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the prior art is that the device in their patent had to exist before their patent.

Fax modem? In the process of scanning-to-e-mail, you ultimately have a scanner at one end, a communications network, and a device for receiving and displaying scanned images. A fax machine is a scanner, the phone system is a communications network, and a computer with a fax modem can receive and display faxes. I took the lowest patent number (US6185590) and the filing date on that is October 15, 1997. I remember owning a Mac with a fax modem in the fourth quarter of 1995.

It seems the Irish Edition of Google News is still linking to some of those sites.

Looks like a few offline programming apps. ShiftEdit looks interesting: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/shiftedit/lcgmndephhjcabhhjfcmncnhbmgbkpij?utm_source=chrome-ntp-icon.

Chrome has some offline image editors. One is called "Amopic": https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/amopic/nmnefpehffecmjnhhncoacgdcecnckac?utm_source=chrome-ntp-icon. Picasa is also apparently available offline: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/picasa/onlgmecjpnejhfeofkgbfgnmdlipdejb?utm_source=chrome-ntp-icon

Looks like a few offline programming apps. ShiftEdit looks interesting: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/shiftedit/lcgmndephhjcabhhjfcmncnhbmgbkpij?utm_source=chrome-ntp-icon.

Chrome has some offline image editors. One is called "Amopic": https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/amopic/nmnefpehffecmjnhhncoacgdcecnckac?utm_source=chrome-ntp-icon. Picasa is also apparently available offline: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/picasa/onlgmecjpnejhfeofkgbfgnmdlipdejb?utm_source=chrome-ntp-icon

Looks like a few offline programming apps. ShiftEdit looks interesting: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/shiftedit/lcgmndephhjcabhhjfcmncnhbmgbkpij?utm_source=chrome-ntp-icon.

Chrome has some offline image editors. One is called "Amopic": https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/amopic/nmnefpehffecmjnhhncoacgdcecnckac?utm_source=chrome-ntp-icon. Picasa is also apparently available offline: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/picasa/onlgmecjpnejhfeofkgbfgnmdlipdejb?utm_source=chrome-ntp-icon

I see that the Gobi Desert has the Best Restaurant. Maybe it's a good idea to visit?

Martian soil doesn't have humus, it's just sand and rocks.

I don't live in San Francisco but I can make sourdough bread.

Mars isn't capable of retaining an earth-like atmpsphere

Why must it be earth-like? Any pressure makes things easier.

Agriculture has to be done in airtight pressurized rooms

Wow that sounds IMPOSSIBLE.

water is only available in ice form and even that only at the poles.

That you know of.

Oh, sorry you don't have oxygen either.

You may want to look up what the "O" in H2O means.

And what was it that all the plants in the impossible plant-growing structures did with CO2 again?

Mine is better still. A quick check of my name shows that, well...

I'm not even on the first three pages in here...

I see mugshots, wannabe presidential candidates, lawyers, dentists, babies, and even politicians. There's even other tech-oriented folks in the pile. Every conceivable race, creed, and color.

Dear HR drone: Umm, yeah. Good luck with that. :)

Somewhat hilariously if you Google IPS image retention, you will find a ton of articles about the MacBook Pro Retina display problems.

Including this one, that explains the problem is basically limited to MacBook Pros with LG displays, instead of the Samsung displays some use. The Samsung display also has better contrast and proper color calibration that the LG panels lack.

I can't help but find the whole thing hilarious.

Facebook is one example of a site that has a crappy policy that only allows you to have one profile. It makes sense to have two social media profiles, one for your personal life which you share with friends, post your party pictures and aren't afraid to write whatever you want, and one for your professional life, where you add coworkers and talk about work.

Maybe Facebook could let you organize your social media contacts into different "circles" and let you share content based on which "circle" a person in. They could keep the membership of those "circles" private so no one knows which circle they are in or who else in in that circle.

Someone should start a social media site like that! It's sure to be a Facebook killer.

Chrome Remote Desktop works so well on the Chromebook, I haven't felt the need for a VM running on it - I just call up my desktop.

For one thing, according to the help page, "This section applies only to Chrome on Windows XP/Windows Server 2003 or later and Mac OS X 10.6 or later." Does that mean Chrome Remote Desktop cannot access a Linux desktop, or does it just mean Linux users can skip the step? For another thing, I don't see how any remote desktop solution works where there is no Internet connection, such as while commuting to and from work on public transit.

To buy that thing, one has to order it via Amazon - and fact is that, even today, not many people know how to order stuffs from Amazon.

Well, Ubuntu can help with that! If you search for drivers for your NVidia card, it'll return a link to golf clubs on Amazon.

With the one-click ordering they plan for 13.04, a search for NVidia drivers will see the golf clubs show up at your door the next day. With customer service like that, Canonical will be unstoppable.

Google supposedly never had a vision. More at 11: https://plus.google.com/112678702228711889851/posts/eVeouesvaVX

Yes it does -

https://plus.google.com/104364547339874244431/posts/gKKyJjTpzj8

"A new extra for Hangouts with extras: make phone calls from inside a hangout

We are constantly listening to feedback so that we can make Hangouts even better for Google+ users, and we're excited by the really cool ways people are using the product. Today we’re making it possible to make phone calls from inside a hangout, so you can dial people into the room from wherever they’re at. (Helpful for party lines and conference calls alike.)

This new feature is initially available inside Hangouts with extras (plus.google.com/hangouts/extras), and we currently support calls to the US and Canada (for free, in fact). The steps for adding a telephone participant are straightforward:

1. Click Invite at the top of the hangouts with extras window
2. Click the Phone tab on the left of the window, and enter the phone number you wish to call.
3. Click Call now.

#googleplusupdate"

Yes, you can flip a "developer mode" switch to disable the hardware lockdown, and install a "regular" distribution of Linux like Ubuntu.

and the alternative to copyright is not public domain, it is censorship and limited accessibility

Because few have ever seen any of the art that was created before copyright, right? Patronage rarely worked, of course; and when it did, those works were never placed in public view.

Musicians certainly never performed in public for a buck before copyright; players never performed in the days before it was illegal to copy (even onto paper) their performances and replay them elsewhere; only the rich were ever allowed into the Sistine Chapel before copyright, and poetry and prose were rarely heard or read (okay, I'll grant you that they were rarely read before copyright, if you'll admit that it's because few could actually read until a short time before copyright came to be) by anyone except the wealthy until copyright came to save the day.

Is content more accessible today than it was before copyright? Yes, with the printing press becoming more efficient; recording mediums, including audio and video, proliferating; the advent of radio and television; and automotive, air, and electronic transportation speeding delivery, there has been quite an improvement in content accessibility. On the other hand, while one may argue that copyright has led to an increase in the production of content (something which may well have happened as a natural consequence of technology, as we are seeing more and more today), copyright, by its very nature, makes content less accessible in they eyes of the law.

That's not to say that censorship and limited accessibility aren't possible outcomes; that is certainly one possible road history could have taken. Ponder this: Why are we taught history in public schools? (Hint: it's not just so we can avoid history's mistakes.)

1/32 inch = 0.79 mm

0.8 is hardly 1 - that's over 20% of error. It's like saying that 1 inch = 2 cm, even though even most cursory approximations take 1 inch = 2.5 cm. If you take this into construction, a typical ceiling of 250 cm will end up at 200 cm instead if you apply your calculation.

Please don't confuse people.

The only way I can see this succeeding is as a purely AI-driven, input-less device, which based on location and heuristics would basically know what to do in any given situation.

Well that's basically Google Now, innit?

You also may or may not find waving your hands around in mid-air to be less awkward than voice control.

So Disney's big break was with a film based on a folk story written down by the Brothers Grimm - it was out of copyright. Nobody to pay, nobody to clear changes with... Does the modern film-maker looking for a break have such luxuries?

Apparently yes.

"We are covering too many businesses, your responses are flawed in that they focus on one element "profits", "

So is profit not the main goal of a publicly traded company?

"[Software is something I argue they should do] is that maintaining its profitability without expanding its market(exactly what you criticise Amazon for) is short sighted."

Besides the dedicated media player market -- Apple is increasing revenues and profits much faster than the industry in every single one of its markets.

"Googles revenue is up this year 9 month period http://investor.google.com/earnings.html from $19,087,000 to $27,632,000 Their profits are up $8,235,000 and $9,328,000 (they were down last quarter with half a billion restructuring of Motorola, but they sold off their set-top box this quarter for $2.5 billion), "

Of course their revenue was up after adding Motorola, but Motorola is still losing money. Motorola is causing an increase in revenue but a decrease in profit. Not a winning combination

Google's ad revenue is weak.

http://www.marketplace.org/topics/tech/weak-ad-revenue-pulls-google-down

"(they were down last quarter with half a billion restructuring of Motorola, but they sold off their set-top box this quarter for $2.5 billion"

So they bought MMI for 12.5 billion, MMI had about $3 billion in cash at the time so that was a net cost of 9.5 billion and now they are selling the settop business for $3 billion. So that is still a net cost of about 6.5 billion on a company that is still losing money. On top of that, Google as part of the deal, is assuming most of the liability for patent infringemenr claims that are being brought by Tivo -- a company who has a track record of winning in court.

"but as I said with Google Docs they already make $1 Billion from Google Docs, and are making a massive push against Microsoft, there on-line store is reportedly selling 400% more in a year,"

The Apple app store is barely above break even profitably and has much higher revenues than the Google Play store. Up 400% from barely anything is still barely anything.

"....but the short version is your view of google is not based in reality...heard about the xPhone :)"

Yes because a rumored phone from a division who hasn't been able to compete for years is definitely a sure fire hit......

"its strategy of going for market-share over profits is working to its advantage going forward...."

http://web.mit.edu/bwerner/www/papers/Therelationbetweenmarketshareandprofitability.PDF

But if market share were the sure fire way to profitability, then why would HP try to jetison their PC business when HP still had the largest market share? Why is the iPhone still more profitable than the rest of the market combined?

"What I predict is Apples business model is unsustainable, and the market agrees with me with it having 30% of its value wipes of its market cap, "

And the market is always rational....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dot-com_bubble

"Apple should have gone for Microsoft's throat"

Yes because if it had, it might be growing faster than Microsoft now....oh wait, it is,

"but the short version is your view of google is not based in reality...heard about the xPhone :)"

We are covering too many businesses, your responses are flawed in that they focus on one element "profits", and problem with their current market "iPods, Macs, media, phones, and tablets"(sic) [Software is something I argue they should do] is that maintaining its profitability without expanding its market(exactly what you criticise Amazon for) is short sighted.

Googles revenue is up this year 9 month period http://investor.google.com/earnings.html from $19,087,000 to $27,632,000 Their profits are up $8,235,000 and $9,328,000 (they were down last quarter with half a billion restructuring of Motorola, but they sold off their set-top box this quarter for $2.5 billion), I'm not sure about Google making 95% of their money from Advertising...but as I said with Google Docs they already make $1 Billion from Google Docs, and are making a massive push against Microsoft, there on-line store is reportedly selling 400% more in a year, its strategy of going for market-share over profits is working to its advantage going forward....but the short version is your view of google is not based in reality...heard about the xPhone :)

What I predict is Apples business model is unsustainable, and the market agrees with me with it having 30% of its value wipes of its market cap, even the most ardent Apple faithful are looking for the next product (TV/Watch who cares...will it have retina display). The reality is nobody is seeing Apples massive mark-ups being sustainable, will Apple see some profit and revenue growth, only for as long as its market grows faster than is market share shrinks while its market share stays remains relevant. That could be as little as one quarter. Its just another electronics company now.

[I don't really want to talk about Microsoft...Their strategy of using its Monopoly on the Desktop to leverage itself into Mobile...is simply too large, in response to your comments Apple should have gone for Microsoft's throat.]

smaller tablets like the Kindle Fire and Nexus 7 have beat [$300 netbooks] on price.

Do tablets still win on price when you include the price of a Bluetooth keyboard?

I'd rather either have a proper Linux PC (desktop or notebook)

I chose a 10" laptop because it fits in bags that aren't obvious "steal this" laptop bags.

or go with something like a Chromebook or Android tablet for portable geekery.

Chromebook is OK if all the applications you ever use are web applications with full offline support. Otherwise, good luck rewriting all your applications in JavaScript and hoping that they run at anywhere near full speed. As for paint programs, what should replace GIMP for, say, pixel art? The one I tried didn't even have copy and paste, the ability to create a colormap for an indexed-color image, or the ability to open multiple documents.

Taxes in the US are at an all time low.

With the exception of the two world wars, USA's total government spending has been growing consistently. It also has nearly the highest corporate tax rate in the world.

The top income tax rate might be lower than before, but simply because people have more opportunity to leave a high-tax country than ever before. USA could afford to have high income taxes when it was the freest nation in the world, and half the world was at risk of falling into communist hands. Today Russia has a 13% flat tax! USA gets mediocre rankings on the Tax Misery Index, particularly in urban areas (under Democrat control).

The last time the wealth was this badly skewed in favour of the super rich with such ludicrously low taxes the Great Depression happened.

The "great depression" was a result of socialist policies, not income inequality.

It's not a coincidence. Funnelling money into the hands of the few and crippling the middle and lower classes brings the economic engine to its knees.

Funneling money? Wealth is redistributed from the rich to the poor (with much of it destroyed en route through government inefficiency and corruption).

Perhaps in your religion money falls from the sky, and the gods that send it intend for it to be shared equally, but that is not an objective understanding of economics. Money is created through human productivity, and some people simply create more of it than others. Some people invent new technologies and make decisions that improve our world, while others spend their days as robots, performing motions that were thought-out by others.

--libman

Giuseppe Levi http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giuseppe_Levi http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=it&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fit.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FGiuseppe_Levi had 3 students who went on to win Nobel prizes. Biologists had been studying gross anatomy from before human history. In Levi's time, they had really good microscopes for 100 years, so they had extended that study to the tissues and cells of the organs. Levi extended that to understand the physiological mechanisms of those tissues. He could see that brain cells were growing, but how were they growing and why were they growing?

He assigned Rita Levi-Montalcini to figure out how the brain developed. It was an impossible problem, so she did what scientists often do and attacked a simpler problem: How does a nerve cell develop? She finally found a factor that caused it to grow. Now we have more growth factors than you could cover in an hour's biology class.

Levi's second student, Salvador Luria, wound up studying bacteriophages, the viruses that attack bacteria. He (they, really -- these were collective efforts) found out that some bacteria was resistant to viruses. It turned out that the mechanism of resistance was restriction enzymes that would chop the DNA or RNA of viruses at particular sequences that were found in the viruses but not in the bacteria themselves. This turned out to be a fantastically useful tool for studying DNA and RNA. Grad students use it every day.

Levi's third student, Renato Dulbecco, discovered a virus that turned cells cancerous. It turned out that very few human cancers are caused by viruses, but the study of that one example of how cells become cancerous through viruses helped to unravel the whole mechanism of cancer. One of his contributions was to the technique of growing cells, and you can read medical reports today that cells were grown in Dulbecco's medium. During WWII, Dulbecco joined the Resistance against the Nazis.

Another Italian Nobel laureate in that group, but not a student of Levi's, was Mario Capecchi. Capecci had a hard childhood during WWII. His father was drafted to fight in North Africa as an anti-aircraft gunner, but he was lost in combat. His mother was an American, the daughter of an American artist and a German archaeologist, but like most of this bunch she was a Communist, and they sent her to Dachau. She had made provision for a peasant family to take care of Mario, but that fell apart and he wound up at the age of 4 on the streets, like in one of those post-war Italian movies. After the war, his mother got out of Dachau, and found him in a hospital. Finally, his mother's brother, who was a physicist at RCA, found them and brought them to America, where Mario finally got his education.

Mario Capecchi was playing around with the repair mechanisms of DNA, which are subverted by viruses, and figured out how to use them to knock out a single gene in mice (or any animals). If you know any biology, you understand how useful this was. Today, when a researcher finds a mutation responsible for a disease the routine thing he does is to create a knockout mouse to see what happens without that gene. It's like having an on/off switch to see what happens when you turn a gene on and off.

After Capecchi won the Nobel prize in 2008, his half-sister in Austria recognized him as her long-lost brother.

Those Italian biologists were an interesting bunch, and they lived in dramatic times.

You can actually use SD cards and USB flash drives with Nexus devices, via an OTG cable, for media storage: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.homeysoft.nexususb.importer&hl=en

No root required, just the slightly daft cable but at least it won't get in the way in landscape mode on the plane. But yes, lack of an internal SD card slot is very annoying, the only major flaw in an otherwise excellent device.

The problem is that the hardware companies allowed Microsoft to define what a netbook was and not the market.

Not sure Google is allowing Microsoft to define very much regarding their Chromebooks.

BAK. OK, "commandeered" is subject to interpretation. There's plenty of material out there.

Draw your own conclusions.

Not so much. While I can't find 2012 figures, per capita money income in the US was lower in 2011 compared to 2001 (adjusted for inflation), though it was about 17% above where it was in 1991.

http://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&ctype=l&met_y=ny_gnp_pcap_pp_cd#!ctype=l&strail=false&bcs=d&nselm=h&met_y=ny_gnp_pcap_pp_cd&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&rdim=region&idim=country:USA&ifdim=region&tdim=true&hl=en_US&dl=en_US&ind=false [google.com] Looks pretty healthy to me.

That chart you show is expressly not adjusted for inflation, which you would see if you hovered over the "?" by the title that explains the data (its also gross national income per capita which isn't the same thing as per capita money income). See this table (XLS): in 2011 dollars, per capita money income in the US was $27,554 in 2011, and $29,030 in 2001, and $23,540 in 1991.

Termites and ants do indeed have ventilation. It's natural ventilation, so you don't recognize it as such, but it most certainly is ventilation.

I'm seeing paywalls, book reviews, etc that don't really have a lot of text available for the casual browser. My search:

https://www.google.com/#hl=en&tbo=d&output=search&sclient=psy-ab&q=thermoregulation+ventilation+termite+mounds&oq=vantilation+termite+mounds&gs_l=hp.1.1.0i13i30j0i13i5i30.1592.8146.0.14169.26.25.0.0.0.0.513.5998.0j12j10j1j1j1.25.0.les%3B..0.0...1c.1.8YEnc5ejSjM&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.r_qf.&bvm=bv.1355534169,d.b2U&fp=eb5dc79f55434dab&bpcl=40096503&biw=994&bih=588

Enjoy

Twiggy! Bede bede bede bede bede...

I do believe you're thinking of TWKE-4, AKA Twiki.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twiki

The real Twiggy looks much nicer... http://www.google.com/search?q=twiggy&hl=en&safe=off&tbo=d&site=webhp&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=49DhUP60MpLD0AGrqYGIDw&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAA&biw=1067&bih=529

Far more revolutions have ended quickly, with the rebels imprisoned or executed.

Absolutely. Revolution is hard and dangerous. So stop saying you are for a revolution that will kill millions of people unless you are really, really serious about it. So far, I haven't seen anyone that I would call serious about it in the US.

Some folks came close to being serious in 1968-1970 between the riot in Chicago and Kent State. There were too few people to really accomplish much and the people that were really committed to revolution were just a little too far gone to get anything done other than make a few bombs and generally blow themselves rather than others up.

What an occupy movement could have done is to stage a 1968-style sit-in protest and block business from getting done on Wall Street. Sure, after the first couple of rounds with the police arresting hundreds of people it might have gotten more and more difficult, but this would have forced both government and business to stop what they were doing - business of the day - and focus on protecting infrastructure. Armed guards everywhere, ID checks at every door, security, security and more security. The result would have been a lot of security and not a lot of real work getting done - hence at least a part of their objective achieved. It would take more than 30-40 people to do this - it would have taken hundreds.

Look, supposedly this was a movement by "the 99%" against 1% of the country's elite. If that were true there would be no way it couldn't succeed because at some point the guards (part of the 99%, after all) would be joining with the protesters. Once that happened, it would all be over. That's what happened in Russia - the army and police stopped fighting against the protesters and joined with them.

Now, to be real, it is very very unlikely anything like that could happen in the US. People subconciously know which side of the bread is buttered and that their interested lie in the status quo. Some people would actually figure out that an economic collapse like what OWS seemed to be going for would result in millions, hundreds of millions or even billions of people dying. So while it might seem like a good idea for a few moments, it would be quickly shown to be a disaster. So it wouldn't really work. One thing the American Revolution didn't do was try to wrench the social order too much - that is what leads to a lot of people dying. Again, as shown by Russia and a bunch of other places.

An important point is in Russia the elite fled the country. In France today they have decided to tax the rich to support the government - a futile policy that Mr. Obama seems to be leaning towards. Of course, anyone with portable money in France is looking for somewhere to go - check out Google. Stir up things enough in the US and similar things will happen here.

You want a peaceful revolution? First thing right off is don't try to destroy the social order and don't try to collapse the economy that is feeding 300 million people.

uh... yeah.

But if we did that it would cut off the world largest market for goat sex pornography: http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=goat%20sex&cmpt=geo

As well as results academically + athletically too (from the fundamentals comics gave me) -> http://entertainment.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3347977&cid=42425967

ABSOLUTELY AGREED #1 of 2 - changed for the BETTER, forever:

"Stan, you are a force of nature, and the people's lives you've so willingly touched are changed forever. I know I was, and I know that I love this fellow we call Stan Lee. I wish him all the best now, and in the next phase of his existence" - by markstrelecki (1378435) on Sunday December 30, @02:49AM (#42424945) Homepage

Yes, absolutely - they inspired me @ a fundamental level both academically & believe-it-or-not, athletically also, with "proofs thereof" in the links below as well!

---

ABSOLUTELY AGREED #2 of 2 - changed for the BETTER, forever:

"Stan showed me that being creative and passionate is the duty of the intelligent mind, and in his honor I will always say "Excelsior!" MARK STRELECKI Atlanta, GA. USA" - by markstrelecki (1378435) on Sunday December 30, @02:49AM (#42424945) Homepage

Agreed #2 - Since when the malware 'explosion' started 'hitting' bad, 2008 onwards? I re-released this security guide for Windows users, MUCH upgraded (& said it was folks' "IRON MAN ARMOR" online per the great film starring Robert Downey Jr. -> http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&tbo=d&output=search&sclient=psy-ab&q=%22HOW+TO+SECURE+Windows+2000/XP%22&btnG=Submit&gbv=1&sei=lF_gULeDA-nO0QHFmoDYAw

(MAINLY to "do the right thing" - which is WHAT comics instill in you 'morally' I felt @ least)...

Then also?

Last year, this as well -> http://start64.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=5851:apk-hosts-file-engine-64bit-version&catid=26:64bit-security-software&Itemid=74

(As folks' "Captain America Shield" online, more-or-less, for lack of a better analogy here, after seeing the excellent film "Captain America: The First Avenger" - just to supplement the security guide above & make the end result output EASY to acquire & build for them - ALL for better speed, reliability, SECURITY MOST OF ALL, & lots more also... )

The films "Captain America", "Iron Man", & "The Avengers" helped 'reinspire me' to re-enter the freeware software circuit again (after a 7++ yr. absence thereof)...

Mainly since things are getting SO bad online with exploits galore, & because of comics? Yes, because of them early on, I have the ability to hopefully help change them to a degree, & hopefully, for the better (and comics provided the means @ a fundamental level, to get to where I had to be, to acquire the ability to do so).

They also helped me morally as well. They are about "doing the right thing" largely, in their tales!

APK

P.S.=> Yes, Comics inspired me as a both & helped me academically, HUGELY, & even athletically... even morally (since to get them, I had to bicycle MANY miles to do so, along with candy too of course, lol)...

... apk

http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2012-09-20/business/35494758_1_new-iphone-earpods-lte-networks
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2395035,00.asp
http://techcrunch.com/2012/09/25/ihs-iphone-5-costs-between-207-and-238-to-make-depending-on-storage/
http://venturebeat.com/2012/09/14/iphone-5-costs-168-to-make/

It's not hard to find..
https://www.google.com/search?q=cost+to+make+iphone

If I can buy cheap as hdmi cables from multiple vendors shipped to my front door for $1.50, it can not cost much more to get an iPhone to my house or to a retailer so please do not think distribution and shipping costs is more than a few $$ per phone.

Yes, I can, can you see those little house looking things that show they aren't in a deserted area like you claimed?

There are no houses near the half mile of stream between the plant and the river. What kind of crack are you smoking anyway?

It's not as deserted as you might think from the photo. Look at the Google map.

According to TFA:

Neighbors near the plant on 11th Street had long complained about noxious fumes and other problems from the meat packers. But investigators didn’t get involved until a remote-controlled toy enthusiast happened to affix a video camera to an RC aircraft and videotape gallons of what appeared to be blood gushing down the river.

So there are neighbors, and they did want something done.

AC, thanks for the link. This post by Laurent Pinchart explains further: https://lkml.org/lkml/2012/12/23/89
"The patch uses the -ENOENT error code internally in the uvcvideo driver to inform the caller function (internal to the driver) that the requested control doesn't exist. It was never meant to be returned out of the driver, and definitely not to userspace. This is clearly a bug."

From reading that, it does seem like, as you suggest, Linus may have jumped to an incorrect conclusion about that error code (intended to indicate a bad path) and why it was in the code. However, he or someone else might have instead, with a more complete understanding of the history of the patch, then reasonably questioned the design choice of reusing that error to mean something a bit different internally, precisely because this sort of problem could (and did) arise.

Of course, if one starts asking questions, then issues like having cryptic error codes is another deeper issue.

Although then one could take that all the way back to even deeper design issues, like how a message passing approach like Smalltalk, Actor, and Erlang pioneered may be better for the kernel of software for the 21st century?

So, "crap" is perhaps relative to your frame of reference? :-)

Anyway, it looks to me like there were mistakes made all around -- the patch developer, the kernel maintainer, and Linus. And that does not include all the other decisions by many other people who lead up to this. See also: http://books.google.com/books/about/The_Berenstain_Bears_and_the_Blame_Game.html?id=p8oMWMMdU2gC

Ultimately, a big piece of software is more a community than anything else. I don't know enough about the norms of the Linux kernel community to know what was appropriate in that context.

You know, actual inflation numbers -- and calculators which use them to do conversions of prices -- are trivial to locate online, so why use assumptions like this?

I was lazy and I wasn't readily aware that those existed?
But I did use the word 'assume', so that means I'm covered ;-)

Adjusting for the actual inflation, the $299-in-2001 launch price of the Xbox is $388.68 today; the $199-in-1991 of the SNES would be $336.37 today, and the $649-in-1990 of the never-successful Neo Geo console would be $1,143.18 today.

Of course purchasing power has also increased

I have to admit, that is lower than I thought. I'll remember to Google for inflation correction tools next time.

Not so much. While I can't find 2012 figures, per capita money income in the US was lower in 2011 compared to 2001 (adjusted for inflation), though it was about 17% above where it was in 1991.

http://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&ctype=l&met_y=ny_gnp_pcap_pp_cd#!ctype=l&strail=false&bcs=d&nselm=h&met_y=ny_gnp_pcap_pp_cd&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&rdim=region&idim=country:USA&ifdim=region&tdim=true&hl=en_US&dl=en_US&ind=false

Looks pretty healthy to me.

This is somewhat related with this Linus' post on G+?

Warp Drive? It's only around the corner once you've reached Orbital Science See?

Interesting take on a country that just re-elected the most income-distributing president of all time.

I take it you're unfamiliar with history. Ever heard of Abraham Lincoln? The income tax was instituted under his administration, and only the rich paid. Ever hear of FDR? His administration instituted Social Security and had such programs as the WPA. Sorry you slept through class.

We know he didn't win on his economic record.

No, he won on Mitt Romney's economic record. He won because he wasn't a far right-wing looney like Santorum or Gingrich.

He won on the same kind of class warfare talk that you're giving right now.

The 1% have been waging war on the rest of us for a long, long time. It's about time we started admitting that ugly fact.

How much is a "decent wage?" I hear people all the time talk about a "living wage" on here, but nobody puts a dollar figure on it.

A decent wage is a wage that will let a worker support his family. You can't put a dollar amount on it, because the cost of things varies place to place. A decent wage in Springfield is half what a decent wage is in Chicago, because everything costs twice as much there.

What should the high-school drop-out ditch digger (or whatever) who has learned no marketable skills make?

Why should McDonald's and Walmar workers be dependant on food stamps? Many of their workers are homeless. I wouldn't even call that a fair wage, let alone "decent". In fact, it's so indecent it's obscene.

Also, how much more should a person with a degree make than this base "living wage."

There should be a hell of a lot less disparity between an engineer's wage and the CEO's wage. The disparity today is greater than the disparity between the CEO and janitor thirty years ago.

I'm going to call for citation on that one.

Here are a whole lot of them.

Should the government force the banks to let homeless people live in bank-owned houses?

They should be forced to rent those houses at an affordable price. Someone working at WalMart should be able to afford rent on a small two bedroom house, but they can't because WalMart is too stingy and greedy.

How many have you taken into your home to live with you?

I don't know about the GP, but many of us have and do.

Please describe your moral code with respect to who should be giving what to whom in what situations

Again, I don't know about he GP, but as a Christian, my moral code mostly comes from the first four books of the New Testament. It comes down HARD on the rich and greedy.

Not so different from what Facebook do, or in general what Google reports that is forced to do, ordered by the ones actually in power (mostly the ones reported here)

Not so different from what Facebook do, or in general what Google reports that is forced to do, ordered by the ones actually in power (mostly the ones reported here)

Ah, yes, the Legrange, the 2WD version of the Canyonero.

I understood that to mean he's pissing away his corporation's money. As in, letting a building in one of the highest rent markets in the country lay unused. There's no way that building makes more money empty than it does with tenants.

I;m not sure he would make much renting that place. It would probably inhibit his advertising campaign. Its not that big such that he would have many tenants anyway.

Its a very little ( by NYC standards) building, with no parking.

Here's a link to the 3D view on Google Maps. (Fairly resource intensive view).

Here's a street view, its the building behind the tiny police department office.

This Google Satellite image shows its about 6 car lengths long, wedge shaped building. You simply aren't going to get much rent for that building, with no parking, no view.

I understood that to mean he's pissing away his corporation's money. As in, letting a building in one of the highest rent markets in the country lay unused. There's no way that building makes more money empty than it does with tenants.

I;m not sure he would make much renting that place. It would probably inhibit his advertising campaign. Its not that big such that he would have many tenants anyway.

Its a very little ( by NYC standards) building, with no parking.

Here's a link to the 3D view on Google Maps. (Fairly resource intensive view).

Here's a street view, its the building behind the tiny police department office.

This Google Satellite image shows its about 6 car lengths long, wedge shaped building. You simply aren't going to get much rent for that building, with no parking, no view.

I understood that to mean he's pissing away his corporation's money. As in, letting a building in one of the highest rent markets in the country lay unused. There's no way that building makes more money empty than it does with tenants.

I;m not sure he would make much renting that place. It would probably inhibit his advertising campaign. Its not that big such that he would have many tenants anyway.

Its a very little ( by NYC standards) building, with no parking.

Here's a link to the 3D view on Google Maps. (Fairly resource intensive view).

Here's a street view, its the building behind the tiny police department office.

This Google Satellite image shows its about 6 car lengths long, wedge shaped building. You simply aren't going to get much rent for that building, with no parking, no view.

Android outsells Apple 6:1 in the "I use a smartphone like a featurephone and don't know what apps are, oh and this phone is only $79 on prepaid" area.

Absolutely not. In China for example the Average price of a smartphone is $250. Lets look at the best selling phones are on Amazon China http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&eotf=1&u=www.amazon.cn. The top phone is Lenovo with a dual core processor, 2000mAh, Android 4.0, 2nd Phone is and 3rd Phone are both Huawei is both dual and quad cores with larger screens than your beloved iPhone :) (and includes a dual sim interestingly ), The third Phone comes with 2GB of RAM!! ....I hate to say it but these phones seem to have better specifications (and arguably software) than your beloved Apple iPhone, its not surprising really as Apple overcharge their customers so much.

no useful apps available outside of Netflix, Amazon Prime and Hulu Plus..

+ iPlayer and YouTube. Those apps alone are worth their weight in gold.

requirements to use specific and approved USB cameras or widgets.

I'm afraid that unless you want your TV to run Windows you are probably going to be SOL on that one, since no manufacturer is going to try and support every random ultra low-cost craptastic webcam chipset with a custom driver when they can just sell you one of their own. If the fault lies anywhere it is with the USB standard for not defining a standard driver-neutral webcam interface.

Very slow responsiveness.

Try Panasonic TVs. The higher end models have dual core CPUs and are pretty responsive. You get what you pay for.

Release a smartphone app that allows you to use its interfaces (voice recognition, touchscreen) to control the action on-screen.

Already exists, works pretty well.