There's no way to win a conversation like this, but I would expect (and request) that a bunch of nerds who obviously feel strongly about a topic like this would take it upon themselves to become familiar with the large volume of research, both empirical and theoretical, related to the strategy of protecting oneself against violent crime by means of maintaining firearms. And then form a reasoned opinion on the topic that is orthogonal to however you may feel about your 2nd amendment rights.

I'm not too lazy to look up and cite sources for you, I just know that whatever I cite will immediately be considered biased by a large majority of people and ignored outright. Try "are homes with guns safer?" or "do concealed weapons deter crime?" and ignore the mass media crap.

I know, next thing you now people will be publishing information about where I live, how much I paid for my house, and who I have my mortgage with.

Or, people will be publishing my social graph, showing all the people I'm friends with and communicate with on a regular basis.

Or, every time someone takes a picture with me in it it will be automatically entered into a database showing where I was and when.

Or, every product I purchase, every ad I click on, every web search I do, will be aggregated and used for various nefarious purposes.

Seriously, you have much more to fear from corporations exploiting you via the information you share with them (willingly or incidentally) than you do from a democratic government. The motives of the corporation are profit, pure and simple. I.M.H.O.

Umm, Walmart is already the Walmart of guns.

Despite working in the relatively mundane programming environments of enterprise and system software and consumer internet over 15 or so years, I've been amazed at how often calculus and linear algebra have simplified solutions and/or revealed solutions I wouldn't otherwise have found. This despite the fact that early in my career, after graduating with a computer engineering degree with a math-heavy curriculum, I was much more skeptical like you.

Most recently, I've found calc and lin algebra valuable in applying machine learning techniques (neural nets and clustering analysis with big data) and earlier in my career in understanding adaptive audio/video networking protocols. I don't think I've ever 'implemented' calculus in software directly, but it was necessary in formulating the solutions that were eventually coded up.

Obviously, some domains (game programming, genetics work, etc) are naturally more math intensive, and I've been doing spare-time work related to space and rocketry, and found I've had to go back and study my old math materials (and even learn some new stuff) to even begin to make progress in the field.

A lot of programmers I know who are content to just build web sites, intranets, etc. have very little use for anything over algebra, honestly. But that's a different kind of job than I think most people graduating with cs or ce degrees are interested in.

My invention is a system and method for the Automated Analysis of Patent Filings to determine which companies are submitting things that are obvious, anticompetitive, practically worthless, and/or generally inclined to stifle rather than spur innovation. These factors will be used to produce a "conclusion report" that compares a company to others in the field to help job-seekers 'avoid wasting time with trolls and bloated relics from days gone by.'

Im afraid that there's a lot of sampling bias going here. The only time a decision (whether in education or anything else) shows up in a discussion in major media (or slashdot) is when it is perceived as extreme. So while this may look like an extreme reaction of the sort we're "always" seeing, the fact is that there are hundreds and thousands of other potential stories that we're not seeing, precisely because they are more moderate.

Discussions of this type - exploring the extremes - are very useful for teasing out the important issues to be considered. Are we letting technology actually decrease the effectiveness of education? Is it the technology itself that is problematic, or have we failed to properly understand how we should be using it? Or are we failing to control how we use it, in the same way so many people struggle with how to control their eating habits?

I think what you call arrogance is what a lot of people would see as idealism, or at least, being consistent with the ideals of an open internet. I, for one, don't understand why Blogger has any obligation whatsoever to any foreign government. I am probably unrealistically naive, but i still believe in an internet that transcends nationality, and I'm afraid I don't see the exchange of services or information over the Internet as the necessary equivalent of 'doing business' in any traditional sense.

Some governments may choose to try to block access to Blogger if they don't like the content, which is sad and has undoubtedly already happened. The response of Blogger and the rest of the Internet community should be to work to restore that access. I don't pretend it's an easy problem, but this action to move to ccTLDs looks like a dangerous compromise.

We're all very familiar around here with the history of the Internet and the important role governments have played in its development, but it just seems to be going backwards to start drawing political boundaries over this beautiful mess we've created. We have something here that can bring us to a better world than we've been able to achieve by carving up the planet into geopolitical territories; we shouldn't be selling it short to placate entrenched interests.

...as will the iPhone soon, undoubtedly.

I own a 1913 Model T, which I believe is the first year that they were only available in black. According to the same source, it's not known whether Ford ever said that quote or not, and it is true that:

"In the first year, Model T Fords were not available in black at all, but only in Gray, Red, and Brewster Green."

There's a subtle thing here that I think often gets lost in discussions of this nature. The fact is that much (most?) innovation is "top-down" in the sense that there is one person holding the entire idea in their head that ultimately drives its attainment. That person might be a team of one, in which case they are just managing themselves, or they might have 20 people reporting to them that they can direct.

Whether you consider the resulting innovation top-down or bottom-up really depends on the context of that person within their organization. (And if you are in the organization, it depends on your own position in relation to that person).

Consider a manager in a company like Google who has 20 people reporting to her. Imagine that this manager has a vision of some innovation she believes she can achieve through the work of her 20-strong team, and so she manages the team in an extremely hierarchical and directed way in order to achieve it. She sets goals for individuals, she approves all design decisions, she vetoes any aspect of the project - at any level - that she doesn't like or that don't fit into her vision of how the result should look.

If the result of this process is ultimately perceived to be some Great Innovation (say, something like Google Maps), then outside observers are very likely to point at this as an example of why "bottom-up" is the best way to get innovation. After all, the manager was low-level, and was operating outside the direct influence of upper management, such that the innovation "emerged" rather than was designed from the top down.

Yet this same scenario tweaked such that the manager is instead the CEO of a 20 person company suddenly looks like the epitome of "top-down" hierarchy a la Steve Jobs. People will point at the CEO and say that she is controlling and hierarchical. But, again, if the result is good, this will be used as an example for why top-down hierarchies are "good" for innovation.

I've witnessed this directly in my own career. Several years back, as the lead of a team of ~20 people, I developed "innovative" new products that were not dictated by upper management of my 2000-person employer. It was seen as 'bottom-up' innovation in the organization, even though I was fairly hierarchical with the team and driving them to my vision. No matter, it was 'bottom-up' because I was innovating without being instructed by my bosses. Flash forward to being CEO of a 40+ person company with a ~20 person product/engineering team. The same characteristics that brought me success and the perception of "bottom-up" success at the large company are now perceived as "top-down" and controlling in this organization.

Jobs and Ford also agreed (for quite some time) on:

"You can have any color you want, as long as it's black."

If all they try to do is use different part numbers for the same product, it's obvious how it will work out (won't).

Their only Strengths are anything requiring a physical presence (immediate gratification, in-store trial, service/repair, dealing with old people). There are lots of Weaknesses and Threats: inventory, pricing, and the fact that anything that can be duplicated will be sold online for others, and for cheap..

This is a rather straightforward, if ultimately hopeless, attempt to mitigate the Threat by creating unique products that, because they are unique to their store, can't be sold online. Just a protectionist use of trademark.

One Opportunity I haven't seen tried out at a large scale is a model where "in-store trials" are financed even absent an actual sale. For example, let people come in and play with all of your laptops/tablets/cell phones, etc., but charge directly for the access (e.g., $5 for a day pass, applied toward any purchase made, with monthly/annual plans or whatever). Let people browse and physically touch things they might be interested, and if they like it, they're free to buy it wherever they want (e.g., online). With all of the consumer clutter, they could even be providing a new service - curation - to help people find the best available products.