I dunno. Waking up nekkid in a VAT of slime might have its downsides. Although there probably would be a lot of nekkid chicks nearby...

"It doesn't matter that he doesn't have ALL the knowledge in his brain to do this from scratch. He's researching"

Exactly. Just about all professional jobs require learning new skills on an ongoing basis, and many require actual R&D. IT is probably the most research-laden profession around, that isn't actually labeled as such.

Spoken like a selfish person who has no interest in the freedom of anyone but himself.

A patent for this should not exist. To me, it's pretty obvious any time you open an IM client and someone isn't on, that email should be chosen instead. It's the simple next step you take as a human, so automating it is a simple, obvious step too.

Also, IM clients like pidgin do something very similar when you merge the same contact's accounts on different networks (including non-IM networks like IRC and Facebook) and double-click to send a message.

I was more confused by the attempted assocation between Apple and freedom.

"Next time, take a broken hard drive with you. That will give them a challenge. :-)"

They'll probably just think it's one they've already processed.

"there is a leak and the pacific is starting to seep in"

Oh that? That's nothing -- don't worry about it. Fancy a cup of tea?

Start being a web owner

And how do you propose to do that? Buy every domain, datacentre, and individual server on the net, along with all the supporting infrastructure, RFC documents, staff to run it, etc.?

No, it's like asking your gardener what lawnmower is best, buying it on his recommendation, and then finding out he's getting paid to say that because the store owns his company.

What, are we going to have EVERY politician interviewed by EVERY voter?

No, stupid. Because that's got nothing to do with what I said. Try shutting up, and reading more.

I downloaded and installed Reader X yesterday, but I haven't had a virus in a long time

Well, you do now ;)

politicians, even. :/

If you click through a few links around this story, you'll find a guy who made a smaller font without subpixel rendering, for a MUD client, and other people talking about how old games used 4x3 fonts in some cases -- I forgot that 8 pixel fonts where NORMAL, not the small ones, on old systems. There's NOTHING new here. Even the subpixel rendering stuff was obvious at the time subpixel rendering was invented. One of the first things people discussed was how subpixel rendering would reduce the need for font greeking.

Advice, even. :/

Government officials: same as for any other job.

Career politicans: such things should not exist.