I know it sounds crazy at first blush, but I think it would make sense to totally get rid of corporate taxes. (Replaced by other forms of taxation.)

The basic idea is that a corporation is nothing but a bunch of people owning it, so instead of taxing the corporation you tax the individual owners (owners, shareholders, etc.) instead. Since corporations wouldn't be paying taxes, you could then get rid of all of the tax breaks/writeoffs for corporations, which would significantly simplify corporate accounting and reduce the incentive for large corporations to shift money around to avoid tax.

Some references:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/...
http://www.theatlantic.com/bus...
http://www.vox.com/2014/8/8/59...

I lived in what is now the "Democratic Republic of the Congo" for three years, so I have at least personal anecdotal knowledge.

1) Relatively recent colonial history means that there was no native bureaucracy able to run the countries when the colonial powers left.
2) Dictators took over, and most dictators don't really want to make the country better, instead they just want power and money.
3) History of tribal politics means that when someone takes power they give rewards to their tribe at the cost of the other tribes.
4) Lack of national-level control means that it's difficult to exploit the natural resources.
5) Lack of government responsibility means that when countries do exploit the national resources very little of the money ends up in the hands of the workers (or the country).
6) Lack of government funding for educational facilities means that there is a continuing shortage of qualified local skilled labour. (It was quite common for teachers to charge students a fee to write finals, since the teachers got very little salary.)

Those developers may very will need those fancy machines.

But whoever is doing usability testing should be testing on fast machines, slow machines, new machines, old machines, mobile devices, etc. If they're not, then they aren't doing the job properly.

It is arguably easier to read code that can fit in 80 columns. That way I don't have to scan side-to-side as much, and I can fit multiple editor windows side-by-side simultaneously.

Imagine you have a temperate zone with low-moderate precipitation. (Like the north american prairies, for example.)

Now suppose a warming climate modified the weather systems so that some of that area got monsoon rains (washing away all the topsoil, flooding the cities, etc.) and the other part became a desert. The overall precipitation could be slightly net-positive, but it's vastly worse from a usefulness-to-humans standpoint.

I would suggest that the GMO itself isn't actually harming anything. Rather, it's the regulatory framework around it that let Monsantu patent gene sequences and then sue farmers over them.

In many cases direct genetic modification is *less* intrusive than other techniques of creating more suitable species of plants...the non-GMO method generally involves forcing random mutations via chemicals/radiation and then selecting for the traits you want. Of course there may be a bunch of other mutations that you didn't select for/against that could cause problems in people.

You missed the "increase power" and "repeat as necessary" steps.

Given the cost of treating them if they do turn out to be sick, they should be paid to stay home. Arguably they should also get groceries delivered.

I could see how some people would be threatened by the fact that their kids might grow up to be independent and think for themselves, since that might mean that they end up believing something other than what their parents believe.

You made an incorrect assumption.

Most North American medical staff are *not* up to speed on proper procedures for this sort of thing, nor is the standard protective gear sufficient. That's why the CDC is going to be going around giving training at hospitals.

I heard that the MSF recommended procedures for removing the protective gear involves nine separate hand washings.

As I understand it, FTDI doesn't actually have legal ownership of the PID:VID combo. usb.org handles the PID:VID registry, but if a chip manufacturer hasn't registered with them there is no legal reason preventing them from using any PID:VID numbers that they feel like.

"Bricked" means that it is no longer useful, ever, under any circumstances. It's dead, and not recoverable.

In this case the end user is temporarily inconvenienced until they load up some software to restore the PID, or use software that can make use of the device even with a PID of 0.

It's the placement relative to the other devices. In other words, the numbers are arbitrary, but the charts are useful.

So the HTC One M8 is middle-of-the-pack on performance, but second-best on battery. The OnePlus One is a few percent worse than the HTC on performance, but 15% better on battery life. They could have removed the numbers entirely and this would still hold true.

The more things you turn off, the less "aware" your phone is of its environment.

For example, I have a friend who uses Tasker on his phone. He gets in the car and it pairs with the bluetooth ODB2 port and starts displaying engine info. He goes to the movie theater and it detects the wifi access point and switches to vibrate. He sets location-based reminders (next time I'm within 5 miles of store X, go pick up item Y).

I guess it's all about what's most useful to you...

The fundamental property is mass, and the "weight" is defined by the force generated due to "standard" gravity.

The kg is a measure of mass. The pound can be mass or force, depending on the system of measurement involved. Most technical people would consider pounds to be units of force, where the corresponding mass is the slug. (Though honestly SI units are more convenient for doing physics with.)