data.

I personally don't trust "The Cloud". Think about it for a moment. You are putting your data on a server and you have no clue as to where it is. You have no clue about who else is able to see that data and you have no clue about who is watching as you access your data and probably no clue if that server is up to date on security patches.

Yes its cool that you can access it everywhere accept oh.. There's no cell coverage here and oh the free wifi might not be secure and oh I've been hacked.

Cloud backups? yeah right. I wonder how long it will take to backup my 3TB of videos to the cloud? I wonder how long it will take to restore them if a HDD should fail. I wonder if cloud backups count towards my broadband data cap? Large numbers of ISP's operate data capping the average is 100Gig per month. At that rate it would take 30 months to backup your data and 30 months to get it back.
What if the cloud backup gets hacked, how do I know my data is safe?

The short answer is you don't know if your data is safe. If you have sensitive data, its best not to put it on a server connected to the internet.
So Yes I may be a server hugger, but I know where my data is. I know where the backups are and I know my secure data is and its not stored in a place directly accessible to the internet.

Microsoft Don't seem to:
For those who have just arrived on planet Earth: Microsoft are making more money from being a patent troll selling Android licenses than they ever were from they're own windows 7 phone OS.
Microsoft don't own ARM so what difference does it make that they are locking down their own bootloader?
Does it really matter? Why buy a windows phone if all you want to do is hack it, there are plenty of other phones that are hackable if that's what you want to do.
What's the big deal here?

Its not the cheapest of options, but it just works so well, with a front facing camera and 1280x800 pixels of screen all in something that does actually fit in your pocket. You can fit a 32gig microsd card so no problems with carrying your entertainment with you, it has 16 gig internal emmc 11gig usable for storage, so you won't loose all your settings if you do change sd cards all the time. The fact that it is a fully functioning phone (all be it a little large) that said its no bigger than some of the early windows mobile PDA's of yesteryear. Its totally rootable, I have root on mine :) As far as I know its the only android device to have a wacom pen (I'm assuming its wacom, because the pen from my bamboo tablet works with it) Its very happy to play virtually anything I throw at it even 1080p h264, which its capable of recording from its own camera.
With an MHL adaptor which can now be found cheaply on ebay you can play back your 1080p video on your high def TV or just use the samsung all share app to push content to your dnla device / tv

Downsides: 2 bad things I've found

1) Samsung feel that you MUST know when the battery is fully charged, even if its 2 o clock in the morning the device still proudly announces beep beep - "My battery is now fully charged you can unplug the charger" Having got root the first thing I did was rename the sample.

2) It comes shipped with vlingo for voice control. For me this is the worst voice control app I've ever used, it just doesn't work with my middle (some might say posh) english accent. Whats worse is that it doesn't do any processing on the phone, like siri your voice sample is uploaded to the cloud, processed (badly) then sent back to the phone, a process that takes up to 30 seconds depending on 3g coverage. Whereas the app that comes default with cyanogen and miui rom builds, just works, doesn't use the cloud and gets it right 95% of the time, even through a bluetooth handsfree kit. Worse still samsung have made this app non removable, the only way I was able to remove this was with titanium backup after rooting.
(Note at the time of writing cyanogen and miui roms are not available for the note, but are for the galaxy s 2)

These problems are exactly the same with the samsung galaxy s 2 phone.

Wear a Virtual T-Shirt

At 666 Euros they can keep it too.

I'm not sure you are getting my point. 48vdc != 384vdc

Has anyone considered all the arcing and sparking that simple on / off / circuit breakers will have to deal with? At least with AC you have a chance that the switch will be opened or closed at the zero crossing period and that AC makes it harder to draw arcs when breaking a circuit.

I'm not sure its really going to present any more effeciancy. I guess if you use a 3 phase site rectifier then it will save you the cost of 3 phase copper and make the server power supplies cheaper. Not forgetting that you could actually plug an unmodified server directly into 384V DC (so long as the psu is set to 240v).
I guess the days of computers using 60hz as a reference are over :)

I love this, The Incredibles is a great Movie. Did anyone know that Edna is voiced by a guy?
Back to the topic, my glasses have UV filters in them, I have a UV laser pointer, with my glasses on it produces a Dim blue light, without them I can see the beam produced by the laser. UV lasers are fun things to shine around the garden at night, flowers glow brightly in unexpected colours.
The other fun thing to do with UV laser pointers is to graffiti up glow in the dark fire exit signs, I bought a sheet of glow paper and you can write on it with the laser pointer.

I guess a UV laser pointer may not be the best thing to play with if you have no natural UV filtering in your eyes

Be careful. Quite a lot of modern smoke detectors use LED light beams to detect smoke. These will not trigger much of a reading from your Geiger Counter

I found 2 differences:
1) The more expensive cables look cooler than the cheap ones
2) The more expensive cables are a little more durable, I've had some cheap cables fall apart / break off Mostly its the cheap cables that try to look expensive that are the worst kind, those that are so thick you need pipe bending tools to bend them. The thin molded ones work great.

This whole argument has rather been done to death hasn't it?

But its an android story too

I'm not sure what all the fuss is about, the cell towers have to know roughly where you are in order to route your calls, sms messages and even to make your phone ring. The only difference I can see is that this info is now being stored on your phone, why is that a problem? We are all carrying round this bit of grey matter which is doing the exact same thing.

It is still just possible to not be tracked if you follow this advice.
Don't use a credit card, and don't use a cell phone, don't even carry one, and don't use social networking of any kind, don't use any store based loyalty cards, don't have or use a bank account, buy everything with cash, work strictly cash in hand for someone who doesn't want or need to see your national insurance number or social security number, don't use or own a car use public transport instead, never fly anywhere, don't have any subscription based TV or radio services in fact don't have any subscription services such as land line phone or internet, Don't respond to any mail that drops through your door. In fact it might be best to be homeless or sleep in a tent.

Get Real people, just about everything we do in modern life allows us to be tracked in some way or other, why should a cache file used to help the phone and its application know roughly where it is make any difference?

If you are not breaking the law then you have nothing to hide. If you are breaking the law then be worried, be worried about the fact that we are all leaving DNA trails behind us all the time in the form of skin particulates and hairs. Be very worried because big brother is watching and recording, but also know that if you are not in the spotlight then he doesn't care.

It really bugs the hell out of me the way manufacturers like sony and asus have the cheek to put out a laptop with a 1440x900 screen or a 1600x900 screen and call it "Full HD". As far as I'm concerned Full HD is 1080 pixels vertical and 1920 pixels horizontal, since when does 900 = 1080 and 1440 = 1920?????
Unsatisfied with the screen res on my laptop I decided to upgrade it myself.
Luckily after a long phone call to a supplier, I was able to convince them to send me a 1920x1200 LCD panel that was a direct replacement for the 1440x900 panel, They told me it was unlikely to work, but it works great :) If anyone is interested I used a panel designed for a sony and fitted it to an asus g70. It cost me about 160ukp for the panel and about an hour to fit. I was able to try my g70 on a 1920x1200 panel first to see if it would drive it. Most LVDS LCD panels are interchangeable provided that they use the same backlighting technology.
Size and aspect ratio can be an issue too. I'm sure that case modders could make even a screen of totally the wrong aspect look ok. I guess it boils down to having the bottle to mod your brand new laptop. Yeah yeah I know someone is going to reply telling me the g70 is 2 years old, well simplyasus were selling off old stock cheaply, so I got a bargain.