Same as always my whole life. It's the fun 'toy' aspect of technology. I would take my kids to carnivals and spend $40 throwing darts or $40 tossing ping pong balls. Now we just download an app at home or on the sidewalk and it's free or nearly free and benefits our lives and leads us to love our technology, so the toys we adults have are very inexpensive!

Back in the days when we bought parts and built our own devices there was great variation. Not many in a single school had that 'build' life. And most of it was constructing kits according to instruction, not creating new things yourself. So if you built your own things from nothing but a goal, you were unusual when young. The same thing is the case today, with the Make crowd, formal and informal. It may not be reduced. It's just that the simplicity of the early days is gone so to us who have lived through it, things are not similar and available to all.

Humans all have similar brains, and the inner tinkerer refers to a slice of our brains. On the average, I believe that it's fairly constant, this slice. If there is less room to build something impressive enough to motivate you, then the creativity looks for other outlets, like outstanding Facebook pages, blogs, YouTube videos, etc.

This "well known fact" is news to me.

I have not applied for Australian citizenship but have taken some first steps towards it. I would very gladly be a devoted and loyal Australian. This has nothing to do with the NBN, which I do praise in concept, regardless of whether it even exists. I would love to be an Australian even with lower bandwidth like I have today in the States. I do applaud any attempts toward inclusion of all. For things as important as broadband, we should deal with our fellows as family and take care of those who just live in the wrong place. That's my personal opinion but it has nothing to do with why I would love to reside in Australia.

Cheers, mates

I used to disdain all these vague futurists. in many cases, it's sure to happen in the far distant future, and after the fact a few act smart enough to have said it long before. And many times it doesn't happen close to the way that's predicted. I always tended toward the practical side of things, rather than the theoretical.

But one thing after another after another that was obvious and predictable just by applying Moore's law, still surprised almost everyone when they became reality. Things like lots of movies on a tiny chip.

I was a singlularity denier, for one thing. But I have to reverse myself and admit that I'm wrong. Oddly, it was Ray, presenting to an audience in Vienna, which convinced me otherwise. The only thing about being a singularity futurist is that you've predicted what's already happened. Try living without today's technology and internet and see how far you get. It's already unclear to what extent the creators (ourselves) or that which we have created (technology) is the master. We always thought that we could turn off unfriendly robots, but we can't really turn off the internet, which is the largest robot yet (and the one that replaces most human brains for getting the best answers to things).

Ray takes a lot of flak but he deserves respect, even when you think he's wrong.

Not only that, but think of what it's doing to inspire his kids.

Actually, we never had a 9l11 in 50 years preceding it, despite the fact that it was just as easy. 9/11 was a lucky fluke, a super ambitious prank-style act of terrorism that took a lot of planning but took the top prize ever in such acts. We had no reason to expect it to happen in another 50 years, especially since it relied on surprise. I agree with this post that hightened security has not played a significant role in stopping another 9/11. Nor have any of the costly wars. But some people have to say the opposite in order to hide their own guilt of taking the side which wasted so much money on nothing (gained). These people scream that such actions do buy us security in order to save their own faces.

HP-35 calculator 2.02 log/antilog problem.

Not big in a disaster sense but noteworthy.

Nothing indicated that they were trying to arrest Jason. They want info as to whom sold the found iPhone. That sounds more like a felony. Gizmodo was not trying to sell it or keep it. But is a source protected in such a case of a physical item being the 'leak'? My guess is that reporters are only protected from revealing sources of info where the original info is still in the hands of the owner.

The Creator is actually an infinite number of monkeys?

Both the code and the comments should be as understandable as possible. Don't forget that the effort to comment well helps the programmer in his/her own thinking and his/her own understanding of their own code, and helps in development of good code that doesn't have bugs.

It's less important the content (how to program, which language) than the motivation, having the student want to learn it. When a youngster wants to learn something, they will learn more than you ever could have taught them. It's too easy for experts to not be teachers and lose the youngsters early.

If the kid wants to learn and you have the time and patience, you can never fail, one-on-one.

I agree strongly with you step-by-step approach to reaching your destination.

Many well intentioned people contribute millions of dollars to increase the rate of death from cancer. They donate to heart research. If you don't die of a cardiac problem, you're more likely to die from cancer. Or you can give money for cancer research and increase the rate of death from cardiac arrest. The total death rate is constant.

She was considering an extra-curricular project.

if you could get the ink ribbons...

Who cares if it's good or bad science? Parties are taking sides for the fun of taking sides. But there is no science yet that can tell us that by spending $100T over 50 years we can lower the global temperature by a tenth of a degree. Those saying we should make sacrifices are irresponsible if they can't assure us of any beneficial outcome.