It's not just kids. I used to work on mobile software for guys doing various kinds of outdoor field work. I told clients to figure on replacing their PDAs at least every two years. I'd reckon about 20% broke outright each year, and at the end of two years even the ones that weren't actually broken were falling apart from heavy use. These were well-made PDAs in rugged cases that guys could carry in their pockets. I shudder to think what they're doing these days with iPads.

When you're thinking about adopting any kind of gizmo that's supposed to be used all day long, you have to look at that gizmo as disposable. Stuff happens to things you carry around all the time. I have a light touch with equipment, so my stuff tends to last longer than most people's; but even I once broke a Newton screen, back in the early days. There was a guy in my office who destroyed one laptop per year, like clockwork.

I used to tell my clients that equipment was made to be used and thrown away. The important thing is preserving data. If a device is so expensive you've got to count on people mollycoddling it, it's not ready for field use.

And she puts a piece of masking tape over the camera lens, right?

I'm sorry, this story is about US Adult test scores. Could you take your derailment discussion somewhere else please.

Signed,
The rest of the world

Rubbish -- no CEO wants to satisfy random Slashdotters.

'Good CEOs' are rare because shareholders greedily chase after absurd returns, and charismatic CEOs are seen as key to this.

The other difference is that only one of them is in my spank bank.

But seriously, attractive women get away with more crap than the uggoes.

You mean whites are a minority already? I'll have to call my Asian friends and tell them we're running the show now.

Or is it the Jews?

Only about 10% of that 57% voted when it counted in the primaries because that's when the elections are stacked against the electorate, ensuring the majority will always be corporate flunkies. I seem to remember Obama managed to loose primaries to none of the above.

Well as long as HP doesn't try to sell telecommuting to other companies because they obviously don't know how to do it http://www8.hp.com/h20621/video-gallery/us/en/customer-care/computing-and-mobile-devices/network-and-internet/1251324810001/hp-home-office-telecommuting-equipment-basics/video/.

What an insanely vapid rant. You of course are representative of the typical hypocrite, who likes to target other people whilst indulging themselves in the same behaviour. My comment represents a complete lack of interest in those mug shot sites, a complete lack of desire to target people for the mistakes they have made and a complete dislike for the hypocrites who do the opposite. You are so blatantly apparent, hmm, pseudo celebrity issues.

So they're showing that Americans aren't particularly good at math, yet by and large we succeed well beyond everybody else in most respects. Especially given that we design most of the technology that the rest of the world uses (even manufacture most of it as well - though assembly is another matter,) which in itself necessitates mathematics as well as physics. So who are the ones ultimately doing poorly in all of this?

Most Americans scored poorly on the tests; those same Americans aren't the ones who designs all that technology. America's engineers are a tiny subset of the population, and most likely scored quite well on the test. The vast majority of Americans don't work as engineers or scientists or anything of the sort, they work in service jobs.

Of course you are dealing with microbes so volume of liquid and solids required can be very limited, allowing for lots of scope of 'spare' space (sic) contained within the experiment. Agitation would still be required with centrifugal action to prevent excess concentrations of particular products at each density boundary layer. Of course just mixing at the start and then doing nothing and watching how it develops would also be interesting.

What is really super innovative in this case is baring phones that due to their price market do not in any way shape or form compete with Apple phones (one is a bit more expensive but has an actual keyboard). So Apple just being dicks abusing a non-innovative or original patent, sticking to a competitor to drive those customers to, what another competitors products, for why?

You follow common sense. In this, they are in fact not police officers and are running the risk of committing a criminal act in misrepresenting themselves as police officers. Police officers are only police officers in their country of origin and have zero right beyond that. In attempting to act in a policing manner in a country beyond their jurisdiction they are technically misrepresenting themselves as having policing rights. You should consider reporting them to local policing authorities and seeing whether criminal charges are appropriate.

So the appropriate act when contacted by anyone representing themselves in any communication as police officers from a foreign nation seeking anything at all from you, is to report them to your local police force and let it follow through proper legal channels and in this case the required reprimand for an illegal act.

That is the advantage of the notebook over the tablet, you can armour up the clam shell. In fact in a school environment it makes sense to create a specific up armoured shock absorbing clam shell within which you mount the notebook at least when they still manage to break the notebook you can reuse the armoured shock absorbing clam shell. Now if you say you can do the same with a tablet, er, why screw around you have a lid why not the keyboard. The other message never ever have anything to do with News Corporation they are masters of propaganda and not performance, hence never to be trusted with anything.