Thunderbolt cables have part of the interface electronics physically in the connector body - that's why they cost so much. It also means you can swap a thunderbolt copper cable for a thunderbolt fiber cable without having to worry about the equipment at the ends having an exotic fiber interface.

I don't know if you can even get a thunderbolt fiber cable yet. They don't go any faster than copper, but they do go longer, which could be handy in a few niche applications. I'm thinking supercomputer and cluster interconnects. Could be cheaper than infiniband, and lower latency than ten-gig ethernet.

All of what you wrote, I agree with. In addition, I am a left-leaning person (and live in what Americans would deem a "socialist" country).

But none of what you wrote means that bullies should be given free rein and inflict childhood trauma onto other kids. Hence, I'll teach my son to defend himself, and if push comes to shove, a bully will have a finger or nose broken. That may actually be good for the bully in the long run, too, as the social services will be spurred to intervene (if they haven't already).

So yes, let social services and other institutions take care of the root cause of the bully's asocial behavior. In the meantime, my son will stay safe by engaging in self-defense.

Bullying often stems from problems, many of them at home. Abusive parents, neglectful parents, absent parents, actual mental issues, economic problems, familial stress, physical injuries, drug and alcohol issues and many more things all can play a part.

As someone who was repeatedly attacked and harassed and threatened - I see nothing has changed. You fucking teachers and administrators still feel perfectly justified telling a victim of violence, a child no less, that they must endure it for the sake of the person that just attacked them.

Do you have ANY idea how that makes you feel?

F. U.

Tell it to the little kid that was me 35 years ago. Smartest kid in the class and chubby. It started in first grade when I whizzed through vocab. Scaled up to ostracism, getting chased, being beaten. Got jumped by guys with knives but luckily ran away.

The only thing that got people's attention was studying karate and breaking a big 6th grader's nose. Aside from that a glacier rock was my best friend at lunch hour. Sure I had some friends, other geeks. But it only really stopped after I got out of the public school system and commuted an hour away to a preppy private high school.

If you want to know why America sucks at least one reason is because of the utter wasteland of stupidity that is the public school and community of people going to it for 90% of the people, and the system refusing to beat down bullies while they're young. Law of the jungle? Gandhi? Fuck that. I still have trauma from when I was that little kid. Maybe you just didn't get bullied enough. Tell it to kids (not me thankfully) who have gotten rolled up in gym mats, suffocated and died.

I bet a huge proportion of slashdotters have been bullied like me. Fixing (neutering) bullies and rewarding fair play would do a lot towards fixing (neutering) our military-industrial complex and maybe even our money politics.

I can tell you I wear out a keyboard in about three months and before I switched to "cheapie" Logitech mice, $10 a pop, I was burning through expensive mice every other month. It all depends on how much work you do. After two months the "A" on my keyboard is badly worn and at three months a dozen keys are showing wear. I would say keyboard wear is a good sign of how much work you do. If you can last two or three years on a keyboard you are probably over paid.

Google will simply stop offering free GApps for Education for Massachusetts Schools and Non-Profits. The reason the service is free is google is counting on that data. Disclaimer: I am the admin for a small HS and am quite happy with our Google Apps right now