I think it would really have to depend on what the tests were doing. If the tests were just goldbricking code testing random crap, yeah, 1:4 C:T is crazy. If you really are validating functionality and business logic, is 1:4 C:T so crazy? I would feel a little more fearless about changing a system if the tests were that comprehensive.
Now, we need someone to package Asterisk in a form that democratizes telephony to people without Federal Excise Fees (taxed for the privilege of doing local communications), Transit Taxes (paying for mass transit despite the fact you're not using it because you're using the phone) and many other "Taxes" or "Non-governmental Taxes" (things that are called "taxes" but aren't mandated by any governmental organization. (See http://www.cavtel.com/support/Taxes_and_Fees.shtml for all the shenanigans.)
Get rid of "phone numbers" and just give everyone as many 160-bit "numbers" as they want for their phone numbers. Allow people to change these numbers whenever they want. If they experience harassment, make it easy to set up whitelists for conditional forwarding (if the originating call isn't on the whitelist, forward it, tell those on the whitelist what the new number is, etc.). These calls could be forwarded to the "Internet enforcers" that are so keen on outing Internet douchbags. Use DHT's for directory services/yellow pages and set up a gigantic overlay "network" on the Internet (using strong encryption where allowed).
Then you can start destroying the $~500B telecom industry with a "software application." $7B is nothing, go for the big fish. Don't attack hardware (in this case, PBXen), attack systems. Here, we're just going to cut out earmarked taxation and faux earmarks from your phone bills and corporate inefficiency (How much of your phone bill is going to all that marketing to convince people to use something they already know they want/need?) It's far more gratifying.
I've seen people who have never heard of "folders" save 50-60,000 items in one folder. NFTS (if they keep it), slows to a crawl every time that folder's accessed because I don't believe its storing the entries in a tree.
The other possibility is all of the memory mapping of hundreds of little libraries into the system plays havoc with code locality and L1, L2 caches in microprocessors. Since Vista is trying to be "more secure", there are probably more monitors and validation between these address spaces than there were before.
Now with Vista on just "what the libraries are doing", maybe they just turned a bunch of interns loose on a bunch of API's embedded in those libraries and they did the "almost simplest thing" that could possibly work without thought to performance. "Get it working and ship! Optimize it later."
I find Vista a nuisance to users who complain that nothing looks the same and the "trivial" modifications of user-interface derail the "learned-by-rote" user.
Microsoft would do the world a gigantic favor if they just conceded and made the world "Microsoft Linux." Apple did the right thing already with adopting a "UNIX" core to base their systems and and put all the money into UI and feature improvements. Microsoft is spending too much time overworking their engineers who work on continual bomb squad responses to exploding deck chairs to focus on usability for users.
It really needs to be the size of a legal pad, use a stylus, abusable like a legal pad (very durable), WiFi, maybe e-paper for output. Nothing should slide, fold or twist--just a slab of input/computation/output. almost completely sealed, it should easily survive a coffee spill.
bonus points for something like ultravnc support so it can just be an extension of your desktop display.
http://whitehouse.gov. I think we're all are being invoiced $80,000 for the last eight years or so. /political-snipe aside, I pay for online web hosting, netflix and little else.
I've been through the Google interview process [I'm not going to blog about it with any sour grapes, I'll try again for a different position later.], and I realized afterwards that it was a lot like map-reduce. You're being thrown through a bunch of interviews by different people (the map phase) who then forward their reports to their hiring committee (the reduce phase). Every interviewer is seeking to do a similar kind of analysis on you: are you worthy of hiring? Then they gather it all together and grind the sausage. They probably interview thousands of people to harvest enough talent to fuel their progress, unlike other organizations that only hire to fill known needs.
They don't tell you why they approve/reject, but I imagine that they probably have a similar process on the other side if you are hired with regards to the package you're offered. Very likely, they'll seek to optimize the right amount to give you.
And yes, I do think they're probably missing out some great talent, because not everyone can scribble it out on a white board on-the-spot. But you have to be able to communicate effectively to get anywhere, even in Google.
I remember the fun days of CMBBS, C-Base, and later everyone making some nice BBS systems, it was cool to see what you could do with the Commodore Basic, BLITZing it up and hosting it. Some of the older BBS systems rival the features provided by communities today greatly. Then there was the continuous dialing up other regional boards over and over again until you got an answer.
There were some really nice games in the limited way of BBSing, a premonition of MMORPG's and other network strategy games that addict people today.
Okay, so far, we have ClickableBliss' Billable, FreshBooks, SlimTimer and Rescue time. Only Billable is stand-alone, the others are services that require working Internet.
But even then, this shows me four I've never heard of before. :)