Not to mention that punishment is trivial... pretty much anything you can think of can and has already been done.

Haven't seen it so for but thought I would add...

The Eighth Amendment (Amendment VIII) to the United States Constitution is the part of the United States Bill of Rights (ratified December 15, 1791[1]) prohibiting the federal government from imposing excessive bail, excessive fines or cruel and unusual punishments, including torture. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that this amendment's Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause also applies to the states. The phrases in this amendment originated in the English Bill of Rights of 1689.

Since the moon is much more stable than the Earth, would it be a better detector? Have seismic readings been taken on the Moon?

Pretty much every 'holiday' is arbitrary and somewhat retarded (read about the history of Valentine's day for an example). Nice to have a day for math and geeks!

To me it is ridiculous to think that power lines could have any where near the impact that a well-traveled roadway does.

Let's assume for the discussion that 'life extension' means retaining a good percentage of a person's mental and physical capacity during this extra time...
From an economic standpoint, raising and educating a person to adulthood is very resource intensive and risky. If a person reaches adulthood and is provably productive, doesn't it make sense that extending their lifespan adds value to society?

It depends on what you mean by chemistry- but I would say far from it as far as practical chemistry is concerned. Sure we can synthesize anything but doing so in an economical fashion is another matter.

Always get a lot of eyebrows and misspelling of my surname but it is the equivalent of 'Smith' in the Netherlands.

I think though that some of these ideas are changing... full employment is impossible and govmts need to find other ways to occupy their time than work.

That's not necessarily true- he had to answer to the Board of Directors and they might not be willing to make the changes needed to fix the company. He may have been asked to answer a question where the answer is "mu".

EOM

(was talking about windows 7 here, don't know much about 8)

Not really- if you turn off the eye candy it will run fine on an atom-class machine. You can see videos of people doing so on youtube....

I don't think anyone is arguing money can't be made with hardware- just that pursuing both software and hardware systems is difficult and fraught with risks.

Look at Apple's wild swings.... I don't really have an opinion on Apple but I certainly think they could be very profitable or not 5 years from now.

Music is completely based on math- 'A' an octave lower than concert pitch A440 is 220hz, and the cycle of 5ths designate the various keys.

You seem to be confusing musical skill with musicianship. Musical skill simply means mastery over the tonal qualities(tempo, intonation, intensity etc) of an instrument. It is completely measurable and there is software that does this.

Musicianship OTOH is completely subjective- many musicians are criticized for being skilled but boring or uninspiring to listen to.

I would encourage giving "Gödel, Escher, Bach" by by Douglas Hofstadter a look if you are interested in the debate.