If you truly cannot afford it, the federal credit kicks in to defray the monthly cost. You can be compliant with the law at basically no cost to yourself if all you take is a Catastrophic or Bronze-level plan. After the credit, I'm paying $30/mo for low deductible/out of pocket health ins. with no co-insurance, for example.

And hospitals having to write off expenses from uninsured ER visits costs many billions of dollars each year -- which get passed on to the premiums of everyone who does pay for insurance. Isn't that a bit unfair?

I hope you're referring to the fact that OCZ *did* go bankrupt in large part due to its dodgy products...

I think the major issue here is: The blue pulsing light is a bit like the "blinking red light" or "check engine" light on a car. It can stem from a number of different things. There certainly seems to be QC issues with the HDMI port, and the provided HDMI cable is of rather poor quality. But another major issue seems to be Amazon shipping them with inadequate packaging, resulting in a lot of damaged systems that come up as "pulsing blue light."

The light could be from a bad HDD, faulty HDMI port, faulty cable, quirks with the TV's HDMI handling, etc.

It sounds like he continued to drive the vehicle after the system warned him not to, though. So I would say this is user error in continuing to drive the car. (Presumably what he hit punctured part of the battery?)

We'll have to see the direction he chooses to take the company now. As I understand it, before "Dude, you're getting a Dell!", Dell was actually known for making fairly good systems for a major brand. I remember working for CompUSA in the late 90s, and any Dell system we sold was required by them to go through a lengthy systems diagnostic process before being released to the customer. And some of their LCD monitors are known as being among the best. (Everyone raves about the U3011, etc.)

I think it really depends on WHAT you're coding. Yes, there are extremely technical and dry programming situations. (Assembly programming, industrial automation, etc) But then you have things related to web application/intranet application design that I consider a far more organic experience. Taking it even further, you get into game design and systems development, which can be fairly artistic in a sense.

As others have mentioned though: The great thing about learning to program, is it's great for teaching logic, problem-solving, etc. At least half my time programming or more is just figuring out how/the best way to even accomplish the goal.

I agree, to a point. I also have a manual and really enjoy driving. The problem is there are a ton of absolutely terrible drivers on the road. Both the incompetent kind, and the dangerously selfish kind. They cause a lot of accidents and/or are the source of most of a lot of horrific traffic jams/backups as they jockey lanes for perceived advantage, or can't properly merge into the highway.

A mostly automated system could virtually eliminate the idea of rush hour traffic or traffic jams, safely increase average speeds, and theoretically free up commute time for something more productive. (Depending on laws of what is or isn't allowed to be doing while on auto-pilot)

I realize this is /. so many may actually be doing workloads that require that sort of multi-threading. But the whole "more cores!" thing is completely lost on gaming and general computing. Games still primarily do their workload on 1-2 cores.

Yeah, don't even get me started on some of that stuff. I did delivery work, and this one lady had like 3 kids under the age of 5, youngest a baby with a tracheotomy and in-home care, and living in Section8 housing, etc. And she must have spent $100 a week on delivery food from us.

Of course, one has to consider then that the alternative is a large increase in crime instead, as they try to steal to get by. But for sure the welfare system could use an overhaul so that the honest people still benefit from it, while the loafers either get ejected or actually contribute.

I have little faith based upon a long history of individuals with little compassion taking advantage of the general populace. Just look at working conditions and employee rights in the 19th and early 20th centuries for what happens when the market is left to itself to "self-regulate" as it were. I shouldn't have to say it, but no I'm not saying the government should also just manage everything for us. But there are very real reasons much of our current legislation was enacted in the first place. The matter of the correct balance is of course, always up for debate.

Companies have a long history of offloading negative externalities onto the public and/or environment in order to increase profits. Hence why government stepped in to prevent them from just discharging toxic waste or sewage into waterways and into the air. Look at China's air quality issues atm for what happens when there are no controls.

As for healthcare itself: You're already paying for the people without healthcare. Billions of dollars are written off every year from ER visits by people without insurance or the money to pay for it. That money is then recovered by raising YOUR insurance rates. IMHO I would rather have everyone paying their fair share, than footing the bill for someone else.

Raising and educating people costs a lot of money. It's a loss to the economy and country as a whole if someone drops dead at age 50 from a preventable illness. That's at least 15 years of lost tax revenue and use of the education, not to mention possible passing on of that expertise to future generations.

IMHO Life Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness is a lot harder without healthcare. The well-being of citizens should be one of the primary goals of governance, and as such shouldn't be profited upon by corporations.

Unfortunately, I haven't seen something like this IRL yet, but I really like the idea. So much so, that if I ever get a tablet in about that profile size, I plan to have a friend make one for me with her industrial sewing machine.

http://i.imgur.com/XESYOdY.jpg (Robotics;Notes)

That's a screenshot from an animation set in the near-future. I don't have time to hunt down a more closeup shot, but essentially its sewn from leather, and holds the tablet in the small of your back. Secured by one of those hardened plastic speed-screws with a metal threading inset.

The Management Computer Systems degree at my Uni used to require Calc3 and 2 semesters of stats. Over the last 10 years they've basically gone down to requiring 1 semester of stats, and I believe 1 semester of Calculus. Possibly just Trig. I took AP Calc in HS so I haven't looked at that part of my AR closely. And my degree is known to be excellent and with 100% placement out of college, so I assume they know what employers are looking for.

I'm content with business applications development, or possibly coding in a game design capacity. If it ever came to the point that I felt I needed more advanced math to advance in my career, I would just go back and take more advanced math courses. Because short of having a CS degree with a full math minor, having taken dynamics or whatnot will only appear on a transcript.

This is when you get a P.O. Box for all important mail like bills, etc. Then after awhile when you know only unwanted mail is coming to your regular mail -- do mail forwarding or Change of Address to have USPS automatically send all of it to your ex ;)

I think very few artists would be proficient enough at programming to contribute to software as complex as photo manipulation software.

We use a lot of things that we have no idea how it works, or how to build it.