without the 'non-interventionist' foreign policy baggage

What I had hoped, but not what I've seen. E.g.: I'm far from the neocons and their desire for nation building and spreading freedom and democracy to cultures that can't really understand why that's a good thing (I was for occupying Iraq for its geographically strategic position and a stabilization effect in the area), but I'm definitely for stopping Iran from getting a nuclear weapon even if it means groundtroop deaths (since I think that's among the kinds of threats these people have actually signed up to defend against).

Netbooks were cute, but tablets are sexy, I guess. Less is more; I'd argue that removal of the keyboard goes a long way towards appealing to Average Joes, because it's a visual reminder of the inherent nerdiness of computing devices and having them. So even if they can do the same or less but for more money, more people see themselves as having a tablet vs. something that looks like a scaled-down geek machine.

Yup, it was partly a timing thing. MS was transitioning at the time to a next gen of their OS with more security and other overhead, ahead of even where most desktop hardware was at the time, and then this niche of older, even slower componentry became hot, and MS didn't have a good offering for it.

Glad I snatched up an XP Home based 12" netbook, before they were outlawwed at that size I guess and before XP ceased being available. I don't think I've ever seen mine get into the 2nd GB I added to it, but while my desktop runs Vista like a dream, I'd hate to try that on the portable.

My department was in need of a solid, heads-down developer and we had a lot of trouble finding already employed candidates.

FTFY, chances are. (Not you personally but your employer's HR department.)

Well I'm talking about a hyper-fixation on national security, which is not a religious conviction issue.

On the original topic, beware of:

1) The Left seeking to disarm the populace (towards removing any means of resistance to a totalitarian state, but more broadly and importantly any means or symbols of thoughts and feelings of independence or self-actualization which stand in the way of acceptance of such a state).

2) The neocons seeking to lock down every aspect of our society (accustoming us to the sight of armed guards and being searched (physically or electronically) throughout our daily activities).

The former seek to protect the high-and-mighty society from its individuals, and the latter seek to protect us from aberrants as well, just where that is defined as the few instead of the many. But both end up with us as man keeps its canine companions; perpetually largely children, mentality-wise, geared towards looking to authority for most things and accepting authority on almost everything.

I don't want to be infantilized, for a more sanitized, perfect society. So progressives, on both sides, can go hurry to their afterlife host.

Otherwise, Merry Christmas guys.

And now I see there was a Slashdot article on "BYOD" earlier today. We'll see if dual-personality is secure enough and virtualization on ARM is performant enough. (I haven't read TFA; maybe tomorrow.)

Maybe God's delivering you from your VB6 hell? :) Seriously, that dates back to 1998 IIRC, and it's about to be 15 years later! (I'm so glad that this year at work we finally got off of Visual SourceSafe 6.0. And dropped SQL Server 2000 compatibility. And IE6 compatibility.)

I for one will be betting big on Windows 8. First of all, MS just seems to have a panache for ubiquity. When I was still doing Windows C++ programming, I was on the fence between learning Java or C# next. I wasn't sure if .NET was even going to catch on, so I waited to see. Now I'm trying to catch up to that train. MS looked damaged after the Vista negativity bandwagon. Then Windows 7 came roaring back. As you would seem to agree the Windows 8 gambit is for the very future of the company. I won't be doubting MS's future success again, when it comes to things that they absolutely have to be all-in on.

And secondly, I think the BYOD thing is a fad. Businesses like compatibility and security. Being able to run a stripped-down MS Office suite, and Active Directory configuration and securing if it's not already there in Win8 ARM, will mostly end Android and Apple devices in business. Businesses and govt.'s want a suitable replacement now that their previous portable device go-to fave, RIM, is dying. I've got 22 more years until my official retirement age, and for me there's no real money to be made making consumer apps for those two toys, but potentially lots of employability working for companies writing them business apps on a portable business platform. (Besides, then my C++ skills can come back into usefulness (for WinRT native programming).)

If it's understood that eating unhealthy food and too much food and not exercising enough makes us fat and unhealthy, how did we get so far down the path of obesity?

I think it's understood, it's just that the lord of this world tempts us towards destruction; makes it popular, which makes it that much harder for most to resist.

Sorry, I wasn't clear; my comment about not understanding was not just on your excerpt, as I did take the link and started (trying to) read it, but gave up after having difficulty in groking. (And then I noticed how long it was!)

It sounds like he's trying to make the case that "liberty" shouldn't just be loosely defined as freedom, but freedom with certain restrictions. That we should think of that as "liberty".

While I believe in some restrictions in life, I don't believe in what I see as the bending of that word to fit it. There is such a notion as "too much of a good thing", already. I think taken together that's enough; I think "liberty" can stay defined as freedom and a good thing, and at the same time be understood that taken to its extreme can be a bad thing.

Couldn't understand a word that guy was saying, so have no idea what you mean.

the factories could be made more and more efficient, but this nearly always means less and less polluting

Good point. Pollution is a waste product. It's something from your processes that you have to discard, and having to throw things away is throwing away money. The ideal is processes so overall economically efficient that everything possible can be monetized.

However, newer technology that's more efficient is typically more expensive, so it's really only under the conditions of healthy margins and stable regulations that it would be smart for a business to invest in such.

economic growth, that is because obviously the consumption of the wealthy individuals is limited to some amount per year, but their investments are limited only by their ability to earn

Another good point. You only spend so much a year, but almost all of your life's savings is loaned out.

p.s. Your review reminded me of a movie I watched recently, "Easy A" with Emma Stone. From a review on IMDB (that I didn't avail myself of until *after* watching the movie, unfortunately), after listing of some of the examples in that flick: "The whole left-wing movie propaganda alphabet, it's all here. Yes, even in a daft teen comedy. They never let up."

I've been on record with family and coworkers since before the debates, when the thought came to me and I predicted that America will never elect another Republican for president ever again.

And for those who don't like that it's been two parties that have dominated American politics for so long, most would be happy to hear that Republican voter registration had already begun shrinking, and won't stop until it's around the size and stature of today's Libertarian party.

"Thanks, Dell, for your 27 inch 1920 x 1200 display"

It's a nice, relaxed .30 dot pitch after staring intently at code on a 23" 1920 x 1080 all day. I couldn't come home to more of that same.

Unfortunately it looks like ass with IE9's new partial-pixel font rendering and I had to uninstall it. The pixels on this are too big to not readily show the fuzzing (smoothing) that algorithm is doing.

What older eyes really need is 2560 x 1600 and fonts enlarged via OS DPI settings. I'm hoping in a couple of years they'll be available as non gray market and not 30" and $1250 either.