Friedduck

I can't believe we're having this discussion over 40 years after the passage of Magnuson-Moss, which covered similar ground. (Okay maybe a stretch, but thematically similar.)

If we go down this road, you'll be at the behest of all manufacturers. It's injurious to the consumer and environment alike, assuming more people will simply dispose of items rather than repairing them.

Of course it could give rise to disrupters who don't use these practices and win market share over the entrenched interests.

To me the key thing is this: if we lose the right to repair virtually all manufacturers will include some IP that precludes independent repair. The first battleground would be auto makers. Prepare to pay a lot more.

We serialized some XML as a backup to the data we were extracting (and properly modeling), given that the vendor was prone to changing the schema without proper notification, and that there were some data elements we weren't using at that time.

We also built the necessary tools to extract/re-process records easily, and the architecture worked well for us. As our needs or the schema changed we could easily accommodate those changes without undue effort.

It doesn't directly address the question, and I'm not sure that I'd use the same solution if the volume were predicted to be significantly higher, but in our case it worked beautifully. (Happily our volume was predictably within a known range, for reasons I won't go into.)

I've had TSA agents look through my wallet, and on a separate flight look through playing cards one by one. I was also let through with no screening once by accident.

I've seen them yell at passengers, drift off, sit around talking with long lines waiting, and every other conceivable offense. Most are fine but there are a lot of exceptions.

They contribute nothing, and I for one fly less frequently because of them.

As to pre-check: at Atlanta that doesn't always get you a short line or fast security wait time.

Short of completely re-imaging the machine, you could delete the offending user profile and re-create it. As people have pointed out renaming a user leaves messy jumble of old and new, and may not solve the problem.

Skip the article. Domain redirected me to a scam site (recognized I'm on Verizon, so it may not redirect everyone.)

The H-1B program is a joke. I've witnessed hundreds of people at a single firm who wholesale replaced the existing workforce.

Some were qualified but most weren't. Most had no experience and required training.

The management of that firm told people point blank that there was no future for developers, and to consider other careers. So when I hear that it's difficult to find qualified resources I consider how many have moved on or ruled out technology altogether because of experiences like that.

We've created our own problem by looking the other way when firms abused the program.

There've been a lot of reports locally of Comcast reporting an overage where none existed. Neighbors saying that nothing in their use suggested they were anywhere close to that kind of use and yet being charged.

There were enough anecdotal reports that if I had Comcast I'd put my own router in front of theirs to have an independent measure.

Unrelated: my experience with Comcast business over the last few months has been the worst customer service I've experienced in the last decade. Completely unreliable.

It still brings me comfort in a small way to see a dead friend in my contact list, or old emails from him.

I liked Feynman before and more so now. It's endearing that he's trying to work through it with her.

It took me a long time to come around to the perspective that we should him as a hero and patriot rather than a traitor, but that's where I've ended up.

We don't view the reporters who uncovered Watergate this way--why him?

The idea that you can institute a policy that will account for all of the variables that underly someone's performance is absurd. I recently left a company that started monkeying with policies like this (they they would make exceptions for, for favored employees.)

Develop an environment where your team can thrive. Provide opportunities for growth. Train those that show an aptitude. Listen to people. Pay attention to the values that you espouse and the resulting culture, and make adjustments where they're at odds with your goals.

Putting a policy in place where everyone is at a lowest common denominator is one of the quickest ways I can think of to destroy initiative in a company.

I worked on a couple of large Oracle projects, and they were probably the worst vendor I've dealt with in the last decade. They had the potential to solve really compelling problems, but it was overshadowed by how poor their products were and the eye-watering costs.

Once you're hooked of course on their financial stack you have little choice but to remain.

I'm watching with interest the adoption of Workday as a replacement for Peoplesoft, and wonder aloud if someone will unseat them in their related product groups.

Unless you're going to fund the infrastructure costs publicly you're always going to have a few large players that can sustain the capital investment necessary to build.

I don't see that happening any time soon ("socialized internet!")

So I applaud the FCCs move. What blows me away is that lobbyists have convinced average joes that this is a bad thing. I don't think people grasp how much control a company could exert over what you see simply by prioritizing traffic.

Were I to have had this instead of the O'Rielly book (Sed & Awk) that I learned from. The time I could have saved.

My goal: to be able to write as clearly as this.

I recommend everyone visit Yosemite once. The scale is mind-bending. The falls appear in slow motion because the water is traveling such a great distance. Enormous, ancient trees appear as peach fuzz atop the walls.

I can't think of another place where you can walk right up to something so massive rising out of the earth.

I climbed a much more modest, easy peak there 15 years ago, and saw the headlamps across the valley of climbers on el cap. Its an awe-inspiring scene in the literal sense.

If you go, take the time to hike away from the crowds. It's a zoo of cars but quiet and breathtakingly beautiful if you explore.

That the FCC isn't clearly on the side of consumers speaks to how bought-and-paid-for the Federal government has become.

I write, though, to suggest how fun it would be if guests or neighboring properties started jamming hotel wifi in a bit of civil disobedience.

I wonder what the FCC would have to say about that (rhetorical, we all know.)

According to WHO only about 4% have a visual impairment of any kind, and how exactly would one design for a dexterity impairment? Simpler to navigate menus?

And as wfjackson notes below, the browser statistics appear to also be in question.

Finally, I'm sure that someone would contest the claim, but it's far more difficult to design for blindness than browser idiosyncrasies. The entire UX has to be re-thought down to the last detail. When you consider the myriad interactions that could occur and the difficulty of building & testing for a small audience, it's no wonder that it's still the status quo.

I had a great aunt die from a bite by a Brown Recluse. All this did was solidify my fear of spiders in general. What I remember of it (I was young when this happened) was that the bite was misdiagnosed initially as nothing serious and she was sent home with a topical ointment.

Things went downhill fast. I know that the limb that was bitten was amputated, and that by the time they figured out the cause her fate was sealed. I know they're supposed to be beneficial insects but I kill just about every one I encounter to this day.

At least the Black Widow is distinctive. It's unmistakable if you see one.

It's nice to hear that I'm not the only one that feels this way. Search for local businesses has become nearly impossible. Whether it's failing to return anything or results that are wholly irrelevant, search and particularly maps have taken a large step backward.

There's a great market opportunity here. (Really) old guard companies like YP still haven't responded to the shift and I infer from Google's backslide that it's not a priority for them.

We can't buy everything from Amazon (esp. Hachette books!)

My hard-won lesson is to thoroughly review any newly bought laptop performance during the return period and take it back at any hint of trouble, particularly anything that may require a driver update.

Not precisely my thoughts, but the sentiment's the same. As someone who doesn't trust Google with my information it means Nest isn't a product I'd buy any longer.

If, on the other hand, you're a fan of the Google ecosystem I would expect that it will be a nice tie-in and a great acquisition for them. If they could add something along the lines of Belkin's WeMo devices and maybe Dropcam they could put together a nice home automation dashboard suite.

They're going to need to honor the legacy of Nest's design, though. No one is going to spend that kind of money and settle for an ad-ridden attempt to coerce you to use Google+.

I can't recall the details of what exactly he claimed he'd developed but what I can say is that he wrung more performance out if the iPhone camera than Apple was able to. It's really something impressive in use.

I'm happy to have it and I'd pay for it again if it's ever reissued. Highest praise I can offer.

Until we're able to remove the emotion from the discussion I don't see a resolution to the issue in the States. To me it's the number one challenge to our ability to compete. The cost of health care is often the deal breaker in our decision to hire someone domestically or farm that work overseas.

We pay far more money than anyone else, and for a poorer outcome. I only hope that others read something like this and grasp the importance of finding a solution.

The naivete of anyone who thinks introducing a 65k year-old culture to modern society is truly, truly impressive. Imagine what it would take to achieve a perfect (as evidenced by the span of time) equilibrium with your environment.

We through around the word sustainable pretty readily these days, but this is the real thing. These people have achieved a sustainable existence unlike any other.

According to the recent Salinas v. Texas decision it's not even enough to remain silent. You have to assert your 5th amendment privilege immediately.

As described in a number of articles, 'you don't have the right to remain silent.'

So are there any decent services out there that'll provide a yahoo/gmail-like experience but without the content scanning? I just want mobile, a fast web interface, and a basic feature set.

I'll pay. I'd upgrade to Yahoo pro if it'd get rid of the scanning.

And incidentally, I still don't understand the gmail preference. Yahoo's interface works flawlessly, is fast, and much better than gmail for the basics.

I guess I'd just assumed that everyone was aware of Excel's penchant for converting alphanumerics to scientific notation (any numeric sequence that contains what looks like an exponent.) It also converts long numeric sequences (say, a 20-digit ID number) to scientific notation. Any alpha sequence that could be interpreted as a date ("02-01") of course will be converted thusly.

Most of these are avoidable except the long ID number problem. Even with careful formatting as text the last time I experienced the problem Excel was still performing implicit conversions in ways that weren't immediately apparent, and that rendered the whole experiment worthless.

The recent problems with bad formulas are easily solvable using the built-in auditing features, or formula arrays, or just discipline. The shortcomings reported for statistical functions ("Computational Statistics and Data Analysis", June, 2008) are another issue altogether.

Jeff

This fills a need, I'd say. I currently use a service (smugmug) that does this sort of thing and love the way the everpix interface looks. My primary complaint of most of these sites is speed, so this is worth a look.

I've never understood the aversion to paying for cloud backups. Even with a mirrored NAS and some (probably no longer readable) DVDs I feel like I could easily lose photos. These services are so much easier/cheaper in the long run.

The sad thing is I think Path responded far better than most others, and they've received a heavy-handed response relative to the abuses of so many others.

They were transparent, admitted their mistake, and corrected it. What's the lesson here? Bury your mistakes and avoid the PR headache and financial penalties?

Why hasn't there been a boycott of businesses in the East Texas district where all these judgments originate? Or at least some social action against Texas to try to shame them into behaving responsibly?

Could it gain traction?

I have it installed but disabled. I don't want another flash-like product to gain traction, but occasionally I have to visit MSFT sites that require it.