No what I am saying is that yes Rutan was a trained engineer not every homebuilt is designed by a trained engineer.
Some great examples are the Pietenpol Air Camper
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pietenpol_Air_Camper
The Wittman Tailwind http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wittman_Tailwind
http://www.aircraftspruce.com/catalog/kitspages/wittail.php
John Monnett has desgined several homebuilt aircraft over the years and has his own company
http://www.pilotmix.com/index.php?pgid=11&lang=en&maxInfo=833 is one of his early planes. His son does have a degree and works with him now at Sonex.
The Dyke Delta is another amateur designed aircraft. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyke_Delta
And this one was designed by a mechanic http://www.airbum.com/pireps/PirepDavisDA2.html

As you can see normal people can and have been building and designing homebuilt aircraft for a while.
Actually designing an airplane really isn't that hard. Even designing a safe well handling airplane isn't that hard. Not that easy mind you but not all that difficult. What takes a lot of effort and talent is to optimize the design. Even Steve Wittman did a great job at that. His Tailwind is very fast for the HP.

The Kindle was Amazons most gifted item ever this year. Also both the Zi8 and the all the ebook readers have been on the Today and the CBS morning show which pretty much are extreme cases of mainstream press.
The Zi8 I put as a hit because it is so good and was selling so well that Amazon and other retailers raised the price during the Christmas season. The Ebooks are a given they have super high buzz on the mainstream press. Will they last? That I don't know but this year at CES I think you will see more EBook readers than you can shake a stick at.

And how many people really need a word processor any more?
People in school and those that write reports at work do and authors as well but that is getting to be a smaller and smaller group all the time. Most business communication has moved to emails as has most personal communication. When is the last time you wrote a letter?
I would be willing to bet that Office 2000 and OpenOffice both meet the needs of 99% of the users out there. Yes I know that everybody till uses a word processor but I have to wonder for how long? I also how long it will be before people decided that free does enough and move to OO.org or even GoogleDocs.
That is what Microsoft fears. We are really reaching a point where everything is good enough and good enough and free beats good enough and expensive.

"designed by Rutan and assembled without engineering improvisation by a competent mechanic."
Um they tend to be built by common Joes and most homebuilts have some "improvements" in each one.
It maybe a little extra work on a fillet or a better gap seal.
Lots of homebuilts aircraft have been designed and built by people without degrees. Some fly really well but most are a little heavier and stronger than needed.

No everywhere means all over the news and in the public eye. Amazon has an international version of the Kindle and I am sure that Sony will be pushing them in Japan.
"What's the point in shooting 1080p if you do it through lousy optics in terrible lighting conditions? As always, consumer video and photography will remain awful, regardless of the technology."
So? really most writing is terrible even with word processing software everywhere. Most blogs are useless. 99% of everything on the web is junk. Heck even a 80% of printed material is junk.
That doesn't make the printing press, the internet, blogging, or computers useless.
And frankly the video of a child's first steps are wonderful to the parents, grand parents, and friends no matter how bad the optics. Plus the Zi8 is actually does very well as far as quality goes. No it isn't pro quality but it is dang nice.

Hits
Microsoft Windows 7 doesn't suck. It is a good update to XP and runs well on most PC that chocked on Vista. Vista took all the heat for missing drivers and such so Vista didn't have too.

Android looks like ti will be the Windows of smartphones. It is everywhere and soon will be available on on carriers.

Twitter has become the darling of the year. Now if they just figure out how to make money with it.

Google Chrome. It is fast and it works well. Yet another browser steps up and shows that choice is good.

Motorola is back. Motorola when from hero to zero and now back to hero thanks to the Droid. Keep pushing big M we need you

EBook readers. This is the dawning of the year of the EBook or not but they are everywhere.

The ZuneHD. Wow it is pretty and has a nice interface. It is a great media player and ZunePass makes it so tempting.

NetFlix streaming. It is on the XBox, Roku, PS3, and now showing up on BluRay players. Just too cool and too handy.

3D movies. I think they are here to stay

The Kodak Zi8. It is a better HD camcorder than the Flip and at under $200 is a bargain. Now anybody can shoot HD at 1080p. And you thought slid shows where bad! I will not get into the terror of amature HD pron that I suspect will soon be flooding the Internet. Still a win but one that should scare us all.

Misses
MindowsMobile. It has no mind share and looks like it will be the dull also ran of the smartphone world. Unless Microsoft does something mind blowing soon it should just walk away.

Nokia what are you doing? No really what are you doing? We have no idea and wonder if you do. Is the future S60 or Linux for you? Wait you came out with a netbook... Running WINDOWS?.

PSP Go or as many people call it PSP Go Away... Really it is more expensive than the PSP, you have no way to play your UMD games on it and games are showing first in UMD form and only latter
in the online store! Sony are you nuts?

The ZuneHD, wait that was a hit? Yes it was from a tech and design standpoint the problem is that nobody cares. It lacks an open app store like the iPod Touch does and frankly nobody really cares about it. The ZuneHD is a miss because it is just invisible. Microsoft if you had made it a phone with an open app store you would have knocked it out of the ball park.

Linux. I love Linux but it is still not doing it on the Desktop. Linux could have made huge inroads because Vista sucked and wouldn't run on netbooks. The first netbooks ran Linux but they sucked. They had a strange flavor of Linux. Had the Linux community gotten it's act together it could have really made headway. The number one problem is that it is hard to sell software for Linux. I still have hope. Folks this is what we need. A pretty and fast version of Linux. Might I suggest that it use QT embedded and ditch X or run X on top of QT embedded for programs that must use X. Next get an app store so people can buy and sell apps. Next It has to support Flash. Finally make a Smartbook that will run for hours on a battery charge supports HD video in hardware, looks good, and is under $350. It also must have an HDMI and and a ir port for a remote. Now make a deal with NetFlix, Blockbluster, and Amazon to sell download and streaming media on it. Yes I love Linux.

AT&T your ads suck. No really that you can surf the web while talking on your cell phone just isn't that big of a deal to most people. To the none techies they are going why would you ever do that? The techies all know it only works on your small 3G network and will not work on the much bigger edge network. It is a sad reply to the Verizon ads.

Comcast and AT&T. We are paying you to access the internet! WE THE CUSTOMERS THAT ARE PAYING WILL DECIDED WHAT SITES WE WANT TO GO TO! WE DO NOT WANT YOU SELL BETTER ACCESS TO ONE SITE BECAUSE WE ARE YOUR CUSTOMERS AND WE WANT EVERY SITE WE USE AND EVERY SERVICE WE USE TO BE AS FAST AS POSSIBLE!!!! WE AS A NATION HAVE GIVEN YOU BILLIONS OF DOLLARS FOR BROADBAND AND WE HAVE NOT GOTTEN IT! YOU SUCK AND WE HATE YOU!
The first politican that decided to go after the cable companies/broadband providers will go right to the Whitehouse. Nobody likes them and they charge way too much

FCC see the above post and what the heck are you dong letting Comcast buy a TV network? What the heck are you doing letting Comcast own the TV networks they already do!

Maybe???

Palm Pre. It is pretty and has a great UI. The SDK is terrible. HTML and javascript are just too limiting to make great apps.

Hulu. Why are you blocking Boxee and the PS3???? Because they hooked to your TV SET!!!! Yes Boxee got around it for now but really what the heck people! Hulu what are you doing taking down shows? You are doing so much so well but at the same time what are you thinking?

Google Wave. Maybe it will be great but right now?

Facebook. Yes you are flying high now but so was MySpace. Your privacy issues are getting scary and your customer base is fickle.

Nintendo. The Wii seems to be running out of steam. It is still a hit but what will come next? The DSi??? really what the heck? Will we see a Wii HD that can use our new cheap HDTVs or will you make an even bigger leap? The WiiHD 3D for those new 3D HD sets coming soon? Hey we already look like idiots swinging that controller around so the dorky glasses will not hurt. PS put Boxee on it!

So here is my list.

But here is the "problem" with too many Linux supporters.
"I think that dropping the "store" name was a good move. One of the most important advantages that Linux has to offer end users is the availability of a rich ecosystem of free and open third-party applications. It's important to emphasize that advantage and avoid using language that downplays it."
Guess what? Windows has probably got just as much free software as Linux does. Just about every major project has ported it's software to Windows as well as Linux.
Let's take a look at some of the big names.
Firefox.
Gimp.
Apache
PHP
Perl
MySQL
Postgres
OpenOffice
Pidgin
Adium
All available for Windows
The simple truth is that you loose very little in the way of free software buy going to Windows.

Fear and because it is bad business.
People that sell Windows machines probably make as much from the crapware they install on each machine as they do on the machine. Once you leave the windows world you loose that money and throw in that they will have a razor thin margin and you have a high risk situation.
I am not jumping up and down about Chrome. I have seen the SDK on the Pre and I am convinced that the idea of HTML+javascript is NOT a great development platform. Yes Web apps are very cool but I wouldn't want to try and write to do any DSP or image processing with javascript and doing it all server side really pushes the cost of entry for the developer through the roof.
Web and only web just doesn't work for me.
I am still convinced that for the "Smartbook" to work you will need to have an app store. No Synaptic+Apt IS NOT AN APPSTORE. It doesn't allow you to buy and sell apps.
An apps store would allow the Smartbook maker to make a little money on the sale of a lot of software and pushes down the cost of software to the point that it becomes a why not purchase.
It also gives developers a way to make a little money and gives the average user a safe and easy place to get software. Sure allow people to side load apps but give them an app store.
Frankly that is what Linux and smartbooks are missing. To me Chrome is nothing more than a neat research project.
Think about GoogleDocs. It is great and very handy but how many people have stopped using Office or OpenOffice and gone 100% Googledocs?

Actually I suggest you pick up a copy of Homebuilt Aircraft at your local book store, got to EAA.org, and then make a trip to Sun n Fun or or Oshkosh, Hundreds, maybe thousands of people have built their own helicopters around the world. Tens of thousands of homebuilt aircraft are flying in the US. Homebuilts in the US run the range from ultralights to jets. What is amazing is not that this is being done but that the Chinese government is allowing it.
BTW Burt Rutan the man that built SpaceShip One realy built his reputation selling plans for Homebuilt aricraft. His VariEze and LongEZ are to this day considered classics.

Actually current thinking is that they just went extinct for a number of natural causes like the ice age and predators.
Very large animals in general are historically at high risk for extinction

I would bet on BSD. BSD was already around and once the court case was finished BSD would have jumped to the front of the pack IMHO.
Most of the GNU software would have been ported very quickly and KDE and probably GTK would have been written for BSD.
Hey I am a Linux user but the simple truth is if had not been for Linus it really would have been somebody else. The 386 and GCC was available as was Tanenbaum's book.
I think that Tanenbaum gets a little short changed in the whole free OS world. No he didn't write Linux and Linus didn't copy Minix. What did happen is Linus and probably every other person that worked on Linux back then did was read Tanenbaum's text book. In that book he showed that it was possible for a human to write a real OS and even showed them how to do it.
Tanenbaum did what he wanted to do. He taught a lot of people how too write an OS.

The mitochondrial DNA will not be from the IBX so what you have is still an hybrid.
Maybe better than nothing but not really bringing the species back.

Any computer professional that doesn't know how to use the CLI isn't.
As for average user? Yes they shouldn't have to use the CLI. Frankly with a modern Linux you do not really need to use the CLI after you get it all set up. Kind of like Windows in that respect.
I will say that I find Linux actually easier to do a lot of tasks with. once VLC is installed "from a pull down menu" I find that Linux is easier to use for media than Windows. Burning a DVD? DeVeDe is super simple and easy to use.
Burn an ISO to a disk? Piece of cake.
I actually find it harder to hunt down the software I need on Windows than on Linux.
As to hard to shop for? What is this a girlfriend?
Who shops for software any more except for games?
Yes end users shouldn't have to know the CLI but the CLI in Windows is as much a part of windows as the GUI is. It is not old or outdated anymore thanks to power shell.

Microsoft was still selling XP as of October of this year. In fact XP is still for sale new from New Egg. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832116515&cm_re=XP-_-32-116-515-_-Product
Microsoft better start to patch this issue or the drive makers better mark them as not compatible with Windows XP.

Except that this story from the BBC from months earlier already documented the police killing people.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7194744.stm
Yes it is good that they reported this but the fact that Kenya police where killing people was already documented by the BBC so it isn't exactly some big leak that they broke.
Still it is a good thing but not earth shattering or even really new but a continuation of an already published story.