Opportunity costs.

Don't forget we feed the world. Agriculture and Intellectual Property are still a good chunk of the economy. Even with silicon valley and hollywood, agriculture is the biggest part of our economy here in California. Not manufacturing, perhaps, but also not service.

I'd suggest it all started going downhill when the courts reclassified News as Infotainment, and stated that it didn't have to be true.

"Long Island is an island in the U.S. state of New York. Stretching northeast from New York Harbor into the Atlantic Ocean, the island comprises four counties, including two (Kings and Queens) that form the New York City boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens, and two (Nassau and Suffolk) that are farther out on the island and mainly suburban. Although all four counties are part of the greater New York metropolitan area,[2] the name "Long Island" is often reserved in popular usage for only Nassau and Suffolk counties, as distinct from those lying within New York City proper. North of the island is Long Island Sound, across which are the states of Connecticut and Rhode Island." -Wikipedia

How can anyone think this is insightful? Monster Storm! Better safe than sorry! Oh, well then we should do the same for a totally different scenario not involving as much risk. Insightful?

Right. But the monster storm is. The point being there is a monster storm.

The severity of the storm is related to the heating of the ocean, which is due to global warming. It is a monster, but the monster stumbled and didn't go quite where they thought.

Seemed as though you were saying that modern editors made up for the difficulties, so it was OK for languages to suck. In what way does that reflect "the right tool for the job"? Seems like its more in the lines of "if you want to use a double-bladed axe as a hammer, wear gloves".

I think you mean it is easier to type?

So rather than teach your kid to not defecate on the floor, you'd buy them nice mops?

That is about the break point between windows 2.0 and windows 3.0, with only the later doing "windows" as is commonly meant today. Windows 2 could only tile.

Number Theory has application today, oh yes. Hellman (two 'l's, not one) had a BS, MS, and PhD in Electrical Engineering. Diffie had a bachelor's degree in Mathematics. My question is this: after Number Theory was shown to have applications how many Mathematicians lost interest due solely to the fact that it was no longer "pure" math? I knew a topologist who grew embarrassed and closed his office door before discussing relativity. It just wouldn't do to be interested in applications. Perhaps I should have drawn the distinction less about abstract vs concrete, and more about pure vs applied.

I agree in regard to logic. Critical thinking needs to be taught as early as the human mind can comprehend it. This is essential, and it isn't being done. I disagree that number theory is appropriate. Some of the applications of number theory are useful, certainly, but I couldn't apply number theory theory to either my CS or my Physics degree. I think Information Theory would be more useful, or Operations Research, even, for that matter.

Finally. When I was in High School, calculators where not allowed. In HS Chem and Physics we could at least use slide rules. In Math, it was just pencil and paper. Most people need to learn to calculate in order to solve specific problems. Math as its known and taught today isn't the way to teach the general population to do either. I'd suggest that buying HS students a laptop and a copy of Mathematica, and then teaching them to use it, would pay for itself in terms of how swiftly both the general concepts as well as actual calculating ability would be instilled. Many, many more people would be capable of using advanced maths if only they could leverage these rather inexpensive tools. Is it more important to memorize multiplication tables, or to understand intuitively what Div, Grad, and Curl are, and how to use them? Why not let even people with 400 Math SAT scores understand and be able to apply the concepts of Calc and DiffEq (and Probability and Statistics) without having to work so hard at it?

Agreed. But I'd say that in relation to not just any, but indeed to all branches of Science, Statistics are very nearly priceless.