For R users, see the RColorBrewer package for an easy way to use these palettes in maps and charts.

At first read I thought that Facebook was developing a spreadsheet and a word processor...

I've found Seafile to be quite good and reliable. It's a multiplatform, free software, self-hosted Dropbox alternative that provides file syncing, sharing, a web interface, and tools for team work. Libraries can be encrypted server-side.
I use it for several months now and it is both fast and reliable (much more than the owncloud versions I tested previously). It handles my whole pictures collection (about 90GB) very easily. You can install your own Seafile server (there's even a raspberry pi version), or buy storage space from them. Clients are multiplatform (Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, iPhone/iPad).

Yep. I think the NSA should do much more bathroom surveillance.

And many people postponed an iPhone 4S purchase because they knew the iPhone 5 was going to be shipped. So it doesn't seem a pertinent period of time to do such a comparison.

It's not a dupe. In an incredible technical breakthrough, Slashdot just managed to half the power required to operate its website by posting every story twice.

Imagine a bucket hanging from a string that will snap once the bucket is full. You hang it from a branch, so that it will be filled by rain water.

Then, before it is full, you cut the string using a scissor.

This is perfectly analogous to what happened in Spain.

Nope. Facebook has proven this. People say offensive shit from their facebook profiles.

You want the 11" MacBook Air. My 2010 model is still humming along fine, vastly outperforming all netbooks while taking up almost the same physical space. However, the Asus Transformer series would probably also meet your requirements - for less money. It's a 10" Android tablet with detachable keyboard/trackpad.

Not exclusively. (And in this case not at all since the Intel driver is open)

Bug-reporting is extremely important if you actually want to provide a high-quality product. Bug-reports can be seen along two axes.

1. 
    
2. Whether your product is understandable to the user. If people consistently make mistakes , you've got a design issue somewhere. The usage of the product is obviously not sufficiently clear, or the documentation is not sufficient etc etc etc.
3. Whether your product has bugs. In this case, getting a clear description of how you can reproduce the bug is key. These "submit error" pop-ups are popular for a reason - they can submit log files and stack traces, core dumps etc etc.

And some bugs are just plain hard to fix. They may also be a manifestation of a design issue, and those are rarely trivial to fix. I hope Ubuntu gets this sorted soon.

Anyone can become a programmer at some level. Simple programming is like coming up with a recipe for a meal - you have some ingredients and combine these to create a hopefully desirable outcome. It's skill, but it can be learned. I mean, I was able to move the turtle using LOGO when I was .. 10? 11?

It does however take both experience and raw intelligence to become a really good programmer. Fully understanding trade-offs takes experience. If you go all-out on even small scripts, you'll waste time. If you just hack away at large projects without design and methodology, your lack of a coherent design will bite you in the gonads. Learning how to communicate effectively with end-users and non-technical team members is also something that takes practice and a certain mind-set. I've seen many, many bad solutions chosen by bright people. I've done some myself, also recently. And I'll make some more mistakes in the future. Why? Because communication is hard. Also for the other party.

x64 is misleading. The x86_64 still uses the underlying architecture and instruction set of the original Intel 8086.. Changing the name to x64 would imply the instruction set is different from that of x86 - and while the instruction set has been extended it still (as far as I know) still support the instructions designed in the 70s.

I personally find x86_64 the most descriptive designation for a 64-bit x86-processor.

I bet Steve Ballmer made it himself!