My employer's insurance company madates an annual checkup to get "prefered" rates. (Out of pocket doubles if you don't jump through a few hoops.)

Every time I've gone, nothing good has come of it. I'm currently fighting a +$600 bill for a CAT scan I never wanted, to diagnose some marginal test results. Turns out I have a gall stone. Most people do. And the recommended treatment is.... wait for it.... nothing. Ignore it until it causes problems.

My doctor is milking the system every chance he gets, running every test he can marginally justify.

If I had my way, I'd go to the doctor once every 20-30 years.

Oh, fun. That old trope.

You're confusing the term agnostic with atheist. An agnostic doesn't know and doesn't care about spiritual matters. For your stamp analogy, someone who doesn't collect stamps, and doesn't care about that is an agnostic. It consumes zero time and energy.

A person who seeks to "stamp out" stamp collecting, advocates banning stamp collecting in some or all areas, and eagerly belittles stamp collectors has a hobby. That's atheism. Active hostility. (Terms like, oh, say, "brain virus" apply here.)

Atheism can also be shown to be a religion, because it passes the duck test. It holds firm beliefs on areas that differentiate religions Many of athiest's religious beliefs are held by other religions (Buddhist don't believe in a god, for example)

Deities: There are none, and man is the highest being.
Spiritual beings: There are none.
On Afterlife: There is none, this life is all there is.
Mankind: Man is inherently good (or neutral), and getting better over time.
Meaning of life: Life's only purpose is the one you give it. (see also hedonism)
Proselytizing: My belief is the right one, and it's good if other people can come to believe the same.

There's lots more, but I have better things to do today.

You can have your hobby, but just be honest about it.

Eh? Is there a precedent for that statement?
With each new game console that comes out, there needs to be a whole ecosystem to go along with it. Name me any game platform that took off because of one good game?

In a parallel example, what would you say to "Windows Phone would have taken off if it had one really good at in the app store." ?

Put another way, how good would a game have to be for an average user to want to reformat their hard drive?

I know some extreme Atheists. Their religion has a core belief and tennent that they must convert everyone else to their religion.
Any mention of faith (especially Christianity) must be jumped on with argument and ridicule. All conversations must be turned to the topic of proving science is the one true religion.

Yes, athiesm is a religion.

All of you guys, take a chill pill, and get a life. Obviously, none of you have children.

The poll question was about productivity. I adressed the productivity side of parenting. It's not possible to concentration oriented tasks some times of the day. That's part of the life I happily chose to live. Raising & teaching kids does take work- but I wouldn't call that the kind of productivity stated in the poll.

You guys strike me as the people that walk up to me in a grovery store, listing the ways I'm parenting wrong. I'll raise my kids my way, and if you ever get our of your mom's basement, you can raise your kids your way.

I love them dearly, but it's impossible to focus on anything for more than 5 minutes at a time with the rug rats on the loose.

1) " for fear they could be misused in ways that violate Americans' privacy rights"
The act of spying & collecting this data didn't already pass this threashold?

2) Every government agency takes the permitted rules and pushes them to the limit & a bit beyond. In no time at all, the Smallville dog catcher's dept will have access to NSA data. "Think of the children - we need to know which houses have mean dogs, and which ones have small children! For their own good!"
This should be no surprise.

I like the idea of home automation, but ya, this ain't it. Most solutions I see are either ancient & unreliable, or a complex solution looking for a problem.

What I want is a bunch of physical components built like an iPhone (clean, simple, just works), connected to a small, smart controller. Like a Raspberry Pi running Scratch. Brains to the system that I don't have to invest days into. Anything requiring "cloud" or subscription is right out.

Life is short. I have a ton of things I want to do, and don't have time to do. Home automation's got to have a big bang for the buck before I'm jumping in. Save me a ton of time, or save me a bunch of money - every day.

Types of things that I can't believe aren't dead-simple to plug into a standard home automation system:
-I want a key fob that unlocks my door. (Kevo would be awsome, but it doesn't exist yet) Have that device notify the main system. Let me then script a "wake up the house" list.
-I want a "good night" button by my night stand. Turn off all lights, lock all doors, turn off all TV's, radios, etc. Close the garage door. If I have an alarm system, turn that on. If a door or window is open, tell me.
-I want a super easy, super reliable system to open upstairs windows if the temp outside is better than inside. (Outside is cooler in the summer, outside is warmer in the winter.) Said system should be aware of thunderstorms, or be down-pour proof.
-Likewise, super easy, super reliable system to controll window shades using the same criteria.
-When I'm away from home, text me a photo of anyone at the front door. (UPS delivery, etc). But only when the house is in "I'm gone" mode.
-Interface should be super simple, for spouse acceptance factor, and to handle house-sitters. Ability to turn the "smart house" into a "dumb house" with a lightswitch. Sure, I want the GIU. The wife & kids will need a single button or light switch to do the basics.

Interesting timeline here:
http://lifeafterpeople.wikia.com/wiki/Life_After_People

As poster above mentioned, The History channel has addressed this one in the seriese "Life After People". I believe that, as per the show, the longest lasting record of our existence on earth would be Stone Mountian- due to the hardness of the rock.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone_Mountain

>glad I live in a country with free healthcare for all.

TANSTAAFL.
Make no mistake, it's not free, You're paying for it.

The real question is, do you know how much you're paying? If it's even possible to find out, then we can compare heath care costs.

Lemme get this straight: Dr. Dobb's is computer simulating a paper simulation of a computer.

Put another way, it's easier to learn about computers using a spreadsheet model of a paper model of a computer, than just a mere paper model of a computer.

Cool, yes. Circular logic loops, yes.

I want a Google Glass type device, only without a camera. I don't want to record everything around me & put it on the intertubes.

I want the exact opposite - I want the Internet available to me all the time. Maybe with a voice interface, maybe with a remote input device. (Mouse/trackpoint/other I keep in my pocket?)

That's where the real creative engineering will come in. A socially acceptable, non-creepy, input device. Teeth clacking? Facial muscle movement? Low volume sub-vocal/humming?

Time to brush up on your physics. Gravity is acceleration, even if nothing is moving.

Accelerometers tell a phone which way is down, if you've rotated the phone, movement gestures, etc.

Some phones have apps to alter ringtones if it's left face up vs face down. That's the accelerometer sensing that.

At least one of these you can buy now. http://sensebridge.net/projects/northpaw/
Haven't bought one yet, but I'm tempted.

I'm betting that Google Glass/other vision system will have expanded visual spectrum (mapped to "normal" colors) soon. Great for color-blind people, too.