Actually, MS is a bit player in the cell phone wars. Take a look at this chart.

Isn't Apple trying to claim ownership of the word (abbreviation) "app"?

I don't think I like the concept of "approval voting". I much rather would like "instant runnoff"/ranked voting. The problem is, how far down the line of approval do you go before you stop "approving"? With approval voting, you are basically voting for everyone with the same priority. I'm not so sure that gets the result of the person who is "most approved", but rather who is "least disapproved", and there's a big difference in my mind.

For example, if you are for the Tea Party, and are a Republican, by approving of both the TP and mainstream candidate (who is presumably more towards the center), you are going to disadvantage your preferred candidate.

Also, there's a reason to whittle down a field of candidates via a primary or other system: it is hard, almost impossible maybe, to take the time to realistically research a field of 10 candidates. Debates with this large a field give everyone just a minute or two, or if more, very few questions, and no real debate is possible.

Perhaps the best compromise would be to use approval voting for primaries, where you select the top 5, and then ranked voting/instant runoff to do the final selection.

I'm not weighing in on the fairness of the damage award, but SAP basically admitted guilt at the trial, and the jury only deliberated about damages.

Something I've always liked about the "old" X windows model that I dislike about Windows (and I think Mac as well), is the assumption that the application with the focus should be the one that is in front of all others. There are a lot of times when I'd like to type into one app, say a text editor, while viewing something else, like a browser loaded with a documentation page, where I want to see the whole browser while I type, even if that means just seeing a few lines of what I'm typing.

I know that GNOME allows a focus-follows-mouse mode, but it is partly incomplete as clicking in the window with the focus brings that window to the front. If anyone knows how to disable that, I'd appreciate it.

This is what workspaces are for--to group windows together for a certain task. I have a GNOME desktop, and while I lament on the amount of CPU it seems to use, it has a pretty good model, particularly if you turn on the "group windows together on the taskbar" (something that I *don't* like on Windows, btw, because of the lack of workspaces).

It's even better when you have two monitors. However, I don't like the one-big-workspace-across-both model. I'd rather be able to select a workspace for each, though I'd go beyond what I've seen so far, and let one pick a workspace for either out of a common pool (of unlimited size), not a static set for each.

What about Android? TBH I haven't looked into it all that much, despite the hype. A while back (before the iPhone and Android), when I made the decision to move off of Palm OS, I chose Win Mobile for the sheer fact that it looked like the most open platform, which is pretty amazing... And to reply directly to your comment, the problem is that we haven't yet really gotten too far down the line towards open hardware. The level of miniaturization and integration you need to make a small appliance like a PDA is too expensive. As a case in point, I don't see much in the way of "hobbyist" laptops either, and that would be the first platform such attempts would have broken into by now.

Generally speaking, isn't there a strong tendency to avoid naming things after living people for such things? Or, at least, non-retired people? (that is, in the non-commercial world :) )

The collision happened at almost a right angle (see this diagram). As I understand it, the two satellites basically exploded into debris. While the center of mass of the cloud is mostly following a new trajectory based on the previous orbits, this cloud is probably expanding quickly in many directions. Many pieces were probably kicked out of the mostly circular orbits into highly elliptical ones, and therefore, could have apogees much higher than their original orbit.

"Since the trajectories of the debris will lie in a relatively narrow plane"... I'm not sure this is true. This diagram from NASA suggests the cloud is moving in all directions. Remember, only the geo-stationary satellites are required to have equatorial orbits. Ground-sensing ones need to have inclined orbits, and some are even polar (particularly military).

I wasn't very keen on the delay (and offhand, I don't know how effective it will be anyways). But there's something that hasn't been discussed much. As I was reading this article, I've learned that it's not just the tuner. Some people may have to change their antenna. The DTV switch moves the signal to the UHF bands, and if you have experience with broadcast TV, you'll know that UHF does not have the range of VHF, and needs a special antenna (a "bow-tie" if I remember) to get the best reception. February is a terrible time to have to go up on a roof in the north... So, I can see some merit in the delay. Even with a better antenna, it could be that no reception is possible for some rural customers, which is a whole different issue.

When accessing GMail via IMAP, it emulates folders by interpreting a '/' in the tag as the "directory separator". It gives you the flexibility of tags with the organization of folders, if you want it. However, the web interface doesn't do this. And, of course, it doesn't solve the problems others mention with consistent use.