Congratulations! You've just disabled the phones of every passenger of every vehicle as well. No more texting on the train, or phoning on the bus, or from the back seat of taxis.

Funny, I was just in the middle of upgrading ("downloading packages") when I came across this article, and chickened out! But then I read some of the comments, and got curious, so I went through with it. I love it! My old Toshiba Satellite feels new again. I like everything - the new software utilities (disk checker, etc), the wallpapers (how classy!), that compiz just works out of the box again (how I missed it!)... The sound server is far better! It doesn't take full control of the computer's resources when the volume's turned up all the way (as much) anymore, and it actually sounds a lot better. (Louder, too.) The only problem I had was that, instead of having ubuntu-desktop and ubuntu artwork, it changed it all to xubuntu - usplash, gdm, everything. I had to manually reinstall the ubuntu-themed packages. But that's no big deal. I'm very happy I upgraded, article notwithstanding.

I always heard the GW was "Gee Whiz" BASIC.

$50 million in debt, no one disputes. The floundering part is where many might take issue. There's no such thing as a startup (civic or commercial) that is without debt. This was a large project with a long time-horizon to self-sufficiency and no one ever claimed otherwise. The attempts at sacking the city's chief administrator are self-serving and politically motivated in an effort at bringing down the mayor. It's interesting how the state official leveling charges at the city's handling of finances was the prime mover behind granting Fairpoint their approval to take over Verizon's landline operations in VT. This despite any number of well-reasoned warnings that they were simply not equal to the task, either in terms of experience or financial resources.

So, rather than deploy it as a government system, why not deploy it as a non-profit cooperative?

I think it would be great if we can attach an electronic version of a printed document so that we can verify its authenticity using digital signatures.

At least ARM have actually been highly successful. PowerPC and MIPS - they aren't the embedded champions so why bring them up?

MIPS has been a lot more successful in this space than ARM ever has. Cheap PCs all over China are using MIPS CPUs which rival 1GHz x86 CPUs. <$150 Netbooks have been available for a couple years now, using MIPS chips, a market ARM has been making a lot of noise about, but has only just now entered, and not even near the price point...

Perhaps the reason why ARM did well is because it really did have a clever idea or two and everyone else was too arrogant to have considered the market that they all now want to enter.

See above. ARM has been making a hell of a lot of PR noise, but that's the only thing they've done with any success.

    If I recall correctly, the F-14 grounding wasn't exactly a replacement parts issue. Well, I guess it could have been.

    When the contractors left the country, they were kind enough to sabotage and/or liberate parts from them. The aircraft apparently would still fly, but they were unable to use any weapons.

    And yes, they have the problem of replacement parts too. It is still assumed that about 30 may still be in service, the rest cannibalized for parts. The US Navy has made it rather difficult for parts to make it to the black market.

For my EnV Touch, I guess an SMS notifier would be the best solution, as I have to make a trip to the mobile web to check email..

It is absurd to suggest that any public company not do the maximum they can to minimize their tax liability.

It is absurd to suggest that any public company should be permitted to evade the law.

The same statements that you have made about MS can probably be made about 95% of the Fortune 500.

So? One criminal at a time.

Still - it looks like Clarke's first law could easily apply: "When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong."

I think when your ultimate goal is to slaughter and consume .. an animal stops being a "pet".

Indeed if you are raising animals for food it's advised that you don't treat them as pets...

I mean.. it's an interesting report.. but I don't think anything realistic has been proposed here. They may as well have proposed we treat our cars as pets..

Some people already do.

Why even bother looking at this stuff.. there's all kinds of other areas that could realistically be addressed. For example phone books! The amount of resources spent printing and distributing something that 70% of the time probably ends up in a land fill untouched is astounding. I saw some documentary where they were taking core samples at junk yards.. there were literally layers of phone books.. they used it to date the segments..

Regular books and newspapers have also been found in old landfills and remain readable after nearly a century. Paper is far better recycled. If you want to compost it then it needs to be cut into small bits (e.g. with a cross cut shredder or even a woodchipper) and well mixed with with other organic materials.

Agreed with the parent's comments. Reminds me of this sentiment:

Some things won't go away just by making them illegal. Some women will decide (perhaps against all advice of their family and church) to terminate... and when they do, they need access to safe medical care, not preaching, social damnation, and horrible injuries. If self-inflicted or unlawful medical procedures are all that's available, then that's what these women will use.

Besides, I don't see what's so bad about not being able to use a cell phone in a car

It would really suck if I had to pull over so my GF could get out of the car to call her sister to ask dumb questions.

I have to disagree with that. While clipping can generate high order harmonics those will generally only hurt tweeters. When mids and woofers (sub woofers etc) get a clipped signal it's the extra power that sends them beyond mechanical or thermal limits that kills them.