Usually because they contain fuel and thrusters designed to last the lifetime of the satellite in order to make regular course correction because those, especially in LEO, are actually falling back into the atmosphere. Although part of that may be on purpose incase the sat fails it will eventually fall back into the atmosphere and burn up. But I've heard before the other reason was the tendency for them to want to fall back to earth despite calculations saying otherwise...

Just did an end of the year analysis with a client and got to looking at their statistics and planning for 2014. I was shocked that the single largest block of users as far as OS & Browser were concerned was iPad @ 22% of all traffic. Chrome was 2nd @ 16.9% (about 1/3 of that is Android). 3rd was iPhone @ 16.2%. That means that roughly half their traffic is now from mobile devices and 1/3rd over all is iOS.

So much for that the plans for 2014 is now to look at building mobile apps for iOS & Android.

Actually, it's better to say that the NSA is a support organization of the Department of Defense. And as such are often at odds with Langley since both are competing for the same budget dollars.

Funny, when I was living in Germany a little over a decade ago the unemployment was around 9% and actually dismantled some of that great social net. Guess that worked out for them...

Couple things to note. What are you comparing this to? An average Dell/HP PC or a proper "workstation" from these companies like the HP Z820? Because if you are comparing a regular desktop, you're not comparing Apples to Apples here (pardon the pun). Chances are if you aren't looking at the Z820

In the industries these machines are used in and targeted towards have moved to external storage arrays/SANS/NAS. What the internal hard drive(s) have doesn't matter so long as it's enough to install their main programs on. Even the smaller shops I know doing video production have at least a 20TB array, most are around 50TB these days.

When you start comparing the MacPro's against machines like the Z820 the MacPro's pricing is competitive. I believe the Z820 with a single 3GB Nvidia Quadro card is around $4k.

It depends on your traffic though. On one of my client's sites the iPad now accounts for nearly 30% of all the traffic. iPhone is about 12%. All Android devices account for 15% of traffic. That means over half our traffic is now coming from mobile devices. We implemented responsive design in 2012, but now it's to the point where we are debating whether or not to offer a native app.

Um say what? I just ordered a new computer for gaming purposes pre-installed with Windows 7 Pro. You most certainly can find vendors out there who will ship windows 7 on a new PC.

I ain't going anywhere. iOS is now less than 50% of installs for my app, yet is still well over 80% of the revenue is iOS users. Until that changes I'll be continuing to develop iOS first, Android second.

Apple's been pretty clear that iOS has a 3year backwards compatibility window. And the iPad 1 was released in 2010 we we're coming up on year 4. That is the nature of the beast. It's planned obsolesces, but it's another reason why you never buy an Apple product with a 1 in it. The next generation is going to stay around longer.

And in this house hold I'm on mac, she has the windows and android devices. I have my iPad 2 I bought in 2011. She has a Galaxy Tab 10" she bought last year. We both play a game called Minion Rush. My older iPad blows her Android tablet out of the picture when it comes to side by side performance. In fact it better in terms of just about all the side by side metrics we can compare other than I'm limited to my 32GB of storage space and she can save to an SD card.

The last 3 GM Vehicles I've purchased have all been great cars. The current one in the drive way is a 2004 Impala. 140,000 miles and all I've done is routine maintenance. Before that I had a 96 Saturn that got 120,000 miles on it before I bought a Malibu. Unfortunately the Malibu got totaled when a sheet of ice fell on it off the roof of a building. So I didn't own that one long enough to really say much. I guess my dad's Astro van did need a new fuel pump after 15 years and 180,000 miles. In fact it's going on 20 years old now and over 200,000 miles and we still have it. Doesn't get driven as much but extremely handy to borrow when I need to get plywood or haul something. I guess we're lucky on getting the non-shitty GM ones.

I plan on keeping the Impala around at least another year, maybe two and let the wife finish paying off her Nissan Altima. It's paid for, insurance and personal property taxes are affordable on it.

Am I going to be as brand loyal due to the bailout? No. But last time I looked at Ford I about got sticker shock. The cars I was looking at were priced nearly the same as an entry level BMW. I know that's before doing the sales shtick. And my wife loathes Subaru for some reason.

Next month the contract with the cable company expires. We're discussing because work has offered to pay for a business class internet connection into our house as I work from home most days. Between Netflix and Hulu Plus we're seriously considering cutting the cord. We rarely watch anything live anyway and usually do watch the DVRed episodes within a week.

I deal on the side in vintage & antique furniture I buy from estate sales. Probably 80% of my transitions are straight cash or checks for some of the larger items. I had square for my phone, but then I got the paypal reader for credit card transactions. When I ask customers what they'd prefer if paying by Debit/credit card they'll choose Paypal 70% of the time because they know all about it. Although that is changing as many coffeeshops in the area have started using Square.

Frankly it's a little better for me as well. I have a Paypal debit card. They can pay me and I can go 15 minutes later and get cash out or buy something with that debit card. With square I have to wait a day or two.

As much as I may dislike certain parts of Paypal, I've yet to find a total replacement for it.

The record labels want online streaming to die. I've not followed the pricing too closely, but the cost per stream is something like 10x the price of a terrestrial radio station. That is why Pandora I believe was trying to purchase an FM station somewhere. The rates are lower if you have a terrestrial radio signal that then also streams IIRC.

This. It's been noted that desktop PC sales have been slipping yet component sales have been increasing. For instance we have a 3 year old AlthonIIx4 in the house that runs at 3ghz a core, has 12GB of Ram (Upgraded a year ago) and I wanted to run some newer games. So I bought a beefier PSU and a new Graphics card. Should last another 18 - 24 months before it will be time to buy a new machine. I know a lot of people doing the same.

Kids these days are getting tablets. Most adults are replacing their home desktop with laptops. I have to say that the desktop wasn't mine. It is my wife's and she bought it before we were together. I've not purchased a desktop in a decade.

People seem to miss that there are employees, in particular field service employees, at all the major vendors who earn a nice second pay check from 3 letter agencies and their employer is none the wiser.

My dad spent a 30 year career in the finance and accounting area of one of the big defense contractors. His areas dealt with a lot of high security clearance stuff and there were always FBI and spooks in their office. They knew they were there, but they had no idea who the spook or agent was. They paid the people a salary just like anyone else. Was it the computer geek? The Janitor? The Facilities guy? One of the engineers? An office cleft? Or the guy/gal standing next to them? They never knew.

There are contributors to open source projects who work for these agencies either directly or as assets paid or otherwise.