Many consider "stop and go" traffic with manual to be more tedious and tiring than it already is. It does give you a little more exercise though, I suppose.

It's useful for driving vehicles other than cars ... motorcycles, large trucks, tractors, etc. As someone who frequently drives in snow and ice a lot, I'd much rather have a manual transmission than traction control as well; it allows far greater road-feel and vehicle control in my opinion. Once you know how to drive…

Drive a car with a manual transmission.

The big deal about SteamOS is that it will still be an open OS. Valve started creating after Windows 8 came out with their "Metro" interface. This interface is locked down like Apple's iOS, where you can only install software through them (Microsoft), and they get a large cut of all sales, as well as the ability to…

I picked these up from Amazon.ca. I'm fairly impressed, although they don't have the same isolation or sound quality as my normal headphones, it's nice to be wireless.

I have my Pebble set up to send a geo-tagged SMS from one of its buttons. Another could be set up to send an SOS the same way. Not quite as quick as this, but not quite as obvious either, and you don't need to have your phone out. I don't think we're at the point that most people would know that a small watch could…

I think Java is a good one as it's a good middle ground that helps people out with strict typing while still having a (mostly) object based core. It should be used with a decent IDE which will generate the template code (setters, getters, etc) for students while showing them the actual content of these and allowing…

PHP is a great languages for teaching bad habits to people new to programming. There are lots of other languages that have all the advantages of PHP without the numerous and dangerous disadvantages.

I've had my Pebble for a few months and I absolutely love it. The big apps for me are Glance, Pebble Bike and Wear Your Barcode. I have a few nice watch faces as well, like the TrekV2 one that does a nice Star Trek style display. I use it with Tasker to have my screen unlocked when I'm in range, and I use it for…

If you generate your own keys and exchange them that's fine, but that's not what I'm referring to here. I'm referring to CA generated or managed keys. They can no longer be trusted.

Having a CA based certificate provider is a non-starter these days if you're actually serious about encryption. The general feeling is that many of these (china, US, etc) have been infiltrated and the keys have been compromised. It's secure from most people but open to a government based MITM interception, one of the…

I like the JVC Marshmallows myself., although I think they may have changed the branding on them. Great sound, low price. I picked up about 5 pairs as they were c losing out their previous model and should be set for many years. Both the gummy and marshmallow cushions are pretty much interchangeable as well, and some…

Seeing as GMail supports IMAP, wouldn't it just be a matter of having the user supply their name and password and synchronizing with their GMail account? Now that Microsoft (finally) supports IMAP, a monkey could write the tool.

Completely agreed. I love Google plus in that I run into people with similar interests all the time and have enjoyable conversions. FaceBook is too insular. I quite like the integration with all the other Google services, and I now use Hangouts instead of SMS, FaceBook chat, etc, whenever possible. I'm still a little…

I'm a bit annoyed at the fact that unlocking your bootloader and rooting your Android phone 'voids your warranty'. As someone who had his Nexus 5 rooted within 10 minutes of when I got it, I think manufacturers should stand behind their hardware and give buyers the benefit of the doubt, only voiding warranties where…

Good for you! You should teach your students that non-open formats are bad for everybody (except the corporation that controls them).

They are shrunk by the Closet Fairy. The Closet Fairy comes in the night and shrinks your clothing. As you get older, the Closet Fairy gets more comfortable around you and comes more often.

For free upgrades to a PC, one of the biggest is installing a Linux distribution. Something like Ubuntu or Mint supports almost all hardware out there, and for most people has all the software they need while running faster in general and dramatically lowering your risk of malware. I (and many, many others) find it…

For free upgrades to a PC, one of the biggest is installing a Linux distribution. Something like Ubuntu or Mint supports almost all hardware out there, and for most people has all the software they need while running faster in general and dramatically lowering your risk of malware. I (and many, many others) find it…

It's survived because it's useful and it was one of the first. iCloud is intentionally crippled to only work for Apple devices and Microsoft is ... Microsoft. DropBox works well on all platforms and is very flexible. I use it under Linux and it's great, although they don't have a very good security model.