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If you use Google Voice you can set it to ask each caller to say their name before it will ring your phone. That's enough to stop practically all automated calling systems.

It's $20 to port your number to Google Voice, but then everything else besides outgoing international calls is paid for by Google spying on you.

https://support.google.com/voice/answer/1065667?hl=en

I had success by porting my landline to Google Voice Account, which has global spam filtering.

First, get an AT&T GoPhone ($20). Then port to Google Voice ($20), choosing AT&T as the option.
You are asked for a transfer id that you will need to call AT&T for... It is NOT on the phone, and not available without calling AT&T's support #.

I don't know your story, but this also makes you more flexible to either drop your current landline, or move to a cheaper provider (likely).

Either way, Google Voice does wonders at spam filtering, but some still make it through. Best of luck!

Full-on psychopaths do not normally make good leaders and I know of no evidence that it's an advantage to have psychopaths in the population.

That's a bold statement. Is it an opinion? (ie - can you back it up with references?)

Lots of references for my point of view here.

Postgres has JSON support as of 9.2. Some people say it's faster than MongoDB. There's also plv8 if you want to use javascript for your stored procedures. (since javascript doesn't have integers (only floating point), I'd be a little concerned about that).

I was under the impression that Nintendo had the same "game console manufacturer bullshit" as Sony. Bob's Game anyone? And you answered your own question: the big reason for an indie to go through the establishment is the "actual gaming controls" that no phone marketed in North America ships with (except perhaps the obscure Xperia Play). I tried playing the demo of Pixeline and the Jungle Treasure on my Nexus 7 tablet, and it was a pain in the thumbs to control.

Now, Oona is cute, a hacker and is into Kung Fu.

Got me to read the fine article. Oh, and pics :)
https://plus.google.com/photos/116317362025285673698/albums/profile

Then you shouldn't have any problem naming two such incidents. So prove it.

This is retarded to even think but, okay. In the real world, a friend today can become the enemy tomorrow. Not to mention, we actually get most of our best intelligence from our allies, whether they wish to give it to us or not.

Yeah. That's why we have that string of military bases along the US/Canada border.

We have 70+ military bases and installations along the Us/Canada border from Washington in the west to Maine in the east. Here

So cutting US exports is a good thing in your opinion? I would say that it was a problem. And why would the software from other nations be compatible with our software? And if it isn't then there is the problem with "lock in" and not much benefit from "competition".

Why would it need to be compatible?

Apple has been around for years and has a lot of money. And yet there are still times when dealing with a government agency or a private company that a Microsoft product is required. So why do you think that this situation will be improved by introducing MORE platforms that are intentionally incompatible?

First of all, when the government began introducing computers into the common work environments, Apple was not a real competitor. MS work a hell of a deal with the government for licensing that Apple wasn't willing to do. Then along came Dell. Dell was able to put a PC and/or laptop into the hands of government workers for less than 1/3 the cost of an apple computer. Not to mention, at the time, Apple's OS sucked for ease of use. Today, Macbooks are becoming more prolific in government work, each of the 4 agencies I have worked with in the last 2 years were switching all of their laptops to macbooks and running windows virtually. It takes a huge amount of time, in many instances, years to migrate hardware and software. Hell for the FDA to approve the installation of a single piece of software took 6 months to get approved on my laptop and that was just Eclipse.

> There's no direct linear correlation between compensation and performance. Anything but, considering that some people rake in more for failure than most of us will receive in a lifetime of success.

Well compare nokia vs blackberry. Both ended up on the shit end of the smartphone market, but nokia hired a microsoft exec to prepare it for a sale and we see a large payoff to the CEO and the majority shareholders compared to blackberry compared to blackberry The difference Elops connection to microsoft is a difference in Many Billions of dollars to the majority shareholders, so his 50m dollar bonus is a tiny drop.

But as a small retail investor I feel screwed. I wasn't sold a back room deal that I could use to hedge against shorting blackberry. I was sold nokia's great technology and a smartphone comeback that would put it back in a competitive position with apple and google What do i care if i lost 2k or 4k, I want my CEO to fight to the death to keep the business going instead of making back room deals and stripping the company. I can't imagine what the employees feel.

If you really want to make CEOs sweat, how about making it easy for employees to leave and start competing companies? Like healthcare and cheap small business loans to industry professionals. It would force companies to value their experienced employees, pay them more, treat them better and much less likely to offshore.

The archive link:

Doctor Who 50th Anniversary Google Doodle.

It should be on Google's home page, starting Saturday.

Perhaps it's not Saturday yet where you are? Or maybe it's locked by country-code or something?

Here in Australia we got it on Friday. And we got the special on local TV at the same time as the UK.

It should be on Google's home page, starting Saturday.

Perhaps it's not Saturday yet where you are? Or maybe it's locked by country-code or something?

Yeah, the automotive industry doesn't use design patents... LOOK HERE IS A PATENT FOR A ROUNDED WHEEL:

http://www.google.com/patents?hl=en&lr=&vid=USPATD474440&id=FkkPAAAAEBAJ&oi=fnd&dq=automotive+design+patents&printsec=abstract#v=onepage&q&f=false

Maybe this wheel:
http://www.google.com/patents?hl=en&lr=&vid=USPATD543493&id=oiCAAAAAEBAJ&oi=fnd&dq=automotive+design+patents&printsec=abstract#v=onepage&q&f=false

Here is Volkswagen's patents for rounded vehicles!
http://www.google.com/patents?hl=en&lr=&vid=USPATD559735&id=rESnAAAAEBAJ&oi=fnd&dq=volkswagen+design+patent&printsec=abstract#v=onepage&q=volkswagen%20design%20patent&f=false

Should I keep going or you prepared to point out how you just made up everything you said without taking 10 seconds to even look.

Ok here is one more for fun:
http://www.google.com/patents?hl=en&lr=&vid=USPATD421906&id=H1gEAAAAEBAJ&oi=fnd&dq=ralph+lauren+patent&printsec=abstract#v=onepage&q=ralph%20lauren%20patent&f=false

That's right, Ralph Lauren did patent a square bottle cap.

Yeah, the automotive industry doesn't use design patents... LOOK HERE IS A PATENT FOR A ROUNDED WHEEL:

http://www.google.com/patents?hl=en&lr=&vid=USPATD474440&id=FkkPAAAAEBAJ&oi=fnd&dq=automotive+design+patents&printsec=abstract#v=onepage&q&f=false

Maybe this wheel:
http://www.google.com/patents?hl=en&lr=&vid=USPATD543493&id=oiCAAAAAEBAJ&oi=fnd&dq=automotive+design+patents&printsec=abstract#v=onepage&q&f=false

Here is Volkswagen's patents for rounded vehicles!
http://www.google.com/patents?hl=en&lr=&vid=USPATD559735&id=rESnAAAAEBAJ&oi=fnd&dq=volkswagen+design+patent&printsec=abstract#v=onepage&q=volkswagen%20design%20patent&f=false

Should I keep going or you prepared to point out how you just made up everything you said without taking 10 seconds to even look.

Ok here is one more for fun:
http://www.google.com/patents?hl=en&lr=&vid=USPATD421906&id=H1gEAAAAEBAJ&oi=fnd&dq=ralph+lauren+patent&printsec=abstract#v=onepage&q=ralph%20lauren%20patent&f=false

That's right, Ralph Lauren did patent a square bottle cap.

Yeah, the automotive industry doesn't use design patents... LOOK HERE IS A PATENT FOR A ROUNDED WHEEL:

http://www.google.com/patents?hl=en&lr=&vid=USPATD474440&id=FkkPAAAAEBAJ&oi=fnd&dq=automotive+design+patents&printsec=abstract#v=onepage&q&f=false

Maybe this wheel:
http://www.google.com/patents?hl=en&lr=&vid=USPATD543493&id=oiCAAAAAEBAJ&oi=fnd&dq=automotive+design+patents&printsec=abstract#v=onepage&q&f=false

Here is Volkswagen's patents for rounded vehicles!
http://www.google.com/patents?hl=en&lr=&vid=USPATD559735&id=rESnAAAAEBAJ&oi=fnd&dq=volkswagen+design+patent&printsec=abstract#v=onepage&q=volkswagen%20design%20patent&f=false

Should I keep going or you prepared to point out how you just made up everything you said without taking 10 seconds to even look.

Ok here is one more for fun:
http://www.google.com/patents?hl=en&lr=&vid=USPATD421906&id=H1gEAAAAEBAJ&oi=fnd&dq=ralph+lauren+patent&printsec=abstract#v=onepage&q=ralph%20lauren%20patent&f=false

That's right, Ralph Lauren did patent a square bottle cap.

Yeah, the automotive industry doesn't use design patents... LOOK HERE IS A PATENT FOR A ROUNDED WHEEL:

http://www.google.com/patents?hl=en&lr=&vid=USPATD474440&id=FkkPAAAAEBAJ&oi=fnd&dq=automotive+design+patents&printsec=abstract#v=onepage&q&f=false

Maybe this wheel:
http://www.google.com/patents?hl=en&lr=&vid=USPATD543493&id=oiCAAAAAEBAJ&oi=fnd&dq=automotive+design+patents&printsec=abstract#v=onepage&q&f=false

Here is Volkswagen's patents for rounded vehicles!
http://www.google.com/patents?hl=en&lr=&vid=USPATD559735&id=rESnAAAAEBAJ&oi=fnd&dq=volkswagen+design+patent&printsec=abstract#v=onepage&q=volkswagen%20design%20patent&f=false

Should I keep going or you prepared to point out how you just made up everything you said without taking 10 seconds to even look.

Ok here is one more for fun:
http://www.google.com/patents?hl=en&lr=&vid=USPATD421906&id=H1gEAAAAEBAJ&oi=fnd&dq=ralph+lauren+patent&printsec=abstract#v=onepage&q=ralph%20lauren%20patent&f=false

That's right, Ralph Lauren did patent a square bottle cap.

most of them already have cars. BART serves the Bay Area. 50 miles south and east of SF.

the week long strike earlier this year caused havoc on the roads- people were on the road at 0400, and still late for work. extra busses, extra boats, not enough.

https://www.google.com/search?q=bart+strike+traffic&espv=210&es_sm=119&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=EhyQUtq2FYb9iQKq2oG4CQ&ved=0CDYQsAQ&biw=1354&bih=647

https://maps.google.com/maps?q=http://toolserver.org/~para/cgi-bin/kmlexport%3Farticle%3DList_of_active_volcanoes_in_the_Philippines%26usecache%3D1

18 active volcanos in the Philippines...

The "a lot of stuff in the way" is a one part-per-trillion effect, so it's not all that easy to tell if there "is" a lot of stuff other than by dispersion! You'll not see it in purely transmissive/absorptive spectral properties unless we have spectrometers that good - ones that have to work from optical all the way to gamma rays, by the way.

Leave binarylarry all one!

No-one has patented the 'rectangle' as a design element, nor could they..

Really? https://www.google.com/patents/USD670286?dq=apple+rectangle&hl=en&sa=X&ei=yqqOUvetHuKyiAem5YGYAQ&ved=0CDcQ6AEwAA

Next, you seem to think that Apple got a design patent on rectangles. No, they haven't. They have design patents on designs that involve a complete design, of which _rounded_ rectangular shape is just one component.

What other components are in the design patent in suit?

Minor correction - I think the patent is this case is D504889, which is an older version of the rounded corners patent. It still has about the same amount of detail as the D670286 that you linked to.

The patent you're speaking of was a design patent ... and the claim you're referencing was but one of many included in that particular patent...Suggesting that someone was able to patent merely "a rectangle" is a gross mischaracterization of what actually occurred.

Here is the patent in question. Please show me the "many" claims other than the rectangular shape that demonstrate the OPs "gross mischaracterization".

I've checked a few places and it seems as though you can expect a 70% power efficiency with this type of inductive charger. Some of the higher end models reach as much as 85%.

It strikes me as odd that in a time where we want as much energy efficiency as possible, we'd push towards something much less efficient with the potential to be so widespread.

Sources:
http://www.wirelesspowerconsortium.com/technology/total-energy-consumption.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inductive_charging

A phone battery is so small that it's not really that much power -- throwing away 30% of a 3.7V 2300mAh battery's capacity is 2.5 watt-hours, or just under a killowatt-hour in a year's time if you charge your battery daily - less than 15 cents for most people.

Seems like a small price to pay for the convenience. if it saves just 1 second/day in a year's time, it will have saved around 6 minutes/year, or $1 worth of labor for someone that earns $10/hour.

If you want to make up for it, walk or bike instead of driving - gasoline contains around 35KWh of energy per gallon, so if you bike or walk for 1 mile instead of driving, you'll have saved an entire year's worth of wasted power from a wireless charger.

The thing that blew me away is they had a much more advanced set of issues to deal with than a typical bureaucratic office would.

The Ernie Ball company, the world's leading maker of premium guitar strings that does $40m/year business, transitioned completely away from Microsoft and has almost no proprietary software after being attacked by the BSA. "I don't care if we have to buy 10,000 abacuses, We won't do business with someone who treats us poorly" its CEO Sterling Ball said, and added that the transition was a breeze. He says

It's the funniest thing--we're using it for e-mail client/server,
spreadsheets and word processing. It's like working in Windows. One of the analysts said it costs $1,250 per person to change over to open source. It wasn't anywhere near that for us. I'm reluctant to give actual numbers. I can give any number I want to support my position, and so can the other guy. But I'll tell you, I'm not paying any per-seat license. I'm not buying any new computers. When we need something, we have white box systems we put together ourselves. It doesn't need to be much of a system for most of what we do.

But there's a real argument now about total cost of ownership, once you start adding up service, support, etc.

What support? I'm not making calls to Red Hat; I don't need to. I think that's propaganda...What about the cost of dealing with a virus? We don't have 'em. How about when we do have a problem, you don't have to send some guy to a corner of the building to find out what's going on--he never leaves his desk, because everything's server-based. There's no doubt that what I'm doing is cheaper to operate. The analyst guys can say whatever they want.

The myth has been built so big that you can't survive without Microsoft.

I think it's great for me to be a technology influence. It shows how ridiculous it is that I can get press because I switched to OpenOffice. And the reason why is because the myth has been built so big that you can't survive without Microsoft, so that somebody who does get by without Microsoft is a story.

It's just software. You have to figure out what you need to do within your organization and then get the right stuff for that. And we're not a backwards organization. We're progressive; we've won communications and design awards...The fact that I'm not sending my e-mail through Outlook doesn't hinder us. It's just kind of funny. I'm speaking to a standing-room-only audience at a major technology show because I use a different piece of software--that's hysterical.

Google already sold a wireless charger for their Nexus 4 phones:
https://play.google.com/store/devices/details/Nexus_4_Wireless_Charger?id=nexus_4_wireless_charger&hl=en
I own one, works fine, and I think it also works with the new Nexus 5's as it's using the Qi standard already.

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.tomheroes.com/images/COMICAD%2520xray%2520glasses.JPG&imgrefurl=http://www.tomheroes.com/Comic%2520Ads/classic%2520ads/x-ray_glasses.htm&h=397&w=522&sz=59&tbnid=xvvHXWcDitHtdM:&tbnh=90&tbnw=118&zoom=1&usg=__YWXIodVw8g5xvEWfRewIUY5wBXk=&docid=GPsGA8hcCWDexM&sa=X&ei=uDOOUpWeG6TA2AXtsoDYBg&ved=0CGgQ9QEwAQ

I misread it as "Cue Cat Photos"...

Don't pay your taxes and see what happens.

Again, what are you smoking? I live in a city. I pay taxes. If I don't like the amount I have to pay, I can file a protest. If I don't like it all, I can move. Equal Protection has nothing to do as to whether I pay taxes. Equal protection means that the city cannot treat me differently than any other individual on the basis mentioned previously.

Apple wants the city to take money at gun point from people that live in the city to give to Apply. That is morally wrong.

Again, what are you smoking? There is no "taking". Apple pays taxes like every corporation. If Apple didn't have the incentives, Apple would pay more. That's as idiotic as saying a favored customer is "stealing" from a retailer when the retailer offers that customer a preferred customer discount.

Also, Apple will be paying more than they have in previous years as the new deal with Cupertino raises their tax rate. Please use some logic.

Now you're just making-up crap. The clause:

There this thing called google or wikipedia you can use:

equal protection of the law n. the right of all persons to have the same access to the law and courts, and to be treated equally by the law and courts, both in procedures and in the substance of the law. It is akin to the right to due process of law, but in particular applies to equal treatment as an element of fundamental fairness. The most famous case on the subject is Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954) in which Chief Justice Earl Warren, for a unanimous Supreme Court, ruled that "separate but equal" educational facilities for blacks was inherently unequal and unconstitutional since the segregated school system did not give all students equal rights under the law. It will also apply to other inequalities such as differentials in pay for the same work or unequal taxation. The principle is stated in the 14th Amendment to the Constitution: "No State shall..deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

A primary motivation for this clause was to validate and perpetuate the equality provisions contained in the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which guaranteed that all people would have rights equal to those of white citizens. As a whole, the Fourteenth Amendment marked a large shift in American constitutionalism, by applying substantially more constitutional restrictions against the states than had applied before the Civil War.

Equal protection is primarily used for the protection of the civil rights of citizens from their governments, especially the state governments and to a lesser extent, the federal government. At best, the Equal Protection clause can be invoked if a business feels that they've been discriminated in some way by the city of Cupertino or the state of California. NOWHERE in the equal protection clause does it say anything about Cupertino not being able to offer tax incentives to businesses.

There is nothing about creed, color, age, sex, religious affiliation, etc. like you claim in your boldface lie. It gives equal protection to all people, not just like to everyone except for white males in your lie. The courts have ruled that the clause does protect white males so that proves you wrong.

Have you been living in the America in the last 150 years since the passage of the 14th Amendment? Are you aware that there is this body called the Supreme Court which interprets how laws are to be applied? Over the last 150 years, Equal Protection has been applied against other forms of discrimination because time

I think you mean: Yo puedo tiene una hamburgueza?

And as a side-note, as I was coming up with that using Google Translate, when I entered I can have a cheeseburger? in the from language box, Google suggested "I can haz a cheezburger" instead. Sadly, the suggestion did not translate.

I had the same problem with my Nexus 7 (2012), until I did these four things. 1) Go into the system settings and in the section for Apps and kill any process running that you don't want to run. 2) Uninstall the power hungry apps that are always running that you really don't use much or at all. 3) In the Play store go into your settings and tell it to not auto update 4) Install Deep Sleep Battery Saver Pro to tweak how the device will act with regards to power usage while asleep or with the screen merely off (there is a free version, but the pro gives you more power saving options). By doing these things I have went from having a N7 that had a fast power drain even when asleep, nor charge when asleep, to one that keeps power 10 times longer and charges while sleeping.

Anybody know how to strip the art assets out of a .fla file? It seems Google offers a service called Swiffy to turn the .swf into HTML5 elements.

Or maybe you were being sarcastic.

Simple citation, that I linked to earlier, showing Ford complaining that 1973 proposal was too soon. This was only a requirement for federal government cars, not all cars.

http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2199&dat=19700602&id=tcQxAAAAIBAJ&sjid=EOYFAAAAIBAJ&pg=7132,4036595

Hence, the reason why GM designed and produced a fleet of cars with air bags to sell to the government in 1973 with Airbags.

It's the cost of doing business, and a cheap one at that.

Google's revenue in 2012 was $50.175 Billion.
For them, paying $17M is comparable to a person that earns $80K being fined $27.

Smart Tools components are available individually and only require the permissions necessary to work.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=kr.sira.flash

The suite requires bit more...

That was the hottie from the original A-Team, you realize?

Police are not part of the military (yet)

Oh, they crossed that line a long time ago. When they're buying armoured vehicles, and tanks for the streets of the U.S., I think we can safely drop the pretense. Just par for the course these days, sadly.

But ever since Lincoln the presidents have been more powerful, and allowed much greater latitude in the impositon of central power. This isn't all bad, but it sure isn't all good. And it doesn't appear to be what the Consitution allowed as interpreted at any prior time.

There's a good argument that the 14th amendment fundamentally changed the meaning of the Constitution as originally written, and placed the federal government in a much more central position as the defender of individual rights against the states. This is one of what I would call the two central themes in Akhil Reed Amar's excellent book, "The Bill of Rights: Creation and Reconstruction" (the other is that the original Bill of Rights was primarily communitarian in nature, intended to protect the people collectively in most cases rather than individually, though the 14th changed that as well).

Of course, what we're talking about here isn't the federal government as a defender against overbearing states, but that change in focus, along with the changes in resources and structure provided by the 16th and 17th amendments and the fallout of the decisions caused by FDR's court packing threat, is a big part of how we got where we are. Even if we fix the overly broad interpretations of the commerce and general welfare clauses that are FDR's most enduring legacy, we're still living with a rather different Constitution than the one we had prior to the Civil War.

Personally, I think the best thing we can do to fix our nation is to re-empower the states, enabling them to act as defenders of individual liberty against the federal government. The original design assumed that the states, since they were of the people, would take on that role of protecting the citizens, and the federal government was not given any authority to act in ways that could trample the citizenry, and then the Bill of Rights was passed to make clear that it was not allowed to. Problem solved, the founders thought -- wrongly. When the 14th amendment empowered the federal government to protect citizens from the states, we essentially took that plus the supremacy clause to mean that the federal government was tasked with protecting rights, not in addition to the states, but effectively instead of the states.

I think what we've learned is that freedom is too important to be left to any one government, even one that theoretically has internal checks and balances. I think we need a states' rights amendment that specifically empowers the states to resist federal assaults on their residents. Something that says that states can overrule the federal government if state legislatures interpret the scope of a fundamental right more broadly than the federal government, and that states can sue the federal government in state courts for infringements of their citizens' rights (and that the federal government is obligated to comply with the resulting rulings). The federal government would still retain the right to step in when states are stepping on civil rights. Basically, the idea is to have two rights watchdogs and allow infringements only if both levels of government agree it's a good idea.

Where on its websites and -pages does Ubuntu ever mention the word Linux?

No where, if you exclude lists, wiki and irclogs.

Try this site (thanks Desler) then the second paragraph down. I''ll even save you the bother of looking by quoting the second paragraph:

Linux was already established as an enterprise server platform in 2004, but free software was not a part of everyday life for most computer users. That's why Mark Shuttleworth gathered a small team of developers from one of the most established Linux projects – Debian – and set out to create an easy-to-use Linux desktop: Ubuntu.

Where on its websites and -pages does Ubuntu ever mention the word Linux?

No where, if you exclude lists, wiki and irclogs.

I found this interesting Google+ post from the Muktware article comments.

Uh it was? https://www.google.com/search?q=kennedy+vietnam

If crime rates are going down, then why is my local police getting military grade equipment and gear?

I can't think of a clearer example of circular reasoning. It's no better than If there's no god, then why do I pray? The only difference is that rather than implicitly assuming your own infallibility, you're assuming infallibility of the US police.

Anyway, from what I've read, it seems the militiarisation of the police of the USA is indeed a real trend, and it's a worrying one. It may signify a number of things, but it's certainly not a reliable indication of increasing crime rates.

CO2 absorbs only a very narrow and specific wavelength. THAT is understood.

Look at the peak at 700 reciproke centimeter in figure 2 on this webpage:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/empirical-evidence-for-co2-enhanced-greenhouse-effect-advanced.htm
It is the broadest peak in the spectrum!

Don't believe me, google images CO2 IR absorption spectrum (N.B. often the scale is right to left)
google it yourself ffs
One article I found that shows the very broad peak at around 675 cm-1 is a PDF from a US military document from 1976. Are you saying they're into the tree-hugger conspiracy now?

One interesting thing I learned from the article is that many (?most) current smartphones use both Glonass and the US GPS system for position fixes.

Indeed. Allegedly, my VZW Droid 4 can grok Glonass.

I have no idea if it actually works -- if there's an app for that, I haven't seen it.

This one can differentiate between Navstar (GPS's actual name, it is only a GPS)
and GLONASS: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.eclipsim.gpsstatus2

Round sats in the status display are Navstar, square ones (satellite numbers 80+) are GLONASS.
Note that most GLONASS-capable phones will only switch it on if Navstar reception alone is weak
and/or unreliable, because it involves additional cirquitry and therefore reduces battery life. So if you
have excellent reception, you might not see any "squares" even with GLONASS-capable hardware.

There's an app for that:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.chartcross.gpstest&hl=en

Also found this:
"As far as I know GLONASS is transparent accessible for any application through the android gps-api. So no need for special treadment of GLONASS for the applications.
My xperia active (firmware .42) use GLONASS all the time according to GPS TEST. It always show me satellites between 65 and 88."

My father gave me one, I put RaspBMC on it because it seemed like the easiest way to get Debian on it.

That said, I've never really been a big fan of XBMC even running on decent hardware, and it's kinda hard to think of much else to do with a Raspberry Pi that doesn't involve sinking a lot of money for an LCD screen and USB wifi, at which point you're better off with a cheap tablet/smartphone. So I kinda just carry it around so I could put the BSOD screensaver on random LCD TVs that I find in public.

Frankly, I had more fun with the $25 Arduino UNO he sent me. I used it to control one of those cheap Lutron color LED strips:
https://plus.google.com/109464377854747809155/videos
So if I was a little more motivated, my workstation's mood lighting could correspond to the weather or Nagios or something.

Thanks. It doesn't seem to play the SIT tones:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mrnumber.blocker

The converse is that you'll still end up with the popular tools if you ask people what their preferred tools are and why...

OK, so I'll offer something different.

During my first year at uni, I used to own an HP-48G+ which I loved for its nice keypad and the RPN interface, but the actual device was hopelessly unreliable and had an unwelcome tendency to let me down by throwing hissy-fits during assessments. I eventually got around that particular limitation by replacing it with a TI-89, which (although lacking keypad quality and RPN) was, and still is, a vastly superior device on many levels.

But since this doesn't answer the OP's question, here's my take on it in the light of years of experience since my university studies...

The best calculator for examinations is: NONE AT ALL.

You will get much more kudos for arriving at any kind of solution (however incomplete) if you can show how you started from first principles. Also, you might actually remember how to use these skills years later if you do this.

I would like to be able to say this is what I did, but it would be a lie. I was not a brilliant maths student, since I relied too much on gadgets to help me through assessments. However, I have since revisited the subject and learned how to do it with more insight, and now find a certain pride in being able to "do" maths with no more hardware than a sheet of paper, a pencil and my brain.

Oh, and FWIW, although I still have my TI-89, most of the routine mechanical calculations I perform these days are done on the RealCalc Plus app on my phone.