I've come to the conclusion that corporations are not people, and those rights should be highly limited to prevent a Fascist takeover of government. Only people should have the constitutional right to free speech and expression. Corporations, including non profits are government sanctioned entities that limit the liability of the individuals that make up that organization. In exchange for that substantial benefit, there should be reciprocal limitations, far in excess of the restrictions on people. Corporate speech is highly regulated already. For example, Newcorp can't claim their snake oil cures all cancer.

I think it should be illegal for any LLC to contribute to political campaigns or try to bribe our elected officials by helping them get elected. That includes non-profits like the NRA, EFF, ACLU. The only reason we have the ACLU, EFF, NRA in Washington is to gain parity to those who currently spend millions and millions trying to consolidate and strengthen their power over government decisions.

In the US, our representatives have to raise on the order of $30k every day they hold office. When CEO's get the call asking for a donation, don't you think that CEO gets their concerns heard and addressed? As a regular citizen, I have no such access or influence. Currently, it takes lots of money to gain access to and influence our politicians. The voter is now nearly powerless, and even more so if LLC's are permitted to influence political campaigns without restrictions or limits.

It's a myth that younger people are "better with computers and technology" because they had access to computers in their house as they grew up. I turned 50 this year and have been doing scientific programming for over 35 years. I started at 14 yrs old in '73, working on time share systems and wire wrapping PDP-11 backplanes. I've been on the Internet since '86 and kids almost always assume they have more "network" experience than I. Some of the recent CS college grads I've worked with can't program their way out of a paper bag without GUI UML tools an IDE and weeks of effort refactoring their work. Young kids take days to do things I'd have it done in several hours because I'd be using use the right tool for the job. 'Awk', 'sed' , bash, csh are still very useful for "fixing" data sets. 'perl', 'php' and 'python' are used for more complex tasks. Compiled languages and libraries are used when performance matters or complexity is high. We had 10+ yr experience software engineers who would spend weeks writing a Java app, when a one line 'dd' would do. They've never heard of 'dd', so they write their own buggy, hard coded program. This old guy was the first one to make use of AJAX and web apps in our 50+ engineering division. Companies should think about this, as they lay off us older guys so they can hire a new cheap, young kid within a month. I'm now doing low-level Linux driver and DSP work for a scientific instrument maker, trying to rescue them from the mess the Java programmer they hired to port their old C, C++ DOS code to XP. "interrupt latency jitter? what's that!?". How come I can't do 5k interrupts/sec on this PC?

Right now, in many scientific fields, the new software being written have less features and run slower than they did 20 years ago. NCAR has spent over 5 years and many, many FTE's trying to replace a C application I wrote in 1991 with a Java version. This 19 year old C/C++ application is still being used quite extensively, even though it's been "replaced" several times with new the development efforts.

Here's a good example I know from first hand experience. The FTC won't do shit.

Baron Services, Inc., of Huntsville, Alabama filed a formal protest with the GAO after they lost a bid, knowing it would seriously harm their competition. See http://www.gao.gov/decisions/bidpro/402109.htm

They knew they had little chance of success, but they know by filing protests against awards to small, innovative competitors, they have a chance of killing off the small company due to the induced long delays in distribution of contract funds. Based on comments from our contract administrator, this is standard practice, with well over 90% of protests being dismissed.

Here's why it works. Right after we are awarded the contract, we ordered $100+k of parts so we can meet the contract deadlines. Then, Barron steps in and files a complaint. At this point all contact with PNNL and all money stops. We still have to pay for parts we ordered. Try to get a small business loan these days. Banks tell us; "If you deposit that amount of the money in our bank, we'll lend it back to you". Really. Thanks for all the help with the US economy, Wall Street. Fascist Bastards. I'll never forget.

Large corporations work hard to create Fascist states. In the US, they seem to be succeeding, especially in light of the recent SCOTUS decision. Some of us actually had hope things would change. Silly us, the GOP won't stand for that and the Dems have clearly demonstrated they can't pick their nose without gaining "bipartisan support".

My kids got the most from k'nex: http://www.knex.com/ and Wedgits: http://www.wedgits.com/

Both have excellent building guides, are very educational and fun to play with. Wedgits are great for the younger kids. K'nex roller coasters and ferris wheels would be well used and loved. K'nex teach about structural design, mechanical engineering and assembly. They start with simple, easy to assemble structures and get very complex, taking days to assemble at the high end. We also spent many, many hours building our own designs.

Yes, UAV's. I'd put a sensor on the bottom and use it to trigger a quick change in direction using snap rolls or other high G turns.

I've flown slope RC. Little planes can change direction incredibly fast.

At 50, now I need reading glasses to work on my laptop. For my desk I purchased this 30".

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824254026 - $310 delivered.

It's also very bright which helps with depth of focus. It's so nice I purchased two.

Sony is out of touch with the market. This thing wouldn't last a week in my kids hands. Toys should survive normal usage and the Go looks fragile . I think clamshell designs are more durable, and keep the screens from being broken or scratched when they're dropped out of the car onto concrete. Will it come in a pretty pink?. I think Sony is trying for the upscale, male geek, with lots of money. I'll pass.

In Nelson's Voice: Ha Ha. I was laid off from NCAR early this year after making noise about; 1 Sending DOD developed software to China, 2; Exposing unsecured DOD data and systems to the Internet and 3; Billing the US Army for developing systems for the French Navy. I wrote e-mails, I visited managers. I was a trouble maker, so, after 18 years of service, they said there was no longer any work for me at NCAR. I can still obtain access to live, sensitive data from Army bases and the Pentagon through NCAR web sites. Investigators, Auditors, please look me up. I'm using the same ID I've used for 35 years. I'd be happy to expose the wide open holes I know about as long as the law is on my side.

I worked as a engineer for NCAR, building and installing high-tech weather systems for the FAA (AWRP) for over a decade in the mid-90's-00's. I found the FAA leadership is filled with bunches of Republican partisan hacks who spent their time telling AL Gore Jokes in their technical meetings rather than getting things done. It literally takes them 10 or more years to get technology to their employees in the trenches. (officially). Because of upper mgt incompetence, the local level tech is a free-for-all, running in the closet. When I installed our sanctioned equipment in the Long Island FAA TRACON, I found a shift supervisor had brought his old PC in and got an AOL account so that the "super secure war room" could see what the weather was like outside as they managed 40% of the air traffic in the US. The FAA literally watches the weather channel with the sound off and competes with all the every day Joes for Nexrad images on accu weather. One of our (NCAR) systems under rigid performance evaluation at the FAA Technical Center (NJ) kept "hanging" several times per week, and we received poor evaluations and threats of funding cuts. I finally discovered that the reason for the failures was one of their staff had opened a shell terminal, ran Mosaic (remember that) and went porn surfing.(up our dedicated 64kbps line back to NCAR in Boulder and out through our .edu POP). The FAA has lots of ad-hoc systems installed everywhere. Can anyone say "Pass your USB key over here Bob - Ya gotta watch this". Maybe Obama's administration will clean the rot out of the FAA. I lost any hope many years ago.

Is what I installed in my Colorado home, in place of a real fireplace. We lose power for days at a time every decade or so, often during the worst and coldest weather. I chose a gas fireplace which requires no electricity to operate and is designed to dump most of its heat into the room.

The gas fireplace, gas range, and gas hot water heater keep us warm, comfortably fed and clean during extended power outages and are useful otherwise. The fireplace I installed has a convective loop heat exchanger/chamber surrounding the fire box and most of the heat flows into the room. When the power's on, it has an optional blower that improves its efficiency to over 80%. My wife really likes having a lit fireplace. Animals and humans alike gather around and bake them selves to their toasty delight, regardless of the presence of electricity.