I've sat in just about every possible configuration of plane and seat, including these new "ultra-light" seats (which are on a number of United's planes). The seats are slimmer, but the problem is that they are also stiffer, and the material is both harder and less supportive than the standard seat.

I'm usually able to deal with just about any seating situation, but I found myself getting uncomfortable after 30-45 mins in the new seats, particularly my back. I actually had to consistently stretch and turn to mitigate the ache that started to form. The major reason is, I think, the fact that there is less support for your legs in front, leading to a "sliding forward off the seat" kind of situation where you have to put more effort into keeping yourself seated.

Anyway, seats vary, and old seats suck as much as anything else. However, selling the new seats as "better" or "more comfortable" is a load of c$#% that the airline industry no doubt has teams of advertisers selling through stories like this one.

RT

CobrAAAAAAAAAA!

He goes into I/O and tells everyone that there's too much focus on competition and a "zero-sum" game. Meanwhile his company is doing everything is can to fight regulation, moving on any and every available market, clearly adopting innovation for market and platform advantage, and generally fighting to be the alpha wolf of the pack. Christ, you basically just duplicated the iphone and gave it away for free to build a market for your products... zero sum game my a$#, you're dealing the cards you half wit!

Then he goes out and talks about how we should be less uptight about our personal information... a guy with billions of dollars and no security issues whatsoever, tells folks who live and die on the edge of poverty where an employer will fire you for being fat, to "stop sweating the personal medical concerns." I can see the next one now... "gas? Let them drive Teslas."

I'm so sick of these "do no evil" bait and switch a$%holes. What on earth has Google actually ever created besides a search algorithm? CREATED... please, someone explain it to me, because I'm still trying to figure it out.

-rt

It's funny that Tesla hasn't posted them, or given them to a third party for analysis and review, but has spent a lot of time doing this exhaustive analysis on their blog.

I love the idea of electric cars, I want them to be successful, but this whole things strikes me as a little too much noise and too little actual content. If Tesla thinks he lied make public info that people can look at and assess. He drove in circles? Because you say so? Okay... sure.

I also think some of the points he makes are asinine... driving 54 mph? Not turning the heat to 72f in the winter in an electric car with NO ambient heat source? Yeah, high, welcome to real world conditions. I don't know how hardy these norwegians are, but I don't like driving in 65f, or spending 80 hours driving to my target. Avg speeds in the northeast are about 65-75mph for most folks, if you aren't testing in those conditions you've already failed IMHO.

RT

Probably a copy of Homesite (do not laugh!) or a couple other more recent apps that do a fairly good job in the same vein. Topstyle is a default though... I've yet to see a better CSS coding tool in terms of library and standards controls.

-rt

Sounds like that one guy who was still managing his circles finally has someone else to chat with. 1 + 1 = +100%! Google HOOO!

Give me a break, you can make the data say whatever you want out of context. Google+ is a dog designed by engineers for engineers. This doesn't excuse the fact that FB is a POS, but I'll take a platform with users over one with 4 trolls who work at Google any day of the week.

-rt

Google's experience is awful, they've never been able to successfully launch a "finished" or integrated product offering, and their only source of revenue CONTINUES to be search driven advertising. In one move they guaranteed that Yahoo will never successfully resurface to challenge them and unloaded a decent looking (pretty is a strong word technopeople, you need to get out more) loadstone who (from what I've heard) consistently brow beat and bullied people smarter and better than herself in their own field of expertise.

For god's sake, if their search isn't depressing enough LOOK AT GOOGLE+! Awful, a travesty, and they've had to steal ideas from Microsoft as they seek to innovate! HA!

Poor Yahoo... Scott Thompson was actually a guy who knew how to make money and had successfully run something, this is not the "google in a bottle" you thought you were getting. Yahoo just got put on a 24 month deathwatch.

rt

Auto-updated me to v8, browser started completely freezing and crashing after 60 seconds. Worthless... as much as I love FF and everything it stands for, I don't need a buggy POS that rolls out another poorly QA'd product every two weeks. Switched to chrome and sadly happy with the decision.

-rt

While not directly related to Firefox, I submitted a bug for Thunderbird's import mechanism about 6-12 months post launch. Every year or so I get someone else posting to this still outstanding issue...

Bug fixes/support, the achilles heal of FOSS. Where are these folks who want to maintain existing software? Paging all autistic OCD programmers!

-rt

The problem is that the need for code reviews is driven by lax, sloppy developers who don't see regression testing as a requirement, and who foist crappy, untested code that, in many cases, they haven't even tested.

As a consulting exec (experience side) who oversees software delivery I can't even begin to express the stunning crap that I see developers submit for "qa/review". Crap that doesn't even WORK correctly in the first place is submitted for testing, with the QA feedback often "Does not work". Aside from the hours of UE and QA resources this burns with useless testing, it highlights what I think is both an increasing lack of accountability and a lack of professionalism within the development community in general.

What's driving this I have no idea... less formal CS training? Looser languages? Web-centric apps? Lower end standards? Higher demand = more crappy resources? Whatever it is I'm seeing it everywhere, and it's driving me nuts. The lack of an appreciate for regression testing is absolutely insane... code reviews are just symptomatic of a larger problem, which is a lack of quality and skill.

-rt

Saw this one coming a mile off. The iPod wasn't nearly the best player on the market, and yet it dominated everyone from iRiver to the Rio Karma by an absurd margin. Marketing + digital lifestyle = profit. How much of an idiot do you have to be not to see this one coming...

The only thing Android can fight for at this point is the product halo, but unfortunately between Apple TV, NFC iMacs, iPhone, and iPad (all of which speak together fairly easily) Apple's already ahead of the game for the living room. The big battle will be the content creators and providers, who aren't nearly as disorganized as the music industry.

-rt

About a paywall that prevents them from being a free-loading blog site?

Huffington Post, yet another vacuus shell that produces no value, delivers no real content, and can't survive as a pay business. How much did AOL pay again?

-rt

Seriously, maybe Slashdot should change it's title to "News from yesterday, stuff that might still matter".

I realize Slashdot isn't a news site, but seeing news or stories about things that happened days or weeks ago is a little ridiculous.

-rt

Because, you know, the modern web is about 13 years old, and the pace of evolution is INCREASING.

In 5 years we'll have batteries that cost 10% of the price with components that draw 5% of the power and work off environmental factors (super efficient solar panels). You're post sounds like it was made by the guys at Nokia making 1999 phones in a 2010 world. Stand still and die.

I for one am happy someone FINALLY bashed Nokia over the head. Maybe now they at least have a chance to survive, at least a better one than the buckethead bracket of Dell and HP.

-rt

Why does it take so long for someone to finally challenge crap like this? Every time someone asks me for this kind of information at the register it just makes me mad... with so many other ways to validate my identity there is zero excuse for exposing this kind of data to retailers.

Here's to hoping this cascades to other states... who am I kidding, somewhere a lobbyist is talking with a CA state senator about when and how quickly they can amend the law.

-rt