That's hilarious. "Peaceful riot"--what kind of doublespeak is this? :) I could make a political point here, but that would be too obvious. Everyone make up your own witty comment bringing out the irony here. As for myself, I'll just point at you and say, "Hah hah!"

The "scratch your own itch" isn't the recommended problem-solving strategy. Rather, it is meant to express the motivation that free/open source developers have for writing free software in the first place. Another reason is ideology--that all software ought to be free.

But, yeah, "scratching an itch" is what has yielded the crazy situation we have today with free software.

Spend more time configuring their settings than getting work done? Or, in the worst case, trying to get GNOME to mimic some bizarre configuration they had set up in fvwm for 20 years. There are benefits to the Out of Your Way Interface (OYWI) that many power users don't understand.

Okay, I killed my mod points just to reply to you.

Just to tell you that I've wondered about the same thing. It's wildly entertaining and interesting that a big oil company thought it was interesting enough to ask about it :) I think I saw a Wikipedia article about some interplanetary space route that takes very little energy to navigate across the solar system, provided you were willing to wait a long time.

Someday...I bet it will happen. Unless we give up on space entirely.

Because I don't want a table piece, I don't want a fashion statement, I don't want an appliance. I want something I can make into my own. If technology is too expensive, I'll be afraid to hack it. This is the number one reason why netbooks are so popular among geeks, no matter how much snobbish Mac users and Wired writers hate it. It's not because netbooks are super great products, but because we're not afraid to hack them, we're not afraid of them breaking. If it breaks, we'll buy a new one, or even several. And that's why we hate proprietary cell phones where the manufacturer controls the device even after you own it. If I can't hack it then it's dead to me.

Hear hear! +1 :)

Then how will I be able to subscribe to the power station's live Twitter feed?

Wow, just imagine. All the taste and good judgment that went into this 7 Sins campaign put on television for millions to watch!

I think I'll die of embarrassment.

I was thinking more in lines of "natural disaster", so that the weather service can send everyone within a county a text message that there's a tornado warning.

But odds are, this will be used so that the grocery store next door to the shoe store you're shopping in can tell you about their sale on bread.

This is why I don't like the "unfair advantage" argument against using steroids in sports, because it really is a slippery slope, as nearly any advantage can be construed as being "unfair" (since not everyone has access to such advantage). My problem with steroids has always been that the advantage comes at a health cost, or at least a health risk; a risk that athletes shouldn't have to take to do well in their sport. If this lady has a natural hormonal imbalance that gives her an advantage, then I have nothing against it, especially if it doesn't harm her.

Name one sport where the winners aren't determined by "unfair advantages"?

Ask people about the space program. They say it's expensive, dangerous, and pointless. They are wrong on all counts, but that doesn't stop them from giving their opinion.

Democracy. Don't you love it?

You know, thanks to your post I finally figured out what those "I'm a Mac...I'm a PC" commercials are about. I think since Apple switched to Intel, they were afraid, and probably still are, that they would be seen as just another brand of computer. The purpose isn't to make people think Macs are better than PCs, but to make people think they are Different!

I'm going to call them Apple PCs from now on :)

If this is available on all web browsers, that means I won't be able to turn it off; or if I turn it off, I can't access the rest of the web.

Please, don't do this. What's the benefit of turning web browsers into flash players?

It's fanboyism. They are defending what is in the interest of the company they are fans of, not what is in *their* interest. That, I'm pretty sure, is what is at the essence of what a fanboy is.

Gnash anyone? gnashdev.org