Agreed. There are supposedly well educated people who believe none of the public works projects like Hoover Dam used private companies to build them. Thankfully a simple search proves them wrong.

So we should follow North Korea's example and have a government enforced "lights out" policy? No thanks. I prefer the 21st century over the 18th.

This is what US and most European cities looked like in the 19th century. It's the face of unfettered capitalism.
Any activity that enables our baser nature is destructive. It's what I believed in back in the 90s but after Bush and Obama, don't believe in now. Bush started it when it became clear that while we were willing to accept another quick mid-east war our leaders largely didn't care how long we stayed, Obama showed me how hollow and phony our two party political system is by continuing most of the same Bush policies knowing people would stop complaining once he moved into the White House.

Multi-platform:
Firefox, Chrome

OS/X:
Terminal, Outlook, Word and Excel, Dropbox, Evernote, Geektool, todo.txt, Rido

Android
Feedly, Maps, Beat the Traffic, Evernote, bar code scanner, my grocery store's app, Rido, Sonos

Windows 7:
Putty, WinSCP, Notepad++, Rdio, Sonos Linux: vim, terminal, ssh, keystore, apt-get, yum, the list goes on.

Personally, I think allowing businesses to post anti-gay signs will make them easier to boycott and drive out of business. Let their imagined victory be the yoke that drags these businesses into the grave.

As for Americans and racism. At least ours is out in the open. France bans Arabic head scarves in schools. Former Warsaw Pact countries are full of centuries old hatreds and revenge fantasies. Yugoslavia. Hungary. Europe buries it's hatred and covers it up with not so polite humor.

The US has somehow manages to isolate it's most vocal racists in tiny enclaves. Even the Tea Party, for all of it's bluster and nearly Christ free Christianity, found its power limited by the very Constitution they claim to uphold. The Defense of Marriage Act is the latest example. A Supreme Court with several GOP appointed justices struck this law down. We've allowed women on Navy ships and combat aircraft since the 90s and women (officially) in front line combat roles today. We aren't perfect but we are progressing. Our system is designed to prevent one person or group from obtaining too much power but it also means change happens slowly, and that's a good thing. A nation the size of the United Sates shouldn't be turned on a dime. It happened in the Weimar Republic in a destitute Germany and look how that turned out. Imagine a newly elected radical President with the same authority granted to him or her that was given to Hitler.

Seriously, when will this thread end? Look I grew up in the 70s and 80s with a series of doomsday scenarios including nuclear war. Believe me, the middle class isn't threatened by technology. First off, the middle class isn't anyone with a job. The middle class is classically composed of non-labor intensive skilled employment. Yes technology has replaced some of those jobs. When was the last time you raced to the bank because you needed cash for the weekend and the teller windows were closing? Does anyone want to go back? Apparently this Joe Nocera does. Look the sad truth is, most people stumble through life. Even those who see the curve in the road ahead lack the ambition to turn the wheel. It's easier to stick to what you know and tell yourself "oh they can't do away with my job." Well they can, and they will. So what do you do? Watch, listen, and most importantly learn. It's why Pittsburgh will never again be Steel Town USA, and "what's good for GM" will not be good for America.

Oh the article makes for a good heart-felt rant. It plays on our tender hearts, implores us to feels awful for the plight of our nation and the dark, hopeless future that awaits. How could our bleak future compare to the challenges of any other age!? Get over it. I'm 42 and I've changed careers three times. I grew up with regular newscasts on shows like 20/20 which told me how I might survive a nuclear attack. At one point, we thought Japan would purchase the entire United States and turn us into slaves. Guess what? I've not only survived, I've thrived. Most of us will adapt and live on, no matter what this so-called journalist says

So quit letting this NTY prophet of doom get you down and get back to building your future.

I feel a parking lot full of loose change in Apple's future. Maybe this time it will happen!

It depends on the simulation. If you are training for a cross oceanic flight, you would simulate switching out flight crews and long periods where you would normally use auto pilot. The simulation would toss various problems at you to break up what is normally a dry, boring routine so you know how to handle different problems.

Personally, I think we're just a few years away from a fully automatic flying experience.

Does anyone think WinAmp is a good open source candidate?

So the often out-of-date workstations that fill libraries can now be overloaded with Windows 8. The librarians can spend hours training the public to use Windows 8 instead of helping them find books and information. Notice MS Office isn't included.

The problem with your theory is that it hits the poor the hardest. The wealthy get all of the energy they want. The middle class, well they get squeezed. "Sorry son/daughter, college isn't in the cards for you. Maybe you could join the service and get used as a tool of foreign policy. Hand me another blanket, it's gonna be cold tonight." Jacking up energy prices doesn't lead to greater efficiency. Offering discounts on energy efficiency however DOES lead to greater efficiency, and makes higher cost improvements cheaper as more competitors enter the market and existing manufacturers learn how to make the same products for less money. Eventually you won't need the discounts as whatever technologies you promote become commoditized. Discounts drive consumers. Punishment/taxes discourage consumption.

Unfortunately, this doesn't hold true for apartment complexes. They have little incentive to modernize. Taxes however are an even bigger disincentive to apartment complex corporations than they are to home owners. The discounts must be created to benefit these kinds of businesses. The poor of course will be the last to benefit as they have the least to spend. The way out of that is education and opportunity. We won't eliminate poverty, but we can elevate what is defined as poverty. A poor person of 40 years ago had a lot less than a poor person does today in part due to commoditization.

Finally, if the means of wealth generation are placed well out of reach, then invention is retarded or halted completely. The IT revolution of the 90s and the on-going Big Data revolution can only exist in a country where electricity is both affordable and plentiful. Make turning on that computer or light a major cost decision and you'll loose those driven individuals that are creating the next economy.

I didn't know that Ashton Kutcher was a tech investor. Too bad we don't know how large or how deeply he was involved with the companies listed. It would be useful information to gauge this new endeavor. I wonder though, does Lenovo need technical assistance, or an artist? Technical specs are fine (and the Yoga tablet doesn't sound like a power house) but an ugly interface is the kiss of death. People spend far too much for Apple products. Why? They work well (enough) and they like the interface (Apple haters excluded). I use a Nexus phone because I don't like vendor loaded crap, but I will acknowledge the Note as one pretty phone.

This is a good move for Dell, provided they can adopt to this new market. Dell should focus on the back end of the cloud. They make good servers. They just need to cut off the consumer arm and let it drift into the ether. They lost the consumer market a long time ago and like IBM need to focus on what they (still) do well.

I grew up in the 70s and 80s. I never thought we would see a Communist state abandon the Planned Economy and embrace the Free Market. If you brought the idea to me when I was 18 or 25, I'd have thought you were nuts. What Communist wanted to give up that much power over the individual? How could a nation, so accustomed to marching in lockstep with it's leadership handle economic freedom? Russia wasn't doing so well after Communism and China was reportedly employing one third of this population to spy on and control the remaining two thirds. Today, many people wonder if the government's form really matters when Communist nations like China and Vietnam are creating a strong middle class while few Democracies are facing a future where its children are worse off than their parents.