Go get your cell phone. Now compose an email. Use your speech to text software to dictate the contents of that email. And now review the email. How did the dictation go? This is about how advanced computer hearing is at this time.

"A UI's purpose isn't to be enjoyable, it's to let the user do what he wants/needs to do and otherwise stay out of the way."

Not necessarily so. Look at Apple. They released the iPhone, and for its time it was quite the piece of crap. It took many generations of the product to reach par with what other phones can do. But it sold, and it sold well. Why? Because it's shiny, and it's "fun" to use. This is the way UIs are going. An interactive, fun, rewarding experience is going to sell more than a functional experience. It's just like anything else, really. If A is more fun to use than B, and they both do the same thing, A will appeal to more people. There will always be people who are sticklers for efficiency such as yourself, but you're increasingly in the minority.

"Where others may see intractable, overly difficult methods, we see enlightenment, borne from years of learning, experience, and overall, logic."

Really? Rather than doing something a simple way, over the years veterans learn that complicated and difficult is better? K.I.S.S! There's even an acronym for it!

This sounds like it was written by a junior admin or programmer who's in awe of what some of the more seasoned vets are doing.

and now this! You guys just can't catch a break.

Where are you interviewing where this is the case? So I can never apply there. This is definitely not what we do, and if you interview with me and you give me mechanical answers you're out the door. This is for a fairly large multinational, interviewing for a technical software job. In the technical interviews I'll usually give problems that are borderline unsolvable. There's usually a trick to solve it really efficiently, but if you come up with just the trick and nothing else you're not getting hired. I want to see you get it wrong. I want to see you get it wrong a dozen times, and learn why it's wrong, and try to think your way out of the pit you've dug again and again and again. I want to see you get creative, use tricks of the architecture to solve theoretical problems, and come up with half a dozen different kinds of approaches. I want you to see why each one is brilliant or stupid, what's good about it, what's bad about it, and try again and again and again. People who show up expecting the usual canned standard answers usually look sort of like a deer in the headlights and are back out the door in 15 minutes.

Doing things this way works. I know this because most of the really brilliant people I've worked with have done fantastic in this situation. I don't want to hear the right answer because there is no right answer. The more you can show me about how you think about a problem and how sneaky you can get, the better you do.

I'm a fan of the punctuation possibilities myself.

Is it the world's strongest, most expensive beer, served inside a squirrel? Or of all the beers served inside a squirrel, is this the strongest and most expensive? Nobody knows. Nobody knows.

"Attention, ecomentals: what do you think is generating the electricity to power the (energy intensive) construction and use of your "green" car? Fairy farts? "

Yes, in a sense. Specifically, 25% of my power is generated by wind. 50% is Nuclear. 75% of the electricity I use is exhaust-free.

...and bust ghosts.

What needs do you have that Amarok satisfies but Rhythmbox doesn't? Just curious.

Yep. I went through comp eng at Waterloo (before the program started circling the bowl these last 5 years or so) and for most of my class, $60k was settling. I know people who started at 6 figures. Lucky bastards.

Are the differences south of the border really that significant?

What different worlds we live in. When weather permits, I ride my bike in daily. There are a bunch of routes I can take - almost all of them have bike lanes, some of them have trails through various parks and green space, and for the one route that doesn't have bike lanes, I've never had much of an issue with vehicles trying to run me off the road. I stick to the right, they get around me, and when the road gets tight most people understand that I'm going as fast as I can, and wait for the road to widen again before passing. If I ride my bike to the city center, I often have trouble finding a place to lock it up due to all the other bikes on the street.

This is in a relatively major urban center (700k+ people in the region). Interesting to see what a difference city policies and local culture can make.

So...SciFi Robin Hood?

I thought Droid had at least the processor and camera? And I hear the pics the Droid takes with that camera are pretty uninspiring.

Honestly this looks like YAAP (yet another android phone).

Also, this is the first year that blu ray players have started to drop in price to the point where most people can afford them. A *lot* of people I know have commented on how players are cheap enough to consider now. This holiday season we're going to see a lot of households get the ability to play blu ray discs

More than a day of battery life?