Yeah, I hadn't expected people would think that was insightful, given that it would be insensitive and redundant advice to give from one's deathbed to a child. I was going more with at "let me give you and example of the dangers of asking for advice online, especially social advice from nerds" kind of joke. Although I suppose getting modded insightful kind of underscores that point. Though I do imagine anyone nerdy enough to ask for advice online is also capable of ignoring this sort of thing.

If I were going to give actual advice on this subtopic, it would be more along the lines of "Life's shorter than people who put off doing important things would think, but longer than people who don't worry about the future would expect."

Someone made a computer that's really good at reaction time, and at calculating trajectories.

Nuff said.

Hell no!!! Did you even read the book? The whole point of just about every book by Asimov was that you should never, ever, under any circumstances create robots that follow the Three Laws of Robotics.

Or, "Don't take life too seriously... it's not like it's permanent."

How about a method for producing food... ON A TRUCK! Sure it may have some prior art, but that seldom stops a patent nowadays because just about everything has prior art.

And while we're on the topic... if we can add "on a computer", "on the internet", or "on a truck" to make a new patent, how about "in a building"?

Why's that unfortunate? Do you have any evidence that acting randomly would be inferior to what we have now?

Funny you should say that... they already have locking fridges that are supposed to assist people in sticking to their diet.

I believe you meant, "How do you like them Apples?"

Seems to me that if someone were serious about promoting patent reform, they would become a patent troll to undeniably drive the point home. I used to be upset at patent trolls, but now that I've thought about it the problem has never been the people who choose to most obviously abuse the patent system, but rather that the patent system is designed so that such abuse is possible. The real damage is caused not by the patent trolls, but by productive corporations who's random assortment of obvious patents will be used to sue any competitors into oblivion, thus discouraging anyone from even trying.

The real mark of the brokenness of our patent system is not patent trolls, but rather that most engineers are forbidden from looking at patents.

Exactly! Biking in the snow is slow, tiring, unpleasant, and dangerous. But when the weather allows it I prefer to bike, because it is more pleasant than driving and as others said "free" exercise. Biking also is only a little slower than driving, although in some cases it is faster.

Difference between banker and this guy: the computer hacking charges, and that he wasn't given tons of money for destroying our economy.

Yeah, all those Canadians complaining about the heat, amiright?

While I agree with most of your post, this I have to disagree with. Oil is a fungible commodity, and it doesn't really make a difference whether the oil we specifically use comes from Canada or the Middle East. The price of oil is first set by global supply and demand, and only slightly affected by shipping costs. So, for example, OPEC increasing their oil output means we pay less for oil, even though the oil we get is from the Americas.

Oh oh, can I try a science experiment too?
You have two groups.
One that is exposed to anticancer drugs.
One that is not.
More people in the exposed group died from cancer.
In other words anticancer drugs cause cancer!

Things should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.