What's wrong with Hangouts? You have a better option for a free video conferencing service that can handle ten people at a time?

Lots of people, you among them. It's not even a matter of "Well, there are 300 makers of this product with odd Chinese names, or LG. Hmmm- which to pick?", it's just getting the name out there at all so that you know they might be a supplier, especially if it's a new market. One of my employees sent me a note yesterday on a special type of active HDMI cable that might solve a problem we have right now. Are they the best? I don't know, but chances are I'll make note of the name when I'm doing a search for that type of cable. That tiny bit of brand recognition does make a difference, even if you think it doesn't.

I work pretty hard to keep ads out of my life, but I'm well aware they manage to affect me anyway.

Did I just see the availability of games on an Apple device being touted as an *advantage* over Windows? Man, comp.sys.mac.advocacy must be exploding... (BTW, I have Steam on my Surface, so there's not exactly a lack of games for it)

Kind of the same boat. Via work I have an iPad 2, Nexus 7 (first gen), MS Surface, Samsung Chromebook and HTC One phone. The Chromebook is my primary portable machine (email/web/notes), the Surface is really useful for certain specialized tasks, and the phone is always there, but the iPad and Nexus pretty much gather dust. The keyboard/trackpad combination is just really hard to beat for most tasks, and the Chromebook's is better than the Surface's. Doing any kind of real work on an iPad is just a recipe for high blood pressure.

The iPad is useful as a ereader when I'm on an exercise bike, so there is that...

Really? Boeing returned a first stage booster from an orbital launch to the ground, intact? [Citation please] I've been following the space program since I was born- my first memory is Apollo 11, and I'm pretty sure Boeing has never managed anything like this at all.

And yes, the LEM managed a landing and ascent. On the moon. With no air. And 1/6th the gravity. And using separate ascent and landing stages- the stage that launched to lunar orbit was *not* recovered intact, and the landing stage was discarded after descent. It's not exactly the same problem.

*stands*

Debated modding or replying here, but I'll echo this with a (quiet) absolutely.

Quiet is so rare these days people freak out when they (don't) hear it. I have a private office at work and it's still noisy- spillover noise from outside conversations, air handler, nearby printers, etc. I get a few minutes of it at nighttime and I'll often lay and enjoy it- enough quiet that I can hear a soft breeze outside or my wife breathing.

It's a lot like dark- very few people have ever been someplace actually *dark*, and their first action is to turn on a light rather than let their eyes adapt.

Obligatory

If he said anything other than "$5 pair of reading glasses" get a new optometrist. I had exactly the same experience with progressive lenses, and hated them. I put the prescription ones away and bought a pile of $5 2.0x reading glasses which are fine. The next trip back to the doc he asked how I was doing, then wrote my prescription for plain old 2x glasses.

(I actually mostly use $30 ones now- I can get anti-glare/anti-reflective/oleophobic coated, scratch resistant polycarbonate glasses with memory titanium frames online)

I always like the articles magazines like Forbes publish about Amazon. They're tired of seeing Amazon make no profit because it plows all its income back into infrastructure- "It's time for Amazon to start providing a return for investors". Fuck that- stockholders can get stuffed. If you want dividends, buy something else. Amazon (and Google) are thinking years to decades ahead, and they'll be stronger for it long after all the companies that took Forbes' advice are dead.

My nine year old figured out how to get the "Ok Google" voice recognition working on our Chromebook months ago. He barely bothers typing searches anymore- instead I get to hear his entire search history. I don't think he got far enough into the settings to hit the combo mentioned in the page

Viruses are going to be tough to get distributed though. Something bad happens to a Chromebook? Hit the factory refresh button and it wipes everything on the machine. Since everything is stored with Google just log back in and all your documents are there. Pretty much the worst you have to do is redo your screen background, or flip a few advanced setting toggles if you're bothered.

It's one of the prime reasons I bought one for the family. Kids mess around with weird web sites? I don't have to worry about the machine. (My kid's mental health is another issue....) My kids break it? Oh well. It was $200, and if I get a new one they'll barely notice.

This seems a no-brainer for me in a couple of ways. Chromebooks aren't any more fragile than normal laptops in my experience- yes, they are cheap but dropping a $1200 Macbook Air, a $500 iPad and a $200 Chromebook on a tile floor are all likely to do permanent damage. My two (very rough) kids haven't managed to kill my Acer 720 yet. Given the low price and the "All files are in the cloud, devices are totally interchangable" it's easy to deal with them, plus they have a working keybaord and a trackpad.

On the flip side, I'm really seeing a move towards Google Apps for my middle schooler. Virtually all his projects are done as part of a group, and they work from online documents. He doesn't need the high end features of Word or Excel: he needs a way to have multiple people work on something over two weeks. It's easy for the teacher as well- just send them the link and you're done, no papers to lose.

Is it? My understanding is that AWS is in large part the excess capacity Amazon needs for peak times, so otherwise the hardware sits around unused. AWS is just getting something out of that. Am I wrong here?

No, you compare to an average of the driving populace, not the best or worst. Why? Because that's what the insurance companies are going to do. When it becomes obvious that SDCs are better drivers than humans, you're going to start seeing a serious push to let the bots take over.

I don't think it's going to take anywhere near as long as people think. There's a *huge* market for this. My grandmother in law is 93. She basically can't drive, but wants to stay in her house. My wife's in the hospital right now and I have two kids that need to be different places at the same time. One of my old teachers is blind, etc, etc SDC taxi pools can act like super-flexible mass transit for areas that don't have any