I appreciate your answer to this question. You make a rational argument where so many others that I've talked to jump straight into "the terrorists hate our freedom!" type arguments. I happen to be more cynical and I don't believe that our civilian leaders are simply "acting early," but I respect that you at least supported your position rationally.

What I really take issue with is this:

I do not support what's happening at Guantanamo Bay. I voted for Obama in 2008 largely because he vowed to close it. He won the election, and yet he did not close it. That is the strongest example I have of why you cannot blame the electorate; we simply don't get what we vote for.

Furthermore, those same civilian leaders who tell us that the war on terror is necessary also tell us that marijuana is dangerous and that "legitimate rape" doesn't result in pregnancy. At what point should we start holding people responsible for believing them? Even if the civilian voter does believe them, they aren't the ones pulling the triggers.

This might be it for me too.

To be honest though, I don't come to slashdot for the stories; I don't even RTFA most of the time. I come here for the discussions.
As long as the Slashdot community sticks around, I will stick around as well -- no matter what the editors do. Unfortunately I think this article marks the beginning of the end for the community.

That's what I thought at first too, but maybe they're just getting the benefit of the doubt because the cost of a legal case (regardless of whether they were guilty or innocent) would put them out of business.

The Constitution is like the Bible. It's supposedly sacred and infallible, but It's not meant to be taken literally and you have to let the courts interpret it for you (in the context of their own personal interests). As time passes, more and more of it gets flat-out ignored, and eventually it will only ever be read as an academic exercise by historians.

IF buying an iPad were actually a replacement for buying texbooks, then this really would be a good idea. I would gladly pay out of pocket for an iPad if it allowed me to exclusively use ebook versions of my textbooks. In fact, I would even refrain from pirating those ebooks if they were sold for a reasonable price

In reality though, I doubt it would work that way. Because ebooks are easily pirated, textbook publishers would have a hard time sustaining their racket if universities started switching over. For some reason, universities seem to actually care about what happens to publishers, so I can't imagine that many universities would be willing to require professors to choose only textbooks that have an ebook version available.

Even if it did happen, professors would just say "exams are open-book, but no computers are allowed." This would force students to spend $200+ on a physical copy even though they already paid for iPads with PDFs of the textbooks.

Basically, nothing that makes education cheeper or more convenient for students will ever work. Universities don't care about students.

Yup. It's even worse for those of us that don't have HD TVs. When on-screen instructions appear, the only way I can understand them is from the colors.

I disagree.
A school facility that doesn't feel like a prison can really change a student's attitude, and that's the most important part of education.

I'm not sure about LA, but where I live even homeless people already have easy access to modern computers and the internet. A student who wants to learn will learn, and student who doesn't want to learn won't learn. No ammount of classroom computers or teachers will change that.

If this one-time cost of half a billion dollars can make kids take pride in their education for as long as the school exists, then it's completely worth it.

That might not actually happen, but it's worth a shot.

The things we use computers for are different from the things we use humans for.

Computers are consistant and predictable. The human brain is not.

We have billions of human brains cheaply available, so let's use those when we want a human brain. And let's use computers when we want computers.

The worst part is that the police will be using it.
Imagine if the courts actually believed that it was tamper proof.

I've been studying Japanese for years, and flashcard software has really helped me with the Chinese characters. iFlash for OSX is an excellent tool.

As others have said, there's no way around the need for repetition and a lot of practice.

Also, diligence is extremely important. If you're not using them, then you forget the characters very quickly. If you're not careful you might actually find that you're forgetting characters as quickly as you're learning new ones.

Not if he didn't like the kid.
You can't really say "the loss of his child is punishment enough," because that would provide an easy way out for anybody who didn't want their kid anymore: Just pretend to like him for a couple years then leave a loaded gun lying around.
Way easier than 18 years of child support.

Heh, I've gotten the actual answers to a test that hadn't happened yet by guessing the URL.