I know you are just being amusing, but the joy of HTTPS-Everywhere is, well, default everywhere.

Of course it won't happen, because that would be the dumbest thing Google could do: drive people away to other search engines. Even if it was a one-day protest, Google's base business principles would be hurt forever.

The problem is people create crowdfunding projects without understanding the difference between asking an investor for money and asking a community. It's the #1 problem I hear when I consult on how to improve or create Kickstarter projects. In the health industry, that is going to be an even larger issue.

Side note: This week only, my eBook on the topic is a free download, Unlocking Kickstarter Secrets: Crowdfunding Tips and Tricks .

As a successful Kickstarter project creator, I would hate that. It's one thing when you are doing software, but it's quite another when you are shipping a product. After it closes, you can go to the website and find out how you can get it once all Kickstarter backers are rewarded.

Kickstarter backers will mature, but it's not a bubble, there will not be a burst, but the project vetting process will improve as revenue increases for Kickstarter, as well as the maturity of the backers. It's an evolution, not a bubble. Saturation? Maybe.

It's likely that the Nook will be using Flex Lighting in its next version, due out very soon. There is even a video of it in action on a reference device. I use a clip-on light, which has the issue of glare off of the screen, so I actually think this is a viable step up, especially since it will not always be used, is always available, and will have a minimal effect on battery life. I'm actually really jealous (since I don't have the cash to play the upgrade game with my Nook Simple Touch).

The last one is not for a 12 year old, I assure you. The first two are lighter fair, but if you are on a long flight and specifically avoiding technical items or coding, a little fun never hurt anyone. Apparently you've lost that sense of whimsy.

Here are some suggestions:

• Zombocalypse Now (zombie choose your own adventure)
• Beer, Women, and Bad Decisions (boy's night out choose your own adventure)
• My Zombie Body (1st person take on being a zombie... fully sentient, no control over your own zombie body)

ORLY? http://ia.media-imdb.com/images/M/MV5BODcyMjkyMDYxNV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwOTQ5MTMxMw@@._V1._SX640_SY1035_.jpg Yup.

That's only with 'Special Offers'. It's $10 more without (which would be a fair comparison to the Nook Touch)

"Amazon and Google Give Into Apple's Demands; Drop In-App Purchase Buttons"

MUDs... heck, I'm building one just for the nostalgia (because without the sound of the modem, using telnet just doesn't feel the same). Anyone remember playing MajorMud or TradeWars or other BBS games?

Not totally different. They do one overlapping thing: they issue statements to the public.

trust in a very generic way means our belief that they'll do their "given task"

I didn't say that. I didn't imply that. I was very specific in my definition of trust, and I think this definition is rather obviously gleaned from the survey, and, in fact, that the definition of trust as "reliably telling the truth" is actually used at least as frequently as "behave predictably in doing what they do," if not more so. It isn't terribly meaningful to survey people about whether or not they trust that they can predict the behavior of one group more than another (at least, not nearly so as the alternative). So...as I said, it is a bit obtuse to completely ignore the context and select the wrong definition of truth as the one that they mean. Perhaps I was wrong...you did get a lot of moderation there.

...and once again you drive home my other point. Living in a world where people don't know the difference between marketing (or, as the case may be, newspaper bias) and lying sucks. They aren't the same thing. Lying is much, much worse.

Keeping in mind what is possible through *freely available* VMs, and the programs that are available on any platform, if the skillset that you gain in high school computer usage is so specific that you *need* a windows machine to do your work, because it probably means that you need Windows 7, and won't even be flexible enough to handle Windows 8.

None of this stuff matters. I can go sit down at a Mac, PC, linux box, whatever. Tell me how to get to the word processor. Tell me how to get to the software that I use the most.

Do you think, from an administrative level, that it's ever been about that? That's just a symptom of the problem. The biggest security risk is stupid users, and nothing you do can stop them from getting their computers infected with something. The cure is having separation of security concerns to limit the damage, and it's still more of a (only a) problem for Windows than it is for anything else. If I was a computer administrator that had to support 1600 laptops that I didn't actually have control over, I would want something to make it easy to fix them and isolate problems.

From the perspective of the school, though, the things that they're going to worry about are the things that everybody has and that teachers are actively told to encourage the use of. And it's a lot easier to support 1600 identical machines than it is a huge number of completely different kind of machines.

In summary: the premise that a particular piece of software is necessary to gain an understanding of how computers, technology, or anything that one would learn in high school is ridiculous. Of course, if I ever have children, I'm sure that mine will be unbelievably competitive compared to yours if you teach 'em that full mastery of how to navigate windows and use office products will take them somewhere in life while I'm teaching them the underlying concepts that govern how all computers work. ;)