That is what tracking your billable hours means....

Clocking in and out is, however, common for hourly employees.

My grandma loves her new Windows 8 computer. She hasn't called me for help at all since she got it--a vast improvement over her old Mac laptop and XP desktop.

There are a lot more who use their ecosystem than you think. All of their services work very well together, the Music and Video services have anything I could ever want (seriously, more current TV shows than anywhere else I've seen), the email calendar and other things work together, Skydrive is incredibly useful.

If you don't think Microsoft's ecosystem is competitive, it tells me you haven't tried it.

I didn't even know MS had a video service. A little Googling and I got to "Xbox Video". I thought that was only available via the Windows 8 app (or Xbox) but it looks like any Silverlight-capable browser will work. e.g. http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-US/TVShow/The-Guild/Season/0/...

Good companies should not have a single point of failure. If they do, the only way they'll learn to live without you is if you're not there.

Just take a break. Go somewhere that doesn't have cell phone coverage. (Alternatively, just turn it off when you get on the plane and leave it off until you get off the plane coming back.) Don't pay for internet. I did that a few months ago on my trip to Italy. Best. Vacation. Ever.

It's really not that long. TL;DR is for the lazy or people who should be working but aren't.

"people who should be working but aren't."

Sooooo all of HN, then?

A pilot probably wouldn't know how all the systems work together. (They probably know what ACARS and ADS-B -do-, but not the implementation details.) You would want an avionics engineer--so someone who works at Honeywell, Rockwell-Collins, Garmin, etc.

If you can access the wiring in the aircraft, especially with the new fly-by-wire stuff, you could cause problems. None of the communications are encrypted (as far as I know), because it's pretty much assumed you can trust what's on the a/c buses. Also, redundancy helps get rid of erroneous data when it only shows up on one bus.

I don't know much about ACARS and ADS-B. While it wouldn't surprise me if there were problems, we also tend to notice rogue transmissions in our spectrum. Much more quickly than people realize.

"4mericans" might actually work.

Bombardier also build CRJs, business jets (Globals, Challengers and Learjets), does government work and builds fire-fighting aircraft. Oh, and the C-Series is a brand new a/c entering into the lower end of the Boeing market.

That being said, building even these small aircraft is a multi-billion dollar investment. If people here think that software design is hard. It takes a monumental amount of work to design a commercial aircraft and the manufacturing processes around it. Oh, and then there is the test phase. That part is fun.

When I was out of the country on vacation recently, I didn't turn on my phone and I didn't bring my computer. I didn't have internet (because I refuse to pay for internet at hotels) either.

Writing (by hand) in a journal and just experiencing the place you are in can be amazing. I found that some of the most amazing parts of my trip were when I (a) was not trying to takes pictures or something and just took it all in or (b) when I was writing in my journal about what had happened during the day.

Every time I've gone without a computer/phone for several days has been wonderful. I really should do it more often, but I have a job where I have to use both all day...

Or, you know, you can just say something like: - "I'm in the middle of something right now. I'll call you back." - "Hey, I can't talk right now. Try again after 3." - "Hey, I've got a call on the other line that I need to take. Talk to you later!"