the USSR was not, was never, and probably never will be a socialist country. It was and is a dictatorship that happens to use socialist rhetoric. China also falls into this. I think the best description for both is 'Kleptocracy', government run by thieves stealing for themselves. For a real socialist country see Canada and Germany.

While I'm on the subject, if socialism means nobody will work if they don't have to how come Mitt Romney still has a job?

after a lifetime of getting my ass kicked here I don't have enough to offer true socialist country (they do still have immigration standards). My education was pretty low quality (meant to keep me off the streets while I was young and potentially violent), my falling wages have left me in debt up to my ears with virtually no assets. The one asset I had (a house) is now worthless since I'm stuck moving every few years to go where the work is.

If you look at where creativity and innovation is coming from it's almost exclusively socialist countries. In reality You need a strong safe net to take those risks. The Mitt Romney's of the world never take risks. They're fathers and mothers and buddies shield them from all that.

Like most DARPA competitions, this is not for novel research into techniques. The solution is usually selected from available technologies. I'm assuming that the most likely candidate is MIMO and null steering.

at any rate I second the sentiment. It's not a War if there is no organized opposition. A few terrorists / Bunch 'o guys with guns != an armed force / Military.

a huge portion of the smog in any city is from cars idling in drive thru restaurants. So yeah, ban fast food and we all get cleaner air.

and point out that right up until about 1950 there was regular terrorism and atrocities perpetrated against minorities (not just blacks, we did the Irish until there was too many of them to be a minority). Basically, there used to be a socially acceptable whipping boy for this sort of thing, and we kinda don't like to talk about that...

You can't stop it. But you can withstand it. I find it amusing that they would do it to Bank of America, to be honest. Their service was always spotty without any outside "assistance".

Nah, only religions which have not gone through a reformation causing an introspection and self moderation. Islam is one of them. Christianity, for example, doesn't cause irrational behavior in otherwise rational people. Nor does Judaism or Buddhism. Islam does.

that's not how it works. You go to a good school (Harvard, Yale, etc), make connections, and use those connections to become a CEO and get on the Board of Directors at companies. Seriously. That's the way it works. You're middle manager boss does not, in fact, run the world. No matter how much you hate him. It's an elite group of old money asshats.

they don't need you to buy their goods. If the top 1% already claim ownership over or most property in the world (which they're gradually doing, they're somewhere between 50% and 80% in the states) then why do they need you? They don't even have to bother selling you anything, because you don't have anything they want. They don't need your labor (there's already too much of that going around), you own nothing (because they own everything in this scenario). They don't need you.

Moreover, the quality of their lives is enriched by your poverty. People worship and idolize the rich. How does this make them feel? Good? Really good? What would it be like to live a life where you never have a conflict that isn't instantly and effortlessly resolved because you have so much wealth people fall over themselves to do as you say? That's what people mean when they say they want power. The want the ability to do as they please without consequences. For themselves anyway.

just another sign of it. Why should we outrace robots to survive just because we lost the vagina lottery? I keep hearing these conservatives spout off about how it'll never get that bad because they rich need us to buy their crap. That's the stupidest thing I've seen since the guy with the 'Keep the govmmit out of my medicare!' sign. Jeez, it's right there in you're economics -> Over supply of labor + shortage of Goods means the goods get more profitable to sell and cheaper to make. Notice how Apple computer is the most profitable company in history?

if you're at the low end (R4850, GT240, etc) AMD's stuff is pretty useless. They just crash a lot on everything except the biggest titles. It drive me nuts, because the grandparent is right, AMD has much, much better image quality. I've heard their high end ($300+) doesn't have this issue, but I'm old and broke (family and such) so that ain't happening.

if it's too good to be true it probably is.

Actually the newest displays are so high density most people's eyes can't resolve the pixels, so an iPad might as well be a vector monitor.

just tax the hell out of them. Believe it or not people aren't just going to leave this country. At least not if we don't send our Military to help them when they get in a bind in a foreign country. If they want to go home that's fine, but they don't get to take the ball. It's ours.