Easy.

http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-10343601-263.html

Sure, if you were willing to fork out some money they'd fix a problem caused by faulty design, but not otherwise.

Your post demonstrates a complete lack of understanding of what JIT manufacturing (i.e. lean) is and what it tries to accomplish. Hint: it's not about doing more with less. Further, you either willingly fail to mention Kaizen (continuous improvement) or just aren't aware that THIS is the heart and soul of the true Toyota Way.

Whatever the reasons they failed in software engineering, neither JIT nor Kaizen would be to blame because neither of those try to nor should they translate to "engineer badly".

We Kentuckians aren't all ass-backwards anymore than all Californians are LA gangsters or all New Yorkers are mobsters.

If you want to say "an economically depressed state with generally fewer technological resources than others beat you" then fine. But try to avoid stereotypes mmmkay?

Yes -- premium economy (Kayak and Expedia offer this search) and by selecting your own seats to get exit rows and such.

My experience is that seats that offer legroom in the economy cabin go very fast including the premium economy seats on transcontinental flights. Seems people are willing to pay a 300 to 500 extra for that comfort if they're going to be stuck in that seat for a while. Business class adds just too much cost to be as attractive.

It's not rocket science. Rightly or wrongly Canonical has decided that the future of general computing is in the mobile space and they are working on getting Ubuntu there and bridging the gap between the mobile computing experience and the desktop computing experience.

In simplest of terms, they're trying to make a distro that can be both a phone and a desktop all in the same device. Again -- rightly or wrongly -- they have decided that they needed to move certain things in house to best accomplish that goal (Mir) and needed a specific interface they were in control of to scale between display form factors (Unity).

If you are a person that thinks this direction is wrong and will hurt Linux in the long run, then you belong in the "bad for Linux" category. I'm a person that thinks this is absolutely the best way for Linux to finally have its "year of the desktop" similar to how Apple made their comeback but with a twist -- by providing a compelling mobile experience with a device that just so happens to be able to double as someone's desktop when they want a bigger screen.

Pay attention to plunging desktop sales numbers. As people find ways to make mobile devices and tablets their only computing devices, this strategy will start to look smarter and smarter. Whatever else you think of Canonical (and by extension Ubuntu), this will either make them or break them.

Having the batteries centralized like in the Tesla is a GOOD thing. They keep the center of gravity low on the car making it almost impossible to roll (seriously, the NHTSA had to specially design a scenario to get it to roll) and they make it possible to swap batteries for a quick charge which is going to be necessary unless the capacity of batteries can be increased by a factor of 10 with charge speeds doubled or tripled.

This is a step backwards in many ways not to mention the least of which is to necessarily increase the cost of mild accidents to replace the battery integrated pieces.

I've _never_ seen a mid-sized business using that kind of a model. Not even close. Not saying there might not be some out there, but all the ones I've seen have requirements for most of their employees that just wouldn't work with all Chromebooks.

This is a bit of an overblown notion.

The need for system admins isn't going away anytime soon. The only thing that might go away are heavily specialized admins that don't diversify. Hint: if your resume title is "Notes Admin" then yeah, you are working on borrowed time.

There is still longevity in system admins for those that have diverse skill sets. Just browse job listings and you'll see it -- qualification listings are getting longer and longer. This DOES mean, however, that the number of admin positions that could be open at any one particular time is probably not growing as fast as other jobs.

What I personally have noticed is that the mid-range jobs have just about dried up. Companies either want someone fresh out of college that will work long hours for peanuts or they want seasoned experts that are worth the money. Maybe it was this way before the dot com era, but that's when I hit the workforce, so I only know how things were from then to now.

Canonical is making the gamble that the future of Linux desktop computing as a major platform, if there is one, will be in the mobile space via convergence (i.e. use your phone as a desktop on occasion by hooking it to a keyboard/mouse/monitor). If they can pull off a great phone experience that offers a compelling Android/iPhone alternative, it's a win for them. Even if not a single user decides to use it as a desktop and only as a phone, it's a win for them. It will offer Canonical a potentially sizable revenue stream they've never had before.

That being said, their intent, as I understand it, is to make neither mobile nor desktop second class citizens -- to put them on the same level playing field. Whether they achieve this lofty goal remains to be seen.

It's been a long time since I took a look at it, but it's been around quite a while. I don't see it in your list, so it's probably worth you at least checking it out.

I've said it before -- their campaign (on Indiegogo by the way, not Kickstarter) was an abject clinic in how not to do an online campaign. They did just about everything in exactly the worst way to ensure success. The miracle story of that campaign was how much money they got despite their (many) missteps.

It's not just time -- it's whether or not their mobile gambit pays off. If, as Canonical has wagered, mobile continues to become the central and often only computing device for people, mobile processing/graphics power moves forward a few notches and their Mir efforts hit pay-dirt, then they will not decline but rather become THE undisputed non-Android Linux platform.

If any single one of those things fails to happen in the next 2 years, they're history. Plain and simple unless they recognize early enough and steer the ship back into standard desktop waters.

You're going to have to go beyond marketing for this. Microsoft set out with Windows 8 to try to do a convergent experience between devices. Their failure to do this isn't marketing's fault. Whether marketing failed to listen after everyone realized they failed or whether development bothered to tell them is really the question.

I don't think it's fair to judge the failure of the Edge campaign as "people didn't want it".

I would have bought one or two if I had enough time to save up the money for it. Forking out $700 or $1400 (for two) on a whim isn't something I'm willing to do since I follow a budget. 30 days notice to do so isn't enough time. If there had been sufficient warning of at least two months BEFORE the start of the campaign, I'm betting others besides myself could have saved up the money to buy one.

Also, there was speculation about whether requiring people to have a Paypal account caused some people not to pledge for one. It's reasonable to suspect at least some people fit in this category.

Lastly the Edge campaign was an absolute clinic in how NOT to do pricing perks. It would probably take three or four large paragraphs to explain the situation, but to say that it was convoluted and unhelpful would be an understatement. They eventually settled on a single (and attractive) price point which is what they should have had from the beginning.