Not to mention that using Java leveraged all the professional Java developers already out there.

The C# pool is substantially shallower.

I was on that page myself ... how on earth is this even news to people who've followed Oracle? The whole company appears to be one big jerk.

Its pretty redundant to even do. The medical decisions in movies make no sense, the car jacking makes no sense, the jumping through windows, computer hacking, alarm defeating and air duct crawling are all ridiculous too.

Looking at the source code is barely even interesting on that scale.

Or you could get a Google corporate domain account and you won't have the ads any more.

More importantly, Nest has hired a bunch of really bright people who make really good products who will now work for Google.

I don't see why anyone is as paranoid about Google's oversight as they are. This data is all already easily aggregated by IP address by anyone else, and Google at least offers the option to change your tracking tag whenever you want so the advertising engines can't follow you long term.

Self-programming so easily my grandma can do it? Nest is.
Easy to adjust with a simple exterior knob like my grandma's accustomed to? Nest is.
Automatically turns itself on and off when you're away for the day or not? Nest does.
Will run the fan periodically to keep the house from getting stale even if the AC or furnace isn't required that day? Yup, that too.

Those cheap programmable thermostats are great for people who actually have set schedules and can figure out the programming. Nest is for the other people.

I've never had the problems you cite, but the one that bothers me is that it is run by enviro-hippies who care more about saving energy than comfort.

For instance: the Nest resists very strongly using the second stage of heating on my furnace, which means that in the morning, the house is a full two degrees (Centigrade) cooler than I've set it to be, even though it already "knows" exactly how long it takes to heat the house by 4 degrees in that weather because it insists on staying on stage 1 for an hour.

That works great if you live alone ...

Why shouldn't he? Here in Canada you could stuff a few million of those houses here and there without anyone even noticing that the space is used.

And they do ... its called The Muskokas.

RG6 for satellite TV would be my only reason (and I would only run one per room) but honestly with modern DVRs, you could easily just have those where the connections come into the house and extend the HDMI outputs instead.

Update that to three CAT-6 + 1 coax, and you're doing well. Most signals can be piggybacked on CAT-6 these days (including HDMI and USB) so make those connections easily cross-connected and well labelled.

Especially now that corn soared in cost because of ethanol production

If we did nothing as a society except include breakfast at every school, we would be doing an incredible long term service to the brain wealth of the nation as a whole.

Its an education issue to explain to middle class folks that healthy choices are way too expensive for poor people and cheap food is bad for them.