Oh so you're the lunatic that acts first thinks later - the next time you swerve watch out for the kid on a bike you did not see the first time you looked.

The cost is ridiculous

You people keep on saying this, but it is absolute bullshit. Have you ever tried comparing the cost of manned spaceflight with... well... just about anything else the government does? It is damned cheap.

My son is currently at the age where he wants to start learning to program. The thing is, other than Basic or similar entry-level languages, he just can't wrap his 11 year old mind around C++ or other more complex languages to start. And I can't exactly drop him straight into SQL or Linux either. He has to start somewhere, and simple languages fill this gap very well for the young. It's also the same reason why I hope that they never stop making those ###-in-one electronic kits. The basics may be old and useless to most of us here, but to our kids and grand-kids someday, it'll make the difference between being a good engineer or technical person versus just another brainless repairer who swaps parts without knowing why.

Learning out of a book in high school or college isn't obviously the same as hands-on building and programming.

Going back as far as Windows 2000 it's a hopeless mishmash of conflicting GUI elements.

That's a really weird attitude to have, compared to most other options. Maybe MacOS is more 'unified' in appearance. Certainly none of the freenixes are. Let's see. I'll open up Xfig and sketch something to include in my LyX document.... Wow. Those 'GUI elements' don't match at all.

Now, if you pick some 'Modern Linux Distro' that has 1% of the desktop market, you might be correct. But to get a robust collection of apps for it, you need to grab in apps from all over, which are compiled with a huge ugly cluster of widget varieties.

No, I'm afraid the ugly Kludge GUI is X11. Which I happen to like, but I use a classic X11, i.e. I run FVWM and reference the O'Reilly X11 User Manuals (the 'official' ones, i.e. Volume 3 is the Users Guide) to maintain my X systems. You know, X resources, etc.

Right, that's why I say "more-or-less".

It is true that the useless people tend to die faster than useful people. To pull some numbers out of my ass, perhaps life expectancy is 45 for useless people and 90 for useful people. We're forced to accept that a few useless people will make it past 100, and a few useful people will die at 20.

The ER isn't everything. Lack of early cancer detection and lack of early heart surgery are among the many things that play a role in killing off the useless.

Depending on one's hierarchy of values, one can redefine fairness to mean enforced equality at the expense of others. That's hardly fair by any reasonable definition. Fairness rightly means that you get the share that you deserve, no more and no less.

>Can you show a citation supporting your view?

Sure, how about my own?

5+ years deli, qualifies me for deli manager ($50k/year).

3+ years liquor retail, qualifies me for liquor salesman ($35k/year, plus commission, and relocation - read: california).

Point being, what does 4 years at college qualify you for?

I'm looking at something else. But suffice to say, $25/hr for slicing meat is not a bad fallback option. What fallbacks to college grads have?

Typist? I've done that.

The operative word here is nearly.

And why, do you think, do K and C share the same interval size?

(seriously though, I always found 28 C = 82 F the easiest to remmeber. everything below is too cold and everything above is just right.)

By the very nature of the law it should be applied all of the time indiscriminately, anything else is corruption.

Nonsense. Separation of powers has a purpose. If the legislature passes an odious law, the executive has a duty to not enforce it, and the judiciary has a duty to not convict under it. "I was only following orders" is not excuse, even if that order comes from the legislature in the form of a law.

No, there is no requirement that the 2nd version do the same packet format or versioning.

And how is a checksum going to help you find the page header? All a checksum could do is help you verify the header once you've found it!

The article made a lot more sense in its criticism of OGG than any criticism of the article I've yet seen.

It ocurrs to me that the numbers I gave in that post are misleading. The failure rate is for an average woman in the first year. I suspect the average woman has a lot more sex then just once... All the same, my point about many women getting pregnant through no real fault of their own remains valid.

See, that's what the sensible person would think. But note, if you loaded books via USB, how could they tether you to their expensive online bookstore? How would they upsell to you? Gasp - you might even buy PDFs from a competitor!

Is my netbook (AO751h) + the yBook application (Win32 Freeware, also runs under WINE). No, it doesn't have eInk, but with a $55, 9-cell aftermarket battery, I do get ~10-12 hours without having to touch a wall wart. Plus there's a full size keyboard, and I can do just about anything else computer-wise with it that doesn't require huge video capabilities (due to Intel GMA500, which could be better, but is sufficient so far, @ ~6 months ownership). Netbook + battery = $350. More than a dedicated eReader, much cheaper than an iPad, capable of doing more than either/both, it's the best geek tool/toy that I have run across in a long time.

You have to learn the difference between reserves and resources.

The rest of the world does not "tip". They pay their staff a proper wage. The prices are not higher... they just effectively include the tip in the price.

Funnily enough, the rest of the world are NOT out of jobs.

I've traveled extensively through europe, asia AND the US. I live in Australia. For all the "tipping" that happens in the US, it does not have better customer service than anywhere else in the world.

I thought the author misspelled 'bring'.