It is broken, America's schools underperform vs other 1st world countries. That is a real problem, in fact it will be the core problem in our country in the near future.

I don't argue that the fundamentals of +|-|/|x are essential, and that multiplication and division tables up to 12 are critical to core math skills. Massive amounts of memorization interferes with cognitive learning. Memorization does not contribute to higher skill sets beyond the basics, cognitive learning allows people to do advanced work with minimal research. Children do not need to memorize hundreds of equations, only to fundamentally understand how the equations work so that they can solve problems with ANY equation, for which they can discover quickly will all the data available to us.

maybe the core issue is the lowest common denominator education. maybe trying to find new, novel ways to teach every kid to be a math wiz is time that should have been spend identifying and elevating kids with potential in that subject matter.

I am a devout agnostic ;)

I suspect that if there was indeed a God that spoke to men in biblical days, man's primitive culture and language would over simplify the statements. Purhaps the universe up to the point of the bible was created in 6 units of time measurement that were beyond the scope of man at that time. A perfect example that is testable today is '40 days and 40 nights'. We know that this was a common statement in biblical times to say 'a long time'. You may or may not believe the literal 40 days and 40 nights, but there is good supporting, believable evidence that the language frequently used idioms to describe time.

Very sophisticated thoughts can be described in English that simply cannot be described in Piraha for instance (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirah%C3%A3_language). Purhaps the language spoken by 'God' or 'gods' or whatever is beyond our ancestors language skills, and possibly beyond our language skills.

I do tend to be on the athiest side because I haven't seen evidence of 'God' etc etc, though I don't crusade that there can't be a God.

I don't anticipate that ipv4 dies off as slowly as many people suggest. ipv4 is easy to understand, and addresses fit within the average technicians short term memory. Just try to remember ipv6 addresses, you brain will melt!

Soo many services are now becoming NAT compatible, and many ISPs are now NATing their customers and handing out private ipv4 addresses.

I do expect enterprise networks to migrate first. Microsoft has done a good job at making ipv6 a desirable thing in it's enterprise environment. Each computer gets a public ipv6 address and ipsec encrypts any domain related traffic for a VPN-free anywhere corporate network.

At home? probably ipv4 for a very long time and some 4to6 NATing either on the router side or way up at the ISP side as the server world goes ipv6..

just my thoughts.

I'll agree with 'good', but stand by the 'clean','tested', and 'reliable'

IMHO, 'good' in this situation is a measurement against a specific target and in this instance that is a human. Food might be lower quality food as measured by how safe it is or how long it lasts or how consistent it is. Food born illness has been around forever but now food born illness is typically more mild. The only increase danger I see is in distribution, specifically, that so much feed goes through bottlenecks so an illness can cross-contaminate shipments.

I have to agree with both parent and grandparent. Parent seems to be trying to make a counterpoint but doesn't. Our current food sources are cleaner, more tested, more reliable, and more nutritious. That doesnt mean that they are 'clean' or completely safe, just that they are safer than the food sources of the past.

Water is cheaper than soda and juice.

I eat near-paleo within the same budget as I ate mcdonnalds in the past. In fact, my crossfit membership + my diet is roughly equal to my old food expense so I am healthier and in shape for less money. 'expense' is an excuse in most of the western world.

Also, I eat very little lettuce.

[quote]No, and they won't because they don't understand how they're being screwed.[/quote]
hmmm, that doesn't really sound like they are being screwed.

[quote]New carriers can't crop up due to spectrum constraints and all existing carriers match pricing and features extremely closely[/quote]
This is only partially true, WiMax is/was seen as a viable alternative to LTE and it can run in spectrum that is available in most markets.

[quote]Bull. They're among the highest, coupled with ridiculous data rates and stupidly inflexible plans.[/quote]

uh, no. go to europe and find a comparable plan. even with the 'inflated' service rates to compensate for heavily subsidized phones US plans are cheaper.

What is wrong with this? AT&T (Verizon/Sprint/etc/etc) are running a business and have a significant investment in the hardware to provide the service. Cell towers cost big bucks, and upgrading cell towers costs big bucks. That money has to come from sales.

Here is a very simple metric to determine if the pricing model is fair and reasonable. Are people dumping their smart phones? Is another vendor reaching into the market with 'fair' prices?

Clearly the market can bear the cost. I would add that the US' cell phone providers are some of the least expensive in the world.

If there is a fraud here, it is the statement of 'unlimited' data plans with 5GB caps, though all the vendors have done away with that now.

It appears to me that a fundamental teaching in some religions or some sects of a religion is the concept that anything that does not fit that sects' interpretation of their holy book is blasphemous and that blasphemous statements cannot be heard or tolerated. To openly witness this blasphemy would be in itself blasphemous.

It appears that some of these so called 'fundamentalists' put this anti-blasphemy policy above all others except for their god. All those commandments, they come after the anti-blasphemy policy.

What is worse, is that many of the commandments in Christian rules are expanded in Islam to include all mankind, not just 'thy neighbor', they this anti-blasphemy policy seems to be rule #1, and appears to salt all the other rules to allow them to be twisted ever so slightly to allow modern Islamic terrorism.

(disclaimer, Islamic religion is not the only one that produces terrorists, even today, but Islam appears to be the greatest source.)

uh, yeah it is

I agree with your premise, but I think that you are overlooking 1 vital safety concern. The average vehicle in the US is much larger than the average vehicle in Europe. So a very safe car in Europe is not necessarily a very safe car in the US.

Remember, every other American has a gigantic SUV, Hummer, Excursion, Expedition, Suburban, Tank, etc.

Smart vs Hummer = very very bad.

Is this a serious thing? IANAL but this could be attacked from a number of angles. Invasion of privacy. Regulation of currency beyond state's rights.

agreed, debt was clearly intended to cover what is owed for a sales transaction. Simply put, you could force a customer to receive the goods before they may payment, then there is in fact a debt to be paid.

I have switched to lower power computing. I once ran massive computers that were honestly, way overkill for my needs.

I now run atom and zacate based systems. In fact, storage uses more electricity in my house than cpus. This is my next project to tackle as I switch to lower rpm, 2.5" and ssd disks.

I'm not a tree hugger, I don't play Al Gore scare tactics to convince people that the world is ending blah blah blah. what I am doing is measuring my short term cost vs long term electrical savings. I don't but low power just because and I don't drive a prius because they are not less expensive to drive (until the 2012 pluggable prius, 45 miles on electric is about cost parity with my gas car)

I do have a very large media library. I have many TB of ripped content from boxes of dvd videos now happily stored in boxes in the garage. Lots of content pulled from my DVR, web downloads etc and all exposed to my TVs and computers via appletvs cracked for XBMC which is a very low power ARM platform, or the zacate based fileserver/player.

Wrap this all up and switching from my 25W atom/zacate fileservers (3 of them) to ARM setups can save me about $50 per year. Additionally, These file servers themselves can output to the TV eliminating the need for a few appletvs. Right now my zacate fileserver is the only one able to output to TV, the atom's dont have to video capability to playback my videos without added hardware that increases the expense and power consumption.

Then again, most people could realize $50-$100 savings by turning off power strips and cutting out a lot of standby waste.

the flaw in your argument here is that apple's images had icons that were the correct aspect ratio but the shape was wrong. if the image was just squashed, the icons would be squashed as well.