1972 - parents working as teacher and nurse, moved into their first house with a modest mortgage (in Canada, I should mention). Lots of free time, not tons of money, but enough, and already had a cottage/camp, which boggles the mind
2008 - grim... looked like my employer (small startup) was about to fold, was picked up for a dime by a billion-dollar company
2012 - fixing up my first house (bought last year at age 40 cash-only). Still w/ the same company that acquired the startup. Daughter and wife are healthy and happy.

Subjectively...
1972 -> 2008 worse
2008 -> 2012 better
1972 -> 2012 about the same

... and off production/consumption treadmill. I r writer!

Nicely said, from another math/cs/physics/engineering type. Wish I had mod points for you. My wife is terrible at maths... fine with arithmetic and the most basic algebra, but I fail to see how making her struggle with factoring quadratic equations helped her (or society) in any way. One of the most brilliant programmers I've ever met is a terrible speller. Perhaps he should have been denied his high school diploma?

Wow, only took a few minutes for judgmental dude to jump in, and get modded up +5 insightful. That's what I love about Slashdot. Many employers (especially small companies) allow for personal use within certain restrictions. Many personal details can be left behind from work-related tasks such as registrations on intraweb sites, HR forms, and travel sites (including personal credit card to charge business trips later refunded). It's a valid question. But I feel your need to judge. In fact, I am doing it right now. Maybe you are at work right now. Are you stealing the company's electricity to charge your phone?

Time to call it a week. My wistful expression of preference has been met with a bias alert by a dad in Portland. Internet, why do I bother with you. Yet I've learned something. Apparently there are some good TV programs. Who knew. Eat shit, snark sig troll.

I hate it when good radio programs go away. Dr Dean Edell, now this. I don't know what it is, but I've always felt a stronger connection to radio than TV. I guess it's that I'm an old fart. But radio is so much more personal with less glitz, extraneous distraction. At least I still have As It Happens.

... such as Austin. Opportunities abound. There many small companies who are eager to hire smart, motivated folks with demonstrated capabilities, regardless of the field of their degree. Wait... *don't* move here. There are already too many people here.

This is giving me a huge bulge of my own. How long until New York freezes over like in The Day After Tomorrow?

He's a fraudster. Name one other case where an invention or useful implement has preceded the theoretical framework to explain it. Oh wait...
I don't know whether Rossi has found something novel and commercialized it. Neither do you. Time will tell. AFAIK he hasn't been taking prepayment for delivery of the devices, even though it would be rather trivial to setup the infrastructure to accept $100 payments to be "first in line" for later delivery of home units. If/when he does this, I will be first to suspect fraud.

How long before T-Mobile's reasonably-priced prepaid plans vanish? I give it 6-12 months.

Demo 20 seconds into this vid: http://www.adultswim.com/video/?episodeID=095290d81130331d905bbdf900ab219a

I commend their bravado in creating an OS from scratch, but can't see what need is addressed by this endeavor. Just how often does a truly novel OS gain a significant foothold in the desktop/server market? It took Linux many years, and its feet were firmly planted in Unix tradition. If nothing else, it's an effective way of generating traffic to their consulting site.