That depends on where you post your wisdom.

The book describes a USENET system that is used by professional political analysts to debate issues and post opinion pieces, the best of which get selected to news media publication. Eventually they both get hired by national papers to write regular columns.

They were columnists, not bloggers. They cut their teeth on the professional level discussion boards, then started writing articles for legitimate news papers, and eventually became professional columnists for prominent new agencies.

They were smart enough to realize that the path to political clout was not though a blog or an amateur discussion site, but by acquiring real jobs as columnists for the best news sites. We can post political genius all day on our Facebook page or here on Slashdot and it will not get us anywhere. However, if instead we became professional columnists and worked hard to get a regular column on the WAPO or NYT and posted our wisdom there...the political powers will begin to materialize.

Lots of companies force employees to track their time. Even salary employees who legally do not have to punch a clock to get paid. That's fine. It helps them for future estimates and proposals involving labor hours. It can be a very valuable tool.

However, all too often management begins to use these time tracking systems to try and shift overhead expenses to something billable to a customer. You walk in and read e-mails on billing guidance on how regular staff meetings, training, and even fire drills are billable to customers. Then another e-mail on billing guidance informs you that the normal overhead related billing is now forbidden unless given explicit authorization (that you will never get). Essentially, they are lying to themselves, that they have zero overhead when running their business. That nothing ever goes wrong and no one has to wait for anything.

But the one thing they forget is that by charging their customers for everything, they are charging them too much for services. The business is now vulnerable to any other business that can provide the same service and not charge their overhead to the customer.

A while back, a friend an I talked about this and we had a pretty neat solution for problem 4.

The problem is preventing collisions while still allowing freedom of navigation. We came up with a system where at a certain altitude you must travel in a certain direction and at a certain speed. (We assumed that take-off and landing would be done at something resembling an airport where a control system of some sort would manage transitioning down from a certain altitude.) As you increase altitude, your direction yaws right and your speed increases. (speed being a target speed you should be flying at) Basically, like cars travel on roads that are directional lines with assigned speeds, flying cars travel on roads that are directional layers with assigned altitudes and speeds.

GPS, transponders, and mapping software aid the drivers. GPS units can plan routes between destinations and coordinate the proper altitude and airspeed to the autopilot. Transponders transmit vin, altitude, airspeed, position, and heading to traffic around it to allow them to make adjustments to avoid collisions (all within the altitude-airspeed-direction framework). Mapping software can tell the GPS where there are Restricted Airspaces like airports, cities, or tall mountains so the GPS can route around it. The tricky part is anticipating possible collisions, but with transponder info it should be much easier to calculate.

Q: "How much of Middle Earth would you like to see on film?"

A: As much as they can. The Silmarillion would make a great TV series.

As for The Hobbit. I had thought that two films at 3 hours a piece would be just enough to tell the bulk of the story. (starting the journey and a couple of the incidents up to Mirkwood along with the white council and some Dol Guldor scenes in the first film then Mirkwood, Dale, and Erebor and wraping up Dol Guldor in the second) But I had thought they would have to skimp on the Dol Guldor action to make it fit.
With 3 films to work with, you can cut them down to 2 and a half hours each and have an extra hour and a half to tell more about the White Council and Dol Guldor. I'm OK with this.

Knuckel-balls are not as simple as "a tube .... that follows a smooth curve." That is a wobbling knuckle-ball, and is generally what people think of. This is usually the first pitch knuckle-ball, does not really move much but you can control it better to get that first strike. But if that is all you have got, then you are going to hit around a bit. That is not the strike-out knuckle-ball. By making minor changes in the grip, you can produce more movement that can cause it to dive, cut-in, and break-away. One of the guys that taught me had a knuckle-ball that he could snake in almost at will, much more movement than the smooth curved tube. If first broke slightly left to appear to be wide of the strike zone but then broke hard right to fall back in for a strike. The problem is that good hitters can anticipate it after seeing it a few times.

A good Knuckle-ball has a slight rotation. Somewhere between half a turn and a turn and a half on it's way to the plate. This slow rotation slightly changes how the seam are presented to the high pressure area in the front thereby changing the disruption of the airflow around the ball. Just like an airfoil will cause low pressure on the top of a wing creating lift and moving the plane up, these changing disruptions cause temporary low pressure areas on the ball and cause a small amount of "lift" in a vectored direction from the center of the mass of the baseball. If these happen rapidly and evenly over the front surface, you get the wobbling knuckle-ball like he describes. If they appear mostly on one side, it will move in that direction. With practice, you can begin to throw the wobbler when you want a strike and a hard breaking knuckler when you want to get them to chase a pitch out of the zone by slightly changing your grip and orientation.

As an aside, and interesting read is The Physics of Baseball by Robert Adair
http://www.amazon.com/The-Physics-Baseball-3rd-Edition/dp/0060084367
(Though, I have to disagree with his opinion on the effect of ball rotation on a batted ball. If I remember correctly, he states that the effect is negligible. IMO and experience, I believe it is noticeable and sometimes determines fair/foul as some batted balls hook much more than others.)

Agreed. '51 Gort's first appearance in the movie is a classic "Oh SNAP!" moment in cinema. That and the fact that he has no lines, but does all his talking with his death/disintegration beam and karate-chop-action. Oh yeah, and "There's no limit to what Gort could do. He could destroy the Earth."

The "Best" is going to greatly depend on lots of things including, but not limited to, how well you folded it, throw it, paper type, relative humidity, altitude, etc.

That said, I ran across this a few years ago:
http://www.instructables.com/id/KlineFogleman-Airfoil-1-Paper-Airplane/
It requires very accurate folding, but if done right with the right kind of paper and flown in good conditions it can be impressive. The airfoil turns some of the drag into lift and stability. The two guys that patented the airfoil wrote a book about it some years ago.

Also, there is a difference between making a plane for record distance and making a plane for record time aloft. The former needs minimal drag while the latter needs maximum lift.

This should also be linked with that chart:
http://blog.xkcd.com/2011/04/26/radiation-chart-update/

Even since then, more data has been collected as noted by it's Wikipedia article.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disaster
A quick excerpt:
"However, the largest study, as of 21 October 2011, on Fukushima fallout concludes that Fukushima was "the largest radioactive noble gas release in history not related to nuclear bomb testing. The release is a factor of 2.5 higher than the Chernobyl 133Xe source term.""

While politically motivated scaremongering is not sane, Sanity's position on the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Disaster may have to take a few steps in that direction.

Have to disagree. I had a lot of fun with SimCity 2000, even bought Streets of SimCity. But I am having more fun now with SimCity 4 + Rush Hour. Jumping into a police car and turning on the siren and racing around town while the citizens pull over, climbing into a tank and blowing up a building or two (hopefully the right one), that's FUN. The rest of the game is generally better too, more road types, zone types (like agricultural).

If you are a SimCity fan and don't have SimCity 4 + Rush Hour, you are missing out big time.

FYI, a patch came out for D2 a few years ago that allowed for a free character respec. I believe there was also a way to get another one, via some items.

I do not own a cell/mobile phone nor have I ever owned one in the past.

Why?
At first, it was because it was not that useful to me due to coverage issues and it is not required for my job, so why waste the money.
Then, it became that I could not afford it due to saving up for a house. It's easy to do without when you have never had. 6 years of savings on phone plans and fees may not be much, but it is still something. (2 phones)
Then, it became that I could not afford it due to having a mortgage.
Now, it is because that I am saving up for a house. (I was forced to sell.)

How?
Well, I get my land-line in the bundle from the cable company. That thing rings more than I care to answer it.
I generally prefer to Skype with video.
On the few occasions where I had car trouble, I was able to use free phones and services to get assistance.
The situations that occur the most where I go "If only I had a cell/mobile" are those rare instances where you have a plan for doing something and then something happens that causes you to change those plans and now you have no way of notifying the other people in the plan because either they and or you don't have a cell/mobile. That and double checking the grocery list.

And for the most controversial statement: Cells/Mobiles are not a necessity. The vast majority of that communication can just wait, as long as your work does not depend upon a cell/mobile leash. You really don't _NEED_ to talk on the phone while driving home, or in the checkout lane at the Wal-Mart, or at the restaurant with friends/family. You _WANT_ to, but you don't _NEED_ to.

"Given our current technology and potential near-future technology, what would a future space battlefield look like?"

Given Current Tech Available:
Machine Guns, Guided Torpedoes w/ HE or Nuclear warheads, primitive rail-guns, primitive heat lasers, ground to low earth orbit booster rockets, small space shuttle, Soyuz capsules, communication satellites, ground observation and control, remote drones, micro-satellites, primitive Project Thor, IIS

Current Space Battle:
          The goal would be to control cis-lunar space (between Moon and Earth) and would be the first battlefield of WWIII. (I can't see a scenario where the whole world puts up with someone trying to grab space for themselves.) Mostly orbital combat, with possible sub-orbital pop-up strikes. Booster rockets would launch guided torpedoes with High Explosive fragmentation warheads (steel clouds of death) at enemy targets (likely fragile communications/spy satellites) and disable them without needing a direct hit. The ISS would be turned to swiss cheese. Low Earth Orbit's space junk problem will become exponentially worse. Combat Shuttles could launch, but they would be sub-orbital or perhaps one orbit at most. The counter move to maintain a satellite presence would be to use micro-satellites to replace one large one with many "disposable" ones. All the while a crazy Electronic Counter-Measure war is going on in space to deny communications entirely and would not discriminate between military and consumer channels. Forget calling across an ocean as the world will have to fall back on copper wire or glass fiber. Eventually, it spills-over to Earth conventional war or even Global Thermonuclear War. The winner, if any at all, will be decided on the ground. The space war's most important impact will be that if one side actually does achieve cis-lunar space-superiority, the loser will be somewhat blinded and may be scared enough to start lobbing nuclear weapons around out of fear of the winner's ability to set up a Project Thor and bomb with impunity. I don't see people in space fighting it out in capsules or shuttles as they may not survive launch and re-entry without actually going into a battle.

Near Future Tech:
Machine Guns turrets, Guided Torpedoes w/ HE or Nuclear warheads, primitive rail-guns, primitive heat lasers, ground to low earth orbit booster rockets, small space shuttle, Soyuz capsules, communication satellites, ground observation and control, remote drones, micro-satellites, primitive Project Thor, IIS, Moon Base, Space Station at Lunar L1, L2, L3, L4, L5, Space Marines in primitive Power Armor, Lunar Tanks, fighting robots, Lunar artillery.

Near Future Space Combat:
The goal would be to control Earth Orbit, The Moon, and Lunar L1 through L5 and would be the prelude to Solar War I. Not sure that it will contain Global Thermonuclear War as I assume it will take global cooperation to get this far. Perhaps a limited exchange if it were a few nations making a power grab. Given the issues with radiation and micro-meteorites at the Lagrangian points, the stations would naturally be well shielded against fragmentation warheads. The stations themselves would likely be prized possessions. (if not, they get nuked using large booster delivered warheads from Earth) The Lunar Colonies would also be prized, so I would assume that nuking them would be a last-gasp "FU" from the losing side. There could be small fleets of space shuttle like warships that have machine guns or auto cannons for primary attack with the ability to carry a limited number of small guided torpedoes with frag/HE/nuke warheads. I would imagine that these craft would be well heat shielded for earth re-entry so heat lasers would have little to no effect on them. Battles between fleets would be long looping orbits with combatants sending fire at close approach moments possibly days apart in low earth/lunar orbit and even weeks apart if in high slow transitional orbits. Machine gun turret fire could be used as a point-defense against torpedoes if detected in time. Shuttles could then dock at a Space Station or possibly enter from a breach and start to fight it out corridor to corridor on the station. Or they could blockade the station.
Lunar surface warfare with Space Marines could be pretty intense as I imagine it would be the only way to crack into an enemy colony, assuming direct drop-ship approach is defended against with guided torpedoes and machine gun turrets. There would be Lunar Tanks, supporting robots (likely rover type deals with weapons), artillery fire support, drop ships, forward bases, entrenchment, support from Shuttle strikes away from colony defenses. The Marines fight their way next to the colony, likely on top of it as it should be mostly underground. Then breach the colony and begin the invasion. They would have to stay in the suits as the first defense would be to retreat and depressurize the surrounding tunnels. If successful, they would slug it out tunnel by tunnel. I imagine you could lay siege to the colony, but I would have to think that it would be somewhat self sufficient for at least O2 and Food. Perhaps starving the colony of solar energy from the surface and denying resupply from orbit could work in time as they use up consumables.

Brawndo! The Thirst Mutilator!

I wonder what their Prime Radiant looks like.

The problems with the TV Networks "pitch zone" is that they are 2 dimensional, do not change for each batter, and the TV viewer has trouble seeing the true motion of the pitch. The strike zone covers all of home plate, including depth. Many pitchers use "back door" breaking balls/sliders to try and hit the very back side of the strike zone. In the "pitch zone" these would look like a ball, when in fact it crossed the plate in the zone. Also, the strike zone changes height for each batter as defined in the rules as the batter waits for the pitch. These "pitch zone" displays never do. Lastly, pitch movement is hard to pick up on television, especially when depth is involved. Pitches can curve around the strike zone and appear to be strikes as well as curve into the back of the strike zone. It is hard to tell from a single camera.