They tend to be scared to try new things, un-interested in being at work on time or even during standard hours, entitled, and have no interest in paying their dues, often expecting a salary that is more appropriate for someone with 10 years of experience. "I don't want to build stuff" I was told by a recent mechanical engineering grad. "I want to design stuff". Hey kid, you will be a far better engineer in the long run if you learn how to build stuff for a few years, especially if the parts are poorly designed. You will quickly learns what works and what doesn't.

'With remote work, people also spend more time in meetings that are worthless' Yeah, I've never spent any time attending worthless meetings in the office...

Years ago I worked for a company that made equipment for digital printing. No printers, just other pre-press equipment. A bean counter up the hierarchy figured out that inkjet ink cost $1,000 per litre retail. The company immediately started work on an industrial, wide format inkjet printer for banners and posters and such because the ink was so profitable. Go with a laser printer.

Meh. I'm Canadian and there's no way I'm buying a car built in the U.S. until the government shows us some respect again. If Canadians are at least partly to blame for the decrease in demand for American made EVs then so be it.

How does creating a company that sells over-engineered, over-built, heavily marketed ("Oh, it's a Dyson, they're the best") and over priced applicances (that still sell in the millions) a failure?

I'd really like to see a Millennium Falcon simulator. Full sized cockpit, attacking Star Destroyers, rescuing amputees from weather vanes, the whole nine yards. That would be impressive. Most impressive.

My opinion only of course, but The Social Network is the best film of the year, followed closely by Inception. That opinion is not based on what anyone else says, that's based on me seeing it without knowing much about it when I went in. The reason why The Social Network comes first? Excellent directing, dense, rapid-fire, intelligent script, a great score, sharp, effective editing, and effective casting and performances all around. Hell, even the cinematography is excellent, especially when you see it on Bluray. There are few films that hold my attention all the way through. Most of them slow down or get down right boring during the saggy middle act. Not The Social Network. It was riveting all the way through. It's very difficult to create a good movie about anything, and it's damn near impossible to create a good movie that's mostly someone talking or typing on the keyboard, or telling a complex story cohesively. The Social Network does it all extremely well. I liked Inception, but I had difficulty following the plot. For that reason alone, it goes to my number 2 spot.

What manufacturer are you using? I only write to the drives once, and that's it, then they go into storage. I've been storing data for years this way (even from the very early models with a whopping 16mb of memory!) and I've never had a problem. Every once in a while I transfer data from the older drives to newer ones just to be safe, but I've had far fewer problems with them than hard drives.

Hope you wrap the drive in an ESD safe bag first. Would hate for all the static that bubblewrap generates to zap your drives!

The price of a couple of thumb drives is insignificant compared to the price of your vacation and the memories associated with the photos. I buy a thumb drive for every vacation and store them this way, in a medium sized fire proof safe. Yes, thumb drive storage is more expensive than hard drive storage, but I trust their longevity more than I would a hard drive.

Height is only one factor. There are many factors for using a sat system with an external antenna, including antenna type, placement on the airframe, cable type, length, termination quality, and so on. Cabling is especially important. What kind of system are you using? Is it Iridium based, or Globalstar, or another type?

I second this. I also work in the industry and people generally don't know that not only do you have to be outside, but you have to have a clear line of sight to the sky and not be near obstructions like buildings. Also, the higher off the ground you are, or the higher the elevation, the better. Even in the best conditions, the call quality can vary as a satellite goes over the horizon and passes your call to another satellite. Also, satellite calls are very expensive, and the hand held units, although getting smaller (like the Iridium 9555 handset), are still bigger than a large cell phone.

...some explosives inside an annoying crying baby, then they'd ban them.