Coffee Lab, perhaps? I thought it was a really cool coffee shop when I was there last year and, as you say, very much a hang out sort of place.

I'm a big fan of solving your own problems. Your problem seems to be coming up with problems to solve. Perhaps you could work on something that helps people to find problem to solve?

I really have difficultly seeing how this could be considered anything other than natural. We, our actions and our impacts on the rest of the environment are, after all, born of the very same nature.

Well, by that loose definition, there is absolutely nothing that is not 'natural.'

Yeah, I agree with that!

"Natural" is defined as: existing in or caused by nature; not made or caused by humankind.

So by definition, there are things that are natural, such as other galaxies, and all things a million years ago.

Things that are natural : all galaxies, including ours.

Radicale for CalDAV and CardDAV. Simplest way I've found to sync my Android contacts and calendar to somewhere I own.

I have have a hard time seeing what there is to mock about your opinion of shells. I absolutely consider them languages - better at some things, worse at others.

Seems like a good time to point to Urchin, the Bash-ish like shell I wrote that also allows writing Ruby directly on the command line. I've been using it happily for years but haven't packaged up a release for a recent version:

https://github.com/Spakman/urchin

Just to narrow that down a little more, I associate that with more of a London accent/locale. You don't hear it much here in Scotland.

Thanks a lot for this comment. It made a lot of connections form in my brain.

Did anyone else play A-Train (looks like it was actually A-train III)? I loved it but have never found anyone else who has even heard of it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A-Train

Just logged in to comment on this game which brings back so many memories: transporting materials and passengers, crafting a complex network of railroad while also purchasing long term investments like apartments etc. And it required you to be patient, but when that first road appears it's like magic!! :)

Loved that game, probably didn't understand everything as a teen playing this, but i loved it so much. Interestingly I never met anyone else who played that game! :)

Cheers!

Ah, that first road! I had forgotten all about that feeling :-)! I can still vividly remember the tick-tick-ti-ti-ti-tick-tiiick noise of the trains.

I was probably a bit too young to understand all the complexities but have such happy memories of it too. Happy that you had the same experience :-)!

I loved A-Train, it was a great alternative to SimCity and Settlers (two other of my favorites in the early 90s not to mention Civ)

I do seem to remember that it was relatively easy to make a killing in the stock market/real estate development on A-Train to finance the railroads.

I loved Atrain too. Years later I would discover that many sequels to it were made, although some came out in Japanese (http://www.artdink.co.jp/company/english/history.html).

Thanks to Steam, A-Train 9 came out circa 2010 in English quite recently (http://store.steampowered.com/app/278550/)

Yep, played it! Although I preferred Railroad Tycoon, and when Transport Tycoon finally came out, I was totally hooked to it and quickly abandoned everything else.

I'm not saying that you're right or wrong, but why do you think that?

History.

What you will end up with is likely something that is LESS secure but now mandated for anything made/sold legally in the US. The rest of world will be free to do better things

You will also end up with mandated Backdoors, weakened encryption, and a variety of other NSA/FBI wish list items that will be included in any "Cyber Security" bill

I have no interest in the US congress regulating IoT devices, that will not be good for liberty, or security

History under the last mandate was actually a pile of products and research projects that were more secure than anything today. That included Boeing SNS server, BAE XTS-400, Aesec GEMSOS, esp KeyKOS, a secure VMM, an embedded OS in Ada, GUI's immune to keylogging/spoofing, databases immune to external leaks, and so on.

All that disappeared in favor of Windows NT and UNIX w/out security the second they eliminated the regulations. There's just enough of a niche market for a few suppliers to be left, esp defense contracts. Most are gone, though, because private markets dont produce strong security if incentives are turning costs into profits.

So then I guess you also want a Personal Computer or Home Security System to be $1,000,000. Have no Open Source Technology, and generally have no access to the average person let alone low income persons.

If Boeing will be the only company allowed to make IoT products then you might as well kill the IoT industry, as each product will cost 100000x more than it should.

I classify that BAD... sad you do not

Security is one thing, but if it comes at the expense of Open Source and accessible systems then i choose Insecurity.

I will choose Freedom over Government every time

First you miss history. Now economics. High-assurance development of the TCB, critical part of system needing it, cost around 35-50% extra on development. Volume sales spread that out. Windows would cost $100-200 with key pieces done that way. The same basically. Only negative effect is rigorous dsvelopment slows release and upgrade cycle. Many firms maximize profit by shipping often then fixing problems later. Market currently rewards that. It's why Lipner, who led high-assurance VMM, favored quick shipping over security in the SDL he built at Microsoft.

Now, with regulation, you'd still have the same software being developed. The components would be simpler (JSON subset vs XML). Costs spread out in volume. People would get used to new, huge features taking "two or three quarters" (Lipner) instead of a few weeks. Non-paid or non-critical usage could be done to test out proposals without building whole thing.

Far as IoT, solutions already exist that are either inexpensive at OEM level or cheap per unit. Just getting ignored by most of market since there's no regs or liability. Hell, Im typing this on a device running one underneath the OS that cost the same as a ddvice without one. ;)

So you're saying that things like the Clean Air Act, the EPA, and pollution regulations don't work?

Because I look around and it's been working remarkably well.