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While it's amazing that this story is newsworthy... it's worth taking a look at the bigger picture: people take notice at Google's logo changes because they've kept an uncluttered appearance. On most websites, you probably wouldn't even notice a small logo change!

In general, the so-called Web2.0 revolution has brought about much more single-purpose tools, compared to the multi-tools of the past. This leads to deeper functional design and performance, instead of deep integration (which is only slowly coming along thanks to mashup-enabling technologies).

The message is clear: web designers, get to the point! Don't distract your users. Make every word and every image count.

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NerdKits: Educational microcontroller kits for the digital generation.

Slavery is illegal in this country... and an agreement like this is essentially financial slavery.

The idea that this kind of control over IP can extend beyond the scope of employment is, unfortunately, fairly typical. I think it's worth trying to fight. I haven't heard about trying to extend beyond the duration of employment, too -- that's just absurd.

Maybe it's possible to ask for increased compensation -- say an extra six months -- in exchange? If they really think that the intellectual property you'll create is worth it, that seems to be a first attempt at fairness.

In any case, in IT, are you really in the position to be creating that much intellectual property? Lots of companies are trying to shove agreements like this down employee's throats, without thinking about the consequences. Unfortunately, most people just sign blindly.

It's a bit overused, but might this be reflective of the atmosphere of American consumerism? Nobody wants to create content anymore... we'd like to just consume media. I hate to say it, but I think this all comes full circle into the file sharing debate:

People today don't sufficiently value intellectual property.

This leads to the problem with pirating electronic media, but also seems to lead to the situation where people don't stand up and refuse restrictive employment contracts like this one.

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Educational microcontroller kits for the digital generation.

While the open source movement has done a great deal toward making software understandable, at some point, people have to trust their computers. However, this used to be a great deal easier, because engineers had a good idea of what could be done with a particular amount of circuitry.

The increasing level of integration means that hardware is more and more of a black box. While this has led to huge savings in cost and performance boosts, we've paid for it by being unable to debug the hardware, and unsure of what's really going on inside.

While the case in the article talks specifically about a trojan horse installed normally on the drive -- and thus something that should have been remedied by a good formatting job -- who knows what could happen once we have vulnerabilities embedded directly into the hardware. One could certainly imagine a trojan that was hard-coded in the firmward and kept moving itself around the disc after attempts to delete it.

It's also seems fishy that much sensitive information (of relevance to a foreign government) could be obtained from randomly putting trojans on hard drives... Isn't it possible that this was an unintentional infection from some disk-handling or testing machine along the line?

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Educational microcontroller kits for the digital generation.

The first project they discuss is using everyone's existing access points to effectively form a municipal wifi network. The paper linked from the article talks a lot about the security concerns, etc. It's an interesting concept, and I've thought about trying to use the fairly dense wifi network access outdoors in an effort to move data (GPS, etc) between my vehicle and my home.

However, based on my experience with wifi, there seem to be one major problem here: interference effects. I already have problems that I can see about 6 different access points from my desk... on four different networks and SSIDs. The 802.11 spec only allows for three non-overlapping channels (in the US frequency bands, anyway). This problem gets worse as the capacity utilization factor approaches 100%, as it's more and more likely that two packets will happen to collide. This might be a huge problem for this kind of large-scale wifi, as 802.11b/g isn't really designed to operate well when you can see so many APs at once.

In any case, I wonder if they're also overestimating the infrastructure deployment costs. One of the most amazing things to me was how, within a decade, everyone suddenly had wireless in their home and workplace. In fact, in urban areas, it wouldn't surprise me if there were 1 private access point for every 10 or 20 people. People aren't afraid to pay to get cool technology -- although it's a bit different when the government does it.

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Educational microcontroller kits for the digital generation.

Finally, someone understands that the times when we've got time to watch old TV episodes, we're not likely to have internet access! I've often found myself traveling (train/plane) and it's been a perfect time to watch, but have been thwarted because of streaming-only services.

Of course, the Windows-only DRM makes this totally useless to me at the moment. Actually, can anyone think of any examples where a service promised Mac/Linux versions "coming soon" and it actually happened? I sure can't... That's DRM for you. :-(

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Educational microcontroller kits for a digital generation.

I had the pleasure of working with several of the core Terrafugia team, particularly Anna and Carl Dietrich, when they were getting their Ph.D.'s at MIT. This group grew out of the MIT Rocket Team, which was working heavily on liquid-fueled engines (ethanol/kerosene and liquid oxygen). They're an experienced bunch, with particular experience exploring the rocket scientist's perpetual tradeoff between the need for power and the need for low weight.

I can tell you that this is a group of bright engineers who really are in love with flying -- just as are thousands of other private pilots around the world. I think many Slashdotters misunderstand their target market. The Transition requires both a pilot's license and a driver's license, so it's aimed at people who are already private pilots but want the convenience of not having to find a ground vehicle once they've landed at their destination airport. The listed price of their vehicle is comparable to other small planes like those from Cessna, and the extra convenience they're able to provide private pilots may be game-changing.

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Educational microcontroller kits for a digital generation.