Can anyone actually find the problems in question somewhere? I've been scouring Google and the whole thing is very vague -- no story really goes into depth about the actual problem he solved and how.

We all had that moment in school when a teacher would pose an "impossible" problem, thought to ourselves "Well, they've never faced ME before!", spent a few minutes toying with it and finally giving up. This kid...did not.

Kudos all around! The rest of your life will, unfortunately, now no longer live up to something you accomplished when you were 16.

If nothing else, it was a very thorough demonstration.

American industry isn't really as comatose as this article seems to suggest; the unfortunate reality is that all of the "sexy" manufacturing gigs (e.g., phones, novel tech in general) does end up ultimately getting outsourced. I think the real story here is having some manufacturing in the U.S. that produces goods that actually might have a demand on the other side of the pond, which is definitely something more exciting to brag about.

Bring back Sexy Tech!

Redbox runs on a modified version of XP...I wonder how they're handling the news currently...

A more apt example would have been chlorine or sulfur, each of which has a biological role in human beings but not exactly something one would want to chug.

Fine by me -- interacting with other people's cities has been something I've been looking forward to in the series for a long time. I imagine a world where one country's low industrial taxes suck away all of the factory jobs from your online neighbors, but everyone lives in another region and takes that neighbor's super-fast rail to world, while yet another neighbor develops a coastal resort for this population of transit workers to relax at on their days off, all the while a struggling farm community sits on its hands with a "World's Largest Llama" display...

Count me baited. DRM or not, I'm on board, assuming this enhancement is at least somewhat more than a simple statistical one.

This. Mod parent up.

If I had mods points right now, you'd have 'em.

Hey, now, I know the United States isn't exactly the only game in town anymore, but you guys could be a little more sensitive.

People are buying less computers because everyone has a computer and there isn't this arm's race to replace computers every six months to a year. Give it a few years; once cellphone tech has hit a wall, the technology will also finally start hitting laptops and desktops (assuming it already isn't).

Cellphones are great but even at their best, they're still a portable version of their mature parents. No cellphone is going to ever meet the criteria of having a massive display and a keyboard and still fit in your pocket -- it just isn't physically possible.

Bring back boarding schools. No point in making the perfect school if they're going home to apathetic and intrusive parents. Just like how the military functions to take the worst individuals you can imagine and mold them into something useful, removing students from a bad environment is really the only method that could help a lot of kids whose lives are spent more busily handling their personal affairs outside of school to be able to focus properly in school.

Of course, then you run the risk of the boarding school becoming that negative environment, but that's something that can take oversight and criticism. Parents only receive attention if they stop feeding their children or run them over with a car; outside of that, simple mental neglect is not a matter of the state.

It's very easy to judge someone's credentials in hindsight. I propose we invent time-travel, allow everyone a go at it, and then tell ourselves how it went. The one who ultimately gets elected will be the one best suited for the job, or at the very least, the one who kills all the time travelers.

One advantage here is that, whereas in Hong Kong, an entire new network had to be developed under an older one, in areas with no substantial plumbing, the entire process could be done in one shot.

I did find this little gem.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_supply_in_Hong_Kong#Seawater_flushing

"In 1960 legislation was introduced to promote seawater flushing on a larger scale, followed by substantial investments in a separate network although the system was unpopular due to the need to build a separate plumbing network in each house. Seawater initially was sold, but from 1972 on it was provided for free and the costs of the system were recovered through the drinking water tariff. In 1991, about 65% of Hong Kong's households used seawater for flushing. By 1999, this percentage had increased to 79%"