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Booki was what there was before Booktype, and FLOSS Manuals used other software before Booki which I also used. The great thing about all this software is that many people can collaborate on a book online, then distribute in in multiple formats:

1). As a website
2). As a PDF that can be published as a print-on-demand book by Lulu or Create Space.
3). As an EPUB (which you can run Kindlegen on to create a MOBI for the Kindkle).
4). As a "newspaper".

Some examples of books I have created:

websites

http://en.flossmanuals.net/make-your-own-sugar-activities/

http://en.flossmanuals.net/como-hacer-una-actividad-sugar/

http://en.flossmanuals.net/e-book-enlightenment/

epub, mobi, and pdf

http://www.archive.org/details/MakeYourOwnSugarActivities

http://www.archive.org/details/ComoHacerUnaActividadSugar

http://www.archive.org/details/EBookEnlightenment

On the Kindle Store

http://www.amazon.com/Make-Your-Sugar-Activities-ebook/dp/B0050VAHKW/ref=sr_1_2?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1329414720&sr=1-2

http://www.amazon.com/Hacer-Actividad-Sugar-Spanish-ebook/dp/B0058DBRVA/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_3

http://www.amazon.com/E-Book-Enlightenment-ebook/dp/B005BYST5I/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_2

http://www.amazon.com/Life-Times-Bhakta-Jim-ebook/dp/B00730HE54/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1329414780&sr=1-1

On Lulu

http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/make-your-own-sugar-activities/12995552?productTrackingContext=search_results/search_shelf/center/1

And soon, The Life And Times Of Bhakta Jim on Create Space.

The Spanish book was translated from "Make Your Own Sugar Activities!" by a team of volunteers, mostly in South America, who likely had never met in person.

Don't underestimate what this software can do! It isn't perfect, but in time it will change how we author and publish books.

Booki was what there was before Booktype, and FLOSS Manuals used other software before Booki which I also used. The great thing about all this software is that many people can collaborate on a book online, then distribute in in multiple formats:

1). As a website
2). As a PDF that can be published as a print-on-demand book by Lulu or Create Space.
3). As an EPUB (which you can run Kindlegen on to create a MOBI for the Kindkle).
4). As a "newspaper".

Some examples of books I have created:

websites

http://en.flossmanuals.net/make-your-own-sugar-activities/

http://en.flossmanuals.net/como-hacer-una-actividad-sugar/

http://en.flossmanuals.net/e-book-enlightenment/

epub, mobi, and pdf

http://www.archive.org/details/MakeYourOwnSugarActivities

http://www.archive.org/details/ComoHacerUnaActividadSugar

http://www.archive.org/details/EBookEnlightenment

On the Kindle Store

http://www.amazon.com/Make-Your-Sugar-Activities-ebook/dp/B0050VAHKW/ref=sr_1_2?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1329414720&sr=1-2

http://www.amazon.com/Hacer-Actividad-Sugar-Spanish-ebook/dp/B0058DBRVA/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_3

http://www.amazon.com/E-Book-Enlightenment-ebook/dp/B005BYST5I/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_2

http://www.amazon.com/Life-Times-Bhakta-Jim-ebook/dp/B00730HE54/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1329414780&sr=1-1

On Lulu

http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/make-your-own-sugar-activities/12995552?productTrackingContext=search_results/search_shelf/center/1

And soon, The Life And Times Of Bhakta Jim on Create Space.

The Spanish book was translated from "Make Your Own Sugar Activities!" by a team of volunteers, mostly in South America, who likely had never met in person.

Don't underestimate what this software can do! It isn't perfect, but in time it will change how we author and publish books.

Booki was what there was before Booktype, and FLOSS Manuals used other software before Booki which I also used. The great thing about all this software is that many people can collaborate on a book online, then distribute in in multiple formats:

1). As a website
2). As a PDF that can be published as a print-on-demand book by Lulu or Create Space.
3). As an EPUB (which you can run Kindlegen on to create a MOBI for the Kindkle).
4). As a "newspaper".

Some examples of books I have created:

websites

http://en.flossmanuals.net/make-your-own-sugar-activities/

http://en.flossmanuals.net/como-hacer-una-actividad-sugar/

http://en.flossmanuals.net/e-book-enlightenment/

epub, mobi, and pdf

http://www.archive.org/details/MakeYourOwnSugarActivities

http://www.archive.org/details/ComoHacerUnaActividadSugar

http://www.archive.org/details/EBookEnlightenment

On the Kindle Store

http://www.amazon.com/Make-Your-Sugar-Activities-ebook/dp/B0050VAHKW/ref=sr_1_2?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1329414720&sr=1-2

http://www.amazon.com/Hacer-Actividad-Sugar-Spanish-ebook/dp/B0058DBRVA/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_3

http://www.amazon.com/E-Book-Enlightenment-ebook/dp/B005BYST5I/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_2

http://www.amazon.com/Life-Times-Bhakta-Jim-ebook/dp/B00730HE54/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1329414780&sr=1-1

On Lulu

http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/make-your-own-sugar-activities/12995552?productTrackingContext=search_results/search_shelf/center/1

And soon, The Life And Times Of Bhakta Jim on Create Space.

The Spanish book was translated from "Make Your Own Sugar Activities!" by a team of volunteers, mostly in South America, who likely had never met in person.

Don't underestimate what this software can do! It isn't perfect, but in time it will change how we author and publish books.

Booki was what there was before Booktype, and FLOSS Manuals used other software before Booki which I also used. The great thing about all this software is that many people can collaborate on a book online, then distribute in in multiple formats:

1). As a website
2). As a PDF that can be published as a print-on-demand book by Lulu or Create Space.
3). As an EPUB (which you can run Kindlegen on to create a MOBI for the Kindkle).
4). As a "newspaper".

Some examples of books I have created:

websites

http://en.flossmanuals.net/make-your-own-sugar-activities/

http://en.flossmanuals.net/como-hacer-una-actividad-sugar/

http://en.flossmanuals.net/e-book-enlightenment/

epub, mobi, and pdf

http://www.archive.org/details/MakeYourOwnSugarActivities

http://www.archive.org/details/ComoHacerUnaActividadSugar

http://www.archive.org/details/EBookEnlightenment

On the Kindle Store

http://www.amazon.com/Make-Your-Sugar-Activities-ebook/dp/B0050VAHKW/ref=sr_1_2?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1329414720&sr=1-2

http://www.amazon.com/Hacer-Actividad-Sugar-Spanish-ebook/dp/B0058DBRVA/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_3

http://www.amazon.com/E-Book-Enlightenment-ebook/dp/B005BYST5I/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_2

http://www.amazon.com/Life-Times-Bhakta-Jim-ebook/dp/B00730HE54/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1329414780&sr=1-1

On Lulu

http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/make-your-own-sugar-activities/12995552?productTrackingContext=search_results/search_shelf/center/1

And soon, The Life And Times Of Bhakta Jim on Create Space.

The Spanish book was translated from "Make Your Own Sugar Activities!" by a team of volunteers, mostly in South America, who likely had never met in person.

Don't underestimate what this software can do! It isn't perfect, but in time it will change how we author and publish books.

Uh, yeah, thanks for that. I always look to religion for the correct answer to question science already has the answer for, Remind me again, which which hand should I throw stones when I'm murdering women for having been raped?

Well, according the Christian religion, you don't throw stones at all unless you are without sin yourself.

Neither. It's far easier (and kinder) to not read a single verse out of context and completely misunderstand history, religion, morals, ethics and reality.

Kindle Fire isn't closed source. Amazon has to release the source to the changes they made to the OS. The only thing closed source on the Fire is the Apps. Here is the source for all the Kindles if your interested: http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/?nodeId=200203720&tag=5336653508-20

[citation needed]

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/stretching-before-exercise-is-useless-738097.html

“The basic science and clinical evidence today suggests that stretching before exercise is more likely to cause injury than to prevent it.”
http://www.runnersworld.com/article/0,7120,s6-241-287--7001-0,00.html

Several authors have suggested that stretching has a beneficial effect on injury prevention. In contrast, clinical evidence suggesting that stretching before exercise does not prevent injuries has also been reported.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15233597

“stretching before exercise is more likely to cause injury than to prevent it.”
http://www.amazon.com/Body-Science-Research-Program-Results/dp/0071597174/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1329369249&sr=8-1 p. 218-9, emphasis in original

There must be small businesses using VPN features of these routers (I am not implying D-Link is the affected party by the way). Otherwise they wouldn't have found so many such keys on the open net (0.4% of all keys) - certainly there aren't that many people remotely configuring their firewalls etc. If I were using one for VPN I would watch closely for a firmware upgrade in the near future.

Like this one?

http://www.amazon.com/Big-Short-Inside-Doomsday-Machine/dp/0393072231

Personally, my media viewing is handled through XBMC with a cheap keyboard/trackpad thing. I never change any of the settings on my receiver. I just run everything through the computer. That means that I've forgone live TV entirely, but everything I want is already either available in my apartment or being obtained via some extralegal method. XMBC gives me consistency and is extensible for my needs, but of course it's fundamentally menu and pointer based and only works for the duration of time that I can stay in XBMC (unless I want to deal with less-than-ideal desktop interfaces on the host machines, I suppose). Which doesn't help at all if I want to listen to an SACD or something.

So anyway, my initial thought was that something Kinect might be a good step in the right direction. Presumably we could come up with a decent set of device control gestures that could be made to work with a wide variety of devices. They could be communicated on screen. Voice recognition? I agree that it's probably silly.

The better thing would be some kind of overlay that sits on top of everything else and can order devices about as need be. DLNA is supposed to do some of that (press mute on the DVD remote and in theory it mutes whatever is making sounds, whether it's the TV or a receiver or a soundbar, assuming that device speaks DLNA as well), but it's inconsistent and doesn't fix other interface irregularities.

[Sony] has developed a new power outlet that can identify who is connecting to it, and therefore allows for an individual to be charged for use.

Obviously nobody at Sony has ever heard of a fucking switch.

Here you go, internet cafe owners considering this new technology; I just saved you thousands in retrofitting costs.

You're welcome.

You can bring empty bottles and fill them up once past security. It's not well known, of course, and TSA has done nothing to suggest that as an idea. My girlfriend got through security on New Years with no issue. If you're worried about bacteria, there are several filter bottles and straws available for fairly cheap. Just bring an ordinary plastic bottle, with the straw.

It would pay for itself after two or three trips, and the filter will last quite a while.

That being said, aside from the whole thing being a joke, it's a shame TSA doesn't offer you suggestions to make your flight more enjoyable. Instead, they shy away from any form of convenience and stick to their controlling factors.

You can bring empty bottles and fill them up once past security. It's not well known, of course, and TSA has done nothing to suggest that as an idea. My girlfriend got through security on New Years with no issue. If you're worried about bacteria, there are several filter bottles and straws available for fairly cheap. Just bring an ordinary plastic bottle, with the straw.

It would pay for itself after two or three trips, and the filter will last quite a while.

That being said, aside from the whole thing being a joke, it's a shame TSA doesn't offer you suggestions to make your flight more enjoyable. Instead, they shy away from any form of convenience and stick to their controlling factors.

I've always preferred a classical soundtrack for my rage. De gustibus. Hope this encourages the modern kids to acquire the taste.

we can't find $226 million from all national the taxpayers to fund cutting edge science?

As a long suffering taxpayer and patriot, the answer is clearly no. If you want to fund a mission to mars, go ahead and write a check, but stop stealing from the mouths of me and my children to fund an incompetent government that just claims the innovations made by PRIVATE individuals as its own. In the future, you should do some basic reading before asking such questions.

Independent unions are currently suppressed in China

Constructing an iPad will require some learning curve no matter how much the process is broken down. Walk-outs will be costly and disruptive, especially in the gadget industry where products have a short shelf live.

The situation in China is similar to where the Western world was 100 years ago. Labor struggles will be fierce. The unions won't always win but the record in the Western world shows that overall concessions can be achieved. That is if independent organization is not violently suppressed. Not that it wasn't violent in the US as well. If you want to read up on this fascinating bit of under reported US history I can recommend you a book.

The battery life is impressive, but otherwise, android tablets really aren't significantly more expensive than this thing, and can certainly play any video format under the sun once you load the right player app.

How about this one:
  http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B005HUH88K/ref=mp_s_a_1?qid=1329192256&sr=8-1

Why not use one of the cheap ass video players that sell for 80 bucks and can hold video and PDF documents and pretty much nothing else?

My kids have these Coby knockoffs that they love and have no trouble using. They play video (in way more formats than most tablets) and PDF and picturse, and that's about it, no pesky browser or wireless networking to bother with. Best of all it isn't a 500 dollar item people will want to walk off with, and even if they do walk off with it, you are out 80 bucks instead of 500.

Of course if what you are trying to do is show that you can throw thousands of dollars into the waiting room, that won't really accomplish what you are trying to do.

From what I understand, Kindle Fires don't have the Android Market, but they can still install APKs from unknown source if you enable the option. So the computing freedom is there.
This Amazon CSR seems to confirm this.
http://www.amazon.com/forum/kindle?_encoding=UTF8&cdForum=Fx1D7SY3BVSESG&cdThread=Tx2H0GQ936Z3LO5

This is done in every totalitarian country. For example, when David Smick was in Singapore, he called home and made a comment about being dissatisfied with the hotel room provided to him. When he was picked up the next day, the person "escorting" him apologized for his hotel room not being good.

Here in the States, we're monitored under the auspices of the "War on Drugs" or Terrorism or Child Porn or what have you. When folks say we live in a free country, I have to ask, "Is being monitored being Free?" The fact that I have to show id to buy suphedrine because a couple of addicts burnt their houses down is freedom? (As an aside, I live in white trash America and there has been maybe one meth lab in my area that has been raided in the last decade. One. But yet people and the police act like there's one on every block.)

In this day and age, the tin foil hat brigade are usually right

no, it doesn't happen anymore. The original style guide was good...

Which one was the original one? Was it the one for Vista and Windows 7? Or Windows XP? Or this tome for Windows 98, 2000 and XP (which was also available in book format)? And I have this one for Windows 95 on my bookshelf.

I am sure that Windows 3.x had them too. For all the faults of Microsoft, you can't say that they don't like publishing books on how to program their operating systems.

Fast forward to the XAML/WPF/C# era and all that went out the window in favour of "rich" UIs where you have a stupid coloured orb that everyone thinks is decoration until you realise it's the main system menu, and every application has a different set of awful skins.

I agree with you on rise of flashy, non-standard user interfaces, but if you want to adhere to an official style guide now you can still use the ones written for each Windows platform (see my first link).

no, it doesn't happen anymore. The original style guide was good...

Which one was the original one? Was it the one for Vista and Windows 7? Or Windows XP? Or this tome for Windows 98, 2000 and XP (which was also available in book format)? And I have this one for Windows 95 on my bookshelf.

I am sure that Windows 3.x had them too. For all the faults of Microsoft, you can't say that they don't like publishing books on how to program their operating systems.

Fast forward to the XAML/WPF/C# era and all that went out the window in favour of "rich" UIs where you have a stupid coloured orb that everyone thinks is decoration until you realise it's the main system menu, and every application has a different set of awful skins.

I agree with you on rise of flashy, non-standard user interfaces, but if you want to adhere to an official style guide now you can still use the ones written for each Windows platform (see my first link).

So no, expensive plasma TVs are not common outside bars and the homes of the more affluent.

He said big, not plasma. Plasma is not the only way to go big. A projector and a bare wall and some paint will get you a bigger TV than any plasma made, and at a relatively low cost as well. A projector capable of delivering a 300" 1080p display is about $860 right now.

But the majority of TVs in the US are 4:3 CRTs

Um.... no. You're a little out of touch, there. Do you realize a 17" LCD with HDMI, etc., is about $100? And that all the old CRT TV's can no longer receive on-air broadcasts without an external converter system? I haven't even seen a CRT TV in some years now -- outside of the local landfill.

Yes, most people have TVs and even cable TV

Also changing. Cable doesn't hold a candle to streaming -- both in convenience and WRT content -- and again, everyone I know streams. Computers, Roku, AppleTV, Bluray players with built in apps, iPads, Fires, phones, etc... Satellite systems and cable connections are being let go when the contracts expire. Most dishes around here (Rural Montana, so you'd think we'd use em if we needed em) are disconnected, wires hanging at the dish. The cable company gave up last year, so it's no longer even an option.

If you want to see a 3rd world country, come to the US, and visit the 80% of it that still doesn't have cell phone coverage

Oh, come now. Again, I live in an extremely rural area. We're 300 miles from the nearest city worthy of the name. There's cell coverage all along the highways, in every town, and over a surprising amount of adjacent area, including the entire lake (Fort Peck lake, the thing is blinkin' huge.) Most of the US that doesn't have cell coverage... doesn't really *need* cell coverage. There's a distinct difference between "3rd world lack of needed infrastructure" and "no one goes out there into the boonies because there's nothing of interest." And even out there, we have ham radio repeaters, sheriff's department coverage, ranchers have radios and wired telephones... nah, sorry, that whole third world thing... that only applies to our government's current abandonment of the constitution in favor of fiat rule. Our infrastructure is outstanding, if a little frayed around the edges here and there.

or the east side towns where people live from hand to mouth

So... your thesis is, if the country allows poor people to exist, it's a 3rd-world country? I dunno about that. What about a country -- like this one -- that allows one to get out of that situation by virtue of paying attention in school, learning well, applying a quality work ethic, and not adopting fringe cultural variations such as your pants hanging below your butt, tattoos all over your face and neck, and a mangled form of English only understood by fans of rap videos? Personally, I think we're pretty advanced in that we allow such cultural choices to be made. If you want to be a fringe element, you can do that. If you want to get out, as it were, your odds are excellent if you simply observe the successful strategies that lead to your goal and emulate them.

Personally, I think the worst cultural negative we apply is school sports; young people often follow, usually at the behest of their schools, a sports-centric approach in the hopes that this will bring them the cultural status, position and wealth they would like to have, not realizing that the odds are hugely stacked against them and that following an academic path instead would serve them far better. This is something I see locally -- trying to hire young people with adequate reading and writing and even basic math skills is quite a task; on the other hand, if throwing a ball a

Putting the whole console on FPGA seems like the best option to be honest. If you're emulating the video chip which is probably really poorly documented why not emulate the CPU. Z80s and 6502 are really well understood by reverse engineers these days. There was a CCC talk about transistor level simulation of the 6502 which is absolutely perfect. The idea was that if you find some weird code that works on a real 6502 but fails on your emulator you can work out what you're missing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5miMbqYB4E

Plus there are 6502 and Z80 FPGA cores which are probably 99% correct already available for free. Actually someone sold an Atari in a joystick for a while which contained a complete Atari 2600 - presumably they went from an FPGA for prototyping to an ASIC for production.

There was a C64 in a joystick too

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C64_Direct-to-TV

http://www.amazon.com/Fujitsu-ScanSnap-Instant-Sheet-Fed-PA03603-B005/dp/B003990GMQ seems like a good model according to reviews and is $256.

I absolutely agree that there are a lot of translations (English in particular has a wealth of them). In general though there are good reasons. A translation project is no small undertaking, and not generally done without reason. From my research over the last few years (I'm writing bible software, and reviewing translations for a church to use in their pews), the major reasons for separate translations are as follows:

* Philosophy of Communication: translations exist on a sliding scale between "formal equivalence" (word-for-word) and "dynamic equivalence" (thought-for-thought). This is the reason that the ESV and KJV (more formal-equivalence) use the technical theological word "propitiation" in Romans 3:25, whereas the NIV (more dynamic-equivalence) uses the phrase "sacrifice of atonement". Both have their place, and are preferred in different contexts.

* Evolution of Language Usage: as great as the KJV was for its time (1611), it may confuse many people if modern English translations rendered James 2:3 as "And ye have respect to him that weareth the gay clothing". The ESV instead says "and if you pay attention to the one who wears the fine clothing".

* Disagreement over Manuscript Significance: Some people regard what has been called the "majority text" as the true critical text of the original new testament. Therefore, they prefer English translations based on this text (generally the KJV, but also including the WEB and EMT) rather than translations based on other critical greek texts (e.g. Wescott-Hort, Nestle-Aland). The reasons for this dispute are fairly involved. A good book, summarising academia on the topic for the lay person, is D.A. Carson's The King James Version Debate .

* Ideological Preference: Some people do seem to stand by the KJV through thick and thin, as though it were a matter of faithfulness to God, without much in the way of actual rational arguments why it is a better translation. This may also include a sentimental desire to remain connected to the history of christendom.

These are generally not bad reasons to create a new translation. Now, some of the arguments do become petty (particularly under the Ideological Preference heading). But generally, translators have good reasons for thinking that more people will understand the content of the Bible much better, because another translation is made available that attempts to communicate the same ideas to a slightly different demographic.

Yup, the Fujitsu ScanSnap 1500M is amazing. Never jams, great OCR software, VERY fast.

Check out the great reviews on Amazon

You can just toss in receipts and odd sized documents, handles them all fine.

Go down a list of features.

If you're very lucky, the software will already have a list of requirements. And if you're almost as lucky, your first job will be to create it.

If you're not even that lucky, then you're pretty much screwed.

Even the Internet is starting same day delivery .

For what it's worth, I have never been disappointed by anything -- electronic, clothes, home goods, whatever -- that I bought from Amazon that has more than 10 reviews and 4+ stars. And when you look at TVs on Amazon, you don't have to rely on 10 reviews -- most TVs have hundreds of reviews to rely on.

For what it's worth, I have never been disappointed by anything -- electronic, clothes, home goods, whatever -- that I bought from Amazon that has more than 10 reviews and 4+ stars. And when you look at TVs on Amazon, you don't have to rely on 10 reviews -- most TVs have hundreds of reviews to rely on.

Another thing that almost no SF saw coming: the mobile phone.

People always bring up the Star Trek "communicator", but those things were (in the original series) only carried by officers, making them a highly restricted and presumably expensive piece of gear. Not the same thing at all.

I know at least one good SF novel written as late as the 1990s, set in the 2050s, that has people trying to reach each other by phone and never being at their desk as a recurring plot driver. It's astonishingly un-prescient, I suspect because the writer isn't really interested in technology - that's simply not what her story is about.

And so it is with much of the best SF, from Frankenstein onwards. Mary Shelley didn't pretend to know the relationship between electricity and biology, and I doubt she would have listened if you'd tried to explain it to her. It's simply beside the point of her story.

Those people.

People who would buy this cable for example. :)

Marshmallow Fluff? If you're going to give yourself up to Google like this you need to think big. For $25 you could buy 2500 (24x36) The Godfather Movie (Dollar Bill) Poster Prints from Poster Revolution via Amazon. Not only do you exchange your measly $25 for $2,500, you also wind up with enough posters to cover 16722 square meters. That's over four acres. You'll never have to buy wallpaper again!

And better yet, those (24x36) The Godfather Movie (Dollar Bill) Poster Prints look sort of like real money, so maybe Amazon will accept them as legal tender, and you can exchange your $2500 for 250000 (24x36) The Godfather Movie (Dollar Bill) Poster Prints, then exchange those for 25000000 (24x36) The Godfather Movie (Dollar Bill) Poster Prints, exchange those for 2500000000 (24x36) The Godfather Movie (Dollar Bill) Poster Prints, exchange those for 250000000000 (24x36) The Godfather Movie (Dollar Bill) Poster Prints, exchange those for 25000000000000 (24x36) The Godfather Movie (Dollar Bill) Poster Prints, and suddenly you've got enough (24x36) The Godfather Movie (Dollar Bill) Poster Prints to cover the Earth with a layer of (24x36) The Godfather Movie (Dollar Bill) Poster Prints almost four (24x36) The Godfather Movie (Dollar Bill) Poster Prints deep. Thanks to Google and Amazon/Poster Revolution, all of your mad genius-destroy-the-Earth desires can be realized!

Sadly, though, the $25 is not enought to buy even a gallon of the rich, creamy, life giving ambrosia known as Tuscan Whole Milk, 1 Gallon, 128 fl oz.

That would be a different story altogether.

What exactly does Marshmallow Fluff has to do with this? Is this some granular currency measurement that relates to libraries of congress? This is also based off of arbitrary pricing off Amazon. There is a LOT of stuff worth less than a Used Ethernet Cable by that measure. What's the sample size anyway? If 2 people do this, is that considered "enough"? I can get two people to sacrifice their privacy for free by sticking a pop up window in front of them saying "naked chicks if you click here". This is non news really, and you can get people to sacrifice their privacy for far less than $20, especially if you give it to them in gas rebates.

If you click the links, you'll quickly find out that it's a 1 pound tub of marshmallow cream.
http://www.amazon.com/Fluff-Marshmallow-Unit-Pack/dp/B001686590/ref=sr_1_1?s=grocery&ie=UTF8&qid=1328792229&sr=1-1
I'd hardly call that a lifetime supply.

Basic economic theory - just like any other price curve, the higher the cost, the lower the consumption. Unless you'd like to posit some other way for people to invest in companies, other than stock, increasing the cost of stock via taxation will discourage its purchase.

http://www.amazon.com/Economics-Dummies-Business-Personal-Finance/dp/0470879483

Intel was the top contributor to Linux 3.0 (by lines) (source)

IBM is in there, too at #8

Google pushed the Linux kernel and WebKit into an uncountable number of handhelds

Apple deploys Webkit, too, on a smaller number of handhelds

Amazon deploys Android, too (just without Market support), and they use Linux in their cloud offerings.

If you hate Microsoft, give in to your anger and join Oracle (there are a lot of angry JCP and OpenSolaris fans but hey, they made that Linux list, too!)

Remember those handhelds that run the Linux kernel and/or WebKit?

• Broadcom
• Atheros (are they are part of Qualcomm now? You can check out Qualcomm, part of "Qualdroid")
• Marvell

all made the top Linux contributor list, too.

I'll assume that other posters will cover the Red Hat and Novell bases.

I agree with just how important science fiction is in the long run. It's a shame that it's scoffed at as just being about bug eyed monsters and little green men..It's also such a shame so much science fiction spewed out by Hollywood is just the same tired old plots over and over again. Science fiction says so much and can be as compelling and moving as other forms of fiction.

You think it's only Hollywood that has made dreck out of the potentials of science fiction? Even science-fiction authors who begin their careers writing imaginative works, sometimes even seeking a prose style that can compete with the canon of great literature, eventually give up and decide to start churn out one lame sequel after another. Just look at what has happened to Orson Scott Card and Larry Niven over the last 15 years, and Arthur C. Clarke before he died. They decided to publish hastily written airport paperbacks with little attention to detail, just another space opera plot in a universe they created decades ago. And they might even relegate the task of actually writing to a co-author and just put their name on the cover to score sales.

One often meets the claim that science-fiction is a genre full of myriad possibilities, but if even once-legendary science-fiction authors are abandoning that, it doesn't make the field look any better.

I agree with just how important science fiction is in the long run. It's a shame that it's scoffed at as just being about bug eyed monsters and little green men..It's also such a shame so much science fiction spewed out by Hollywood is just the same tired old plots over and over again. Science fiction says so much and can be as compelling and moving as other forms of fiction.

You think it's only Hollywood that has made dreck out of the potentials of science fiction? Even science-fiction authors who begin their careers writing imaginative works, sometimes even seeking a prose style that can compete with the canon of great literature, eventually give up and decide to start churn out one lame sequel after another. Just look at what has happened to Orson Scott Card and Larry Niven over the last 15 years, and Arthur C. Clarke before he died. They decided to publish hastily written airport paperbacks with little attention to detail, just another space opera plot in a universe they created decades ago. And they might even relegate the task of actually writing to a co-author and just put their name on the cover to score sales.

One often meets the claim that science-fiction is a genre full of myriad possibilities, but if even once-legendary science-fiction authors are abandoning that, it doesn't make the field look any better.

Daniel Bell (a sociologist) coined the term 'post-industrial'. And in this book on that subject:

http://www.amazon.com/Coming-Post-Industrial-Society-Venture-Forecasting/dp/0465097138/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_2

he made the assertion that post-industrial society would need a worldwide network to connect individuals and organizations.

The book was first published in 1976.

coincidentally 'reading the sitaution/atmosphere' seems to be a common metaphor that is used/practiced in the japanese culture.

Part of this is historical -- Japanese culture has had more time free of invaders and foreign influences, and more time to hunker down and let stereotypes blossom into full-blown cultural shorthand. Stereotypes are often derided in the US as something to be avoided, partly because the steady flow of immigrants from all over the world pretty much guarantees that a stereotype that applies to one group will be wildly off the mark with another. But when the whole village / city / country has grown up there, sometimes for generations out of mind, there's a lot of shared context, and a lot that you can get across without having to spell it out. That's one of the big reasons that gaijin are such a spanner in the works -- we don't fit the existing cultural constructs. It also means there's more to learn and less forgiveness with regard to cultural literacy -- "well, you're just supposed to know that's how it works!" was a common refrain when my wife and I (both born and raised in the US) ran into things at our workplace that didn't make sense to us.

If you're interested in Japanese mores and how parts of the culture still function, I very highly recommend Ruth Benedict's book, The Chrysanthemum and the Sword . It was published just after WWII, but much of what it describes is still applicable to modern Japanese culture. One dynamic that's particularly odd for Westerners is the concept of indebtedness: basically reverse karma, where doing something good for someone when they're down is seen as taking advantage of them, because now they owe you. The only people outside of this indebtedness social construct are people acting in an official uniformed capacity. No matter how much Red Cross first-aid training you have, it's considered completely inappropriate for you to help at an accident scene -- unless you are in uniform. Anyway, give Benedict's book a read.

Cheers,

I'm not willing to pay $3 to watch a 27 year old movie. I'm ESPECIALLY not going to do so on top of an $80/year subscription to have the 'privilege' of paying those kinds of ridiculous fees.

Nope, Netflix at $8 or $9 a month is about right for just about everything I want to watch. When I can't find what I want to watch there, Hulu Plus for another $8 a month fills in the holes. (Although I'm finding that my faimly just doesn't care as much about Hulu Plus as I thought they might be.)

Then there's all the free or cheap movie resources of all kinds to fill up your evenings, specialty channels, streaming music, news, private channels created by the community, and more galore!

Forget using your MythTV box for anything other than a basic media center for serving up your ripped DVDs and CDs. Drop your cable TV subscription and get yourself a Roku instead. :-)

A good book to read on the background to the Challenger Launch Decision. The deaths were avoidable if the management culture at the time would have listened.

1. Read everything Douglas Crockford has on his JavaScript website. Use his jslint program. Down the road, read the code of his jslint program, I suppose. Buy and read his book. It's also available for the Kindle. Read the whole book twice. Basically, the lesson is don't make JS try to be Java, it only causes headaches.

2. Get a good JavaScript book for the language itself, this listing of JavaScript book reviews recommends the Wrox book, but I haven't read it, I use the 6th edition of the Flanagan book. See the link.

3. It's a language that, along with HTML and CSS, needs you to have a great memory or a good IDE that will prompt you for the allowable names. You can get a version of Eclipse pre-built for JavaScript, and you can get the Active State Komodo Edit program, both free. They say the Komodo IDE is even better, but it's expensive and probably not as complete as the (free) Eclipse.

4. You can get a version that runs on your desktop like a shell or perl/ruby/python will, but it isn't necessary. I know you can easily get a version of Mozilla SpiderMonkey that will do that.

5. Don't use the double-equals comparison operator, it's too confusing. Use the triple-equals operator ( "===" ), it's a pain to type but it's more straightforward.

6. Be wary form whence you copy. There's a lot of terrible code out there.

7. Use jQuery after your first two or three practice web pages, and after you've got CSS under control. This means also get a good CSS book. I guess start with the 'Lie and Boss' book, even though it's old.

I got my book into the KDP thingy ... the biggest thing is that you can make your book available for free for 5 days, hence I now got my book available for free on amazon until tonight.

The worst part of using amazon is that your book is effectively "lost" in the hundreds of thousands of crap that is there. Even doing a verbatim search for the title of my book doesn't result in a showing on the first page, you have to go to it directly like this. I was hoping to get a few reviews, but no go - for every 5000 downloads you can expect one review.

The latest ECMAScript standard includes the 'use strict' pragma, which is one step towards what you're looking for.

Also, I was playing with Visual Studio 11 Express preview and it includes some decent code completion for JavaScript, which maybe fulfills some of your IDE stuff; though admittedly I haven't put it through its paces to see how well it does JavaScript code completion. Eclipse for JavaScript developers might do the same, I honestly haven't used it in a while for JavaScript writing. (I still prefer Vi for coding, versus an IDE, fyi).

Use the tools in Chrome or Firebug for Firefox to help with debugging.

You won't find the same advantages of compile-time error checking that you currently have but it also forces you to become more disciplined about thinking through your code and test cases when writing JavaScript. Obviously, the tradeoff is that if you don't test for it you won't find the error until someone finds it in the live environment.

Others have pointed out jQuery and I'll echo that. However, if you're like me you'll want to learn some of the underlying bits or the "why" something works and then augmenting with jQuery and other libraries. You'll want jQuery for most of the frontend work that you do.

And finally, I can't talk JavaScript without shamelessly plugging my book, JavaScript Step by Step.

Steve

Take a look at Sencha / ExtJS... It's aimed squarely at enterprise-level developers/engineers, not the script-kiddies that rant and rave about the cool shit they can do because they've overwritten a 'built-in' type. It should work with Google Closure, as well...

IDEs are in terrible shape. There's WebStorm and Aptana... neither of which hold a candle to what you're used to, but it's better than notepad/textmate. I'm an linux/eclipse guy, but can't get used to the ways that Aptana breaks shit, so I tend to jump back and forth between WebStorm and SublimeText (it looks nice, but it's not 'all there').

There are some good books out there, JS: The Good Parts, Eloquent Javascript (free)... and I'm starting on Test-Driven Javascript Development, though I can't say if it's any good yet...

I'd recommend doing a little bit on the side, get your feet wet, but don't commit yet. Thinks have changed a lot in the last year or two, and nearly everyone and their dog is becoming an HTML5/JS Dev. You're behind the curve already, and will have a hard time getting ahead, so I'd wait until the editors and browser compatibility is better before diving in.... don't ignore it, and if you can find someone who will pay you to torture yourself, do it... but don't be too anxious.

Take a look at Sencha / ExtJS... It's aimed squarely at enterprise-level developers/engineers, not the script-kiddies that rant and rave about the cool shit they can do because they've overwritten a 'built-in' type. It should work with Google Closure, as well...

IDEs are in terrible shape. There's WebStorm and Aptana... neither of which hold a candle to what you're used to, but it's better than notepad/textmate. I'm an linux/eclipse guy, but can't get used to the ways that Aptana breaks shit, so I tend to jump back and forth between WebStorm and SublimeText (it looks nice, but it's not 'all there').

There are some good books out there, JS: The Good Parts, Eloquent Javascript (free)... and I'm starting on Test-Driven Javascript Development, though I can't say if it's any good yet...

I'd recommend doing a little bit on the side, get your feet wet, but don't commit yet. Thinks have changed a lot in the last year or two, and nearly everyone and their dog is becoming an HTML5/JS Dev. You're behind the curve already, and will have a hard time getting ahead, so I'd wait until the editors and browser compatibility is better before diving in.... don't ignore it, and if you can find someone who will pay you to torture yourself, do it... but don't be too anxious.