I think national standards are the entire problem. We shouldn't have national standards. For one, we're a nation of some 300-plus million people distributed across 50 states, with varying geography, cultures, industries, and so forth. Why would anyone think one size should fit all? It's funny how there is so much talk about "diversity" all the time and how great it is, but heaven forbid there should be diversity in education in this country. The federal government has no business in education. But apart from all that, centralization in a country like this poses another problem. It gives a single pressure point for every kind of political or ideological fad or bent. Anyone with an axe to grind, a chip on his or her shoulder, or just a run-of-the-mill "I know better than thou" complex has but a single pressure point to grab hold of to bend the country to his or her will. Today you may like who is behind this push for a de facto national curriculum. But tomorrow you may not be. What happens then?

I'm for competition, diversity, innovation, and freedom. The Common Core is antithetical to all that.

I hope I'm remembering this correctly, but haven't some people challenged the National Security Letters, only to have the FBI rescind them before the case comes to court, presumably because they fear having a court rule them unconstitutional?

I want to be sympathetic to your sentiment, but there is no one outside of the United States threatening our freedom. That's a fact. There is no one in the military fighting for our freedom. Granted, they may stand ready to defend our freedom, should a foreign threat materialize, but that's a different story.

Sadly, the real threat to our freedom is from within. It's from people in government who fancy themselves on the side of the angels and who think it's okay to bend or break the rules—a.k.a. the Constitution—to defend the "homeland." They're setting up the legal framework and law enforcement infrastructure that will completely obliterate the United States of America for good. What will be left is lines on a map claiming a heritage it has no right to.

It's not simply that they're "just doing their job." Some of them justify what they do that way. But some of them have convinced themselves that they're on the side of the angels. They catch "bad guys"—that's the simpleton phrase they use. So, anything they do is okay, because the ends justify the means.

What?! Do you like bad guys or something?

The average person cannot integrate anything so abstract and complicated as the need for constitutional restraints: meaning, why government power needs to be restrained, even if in the short run of particular cases the "inconvenience" of such restraints lets the "bad guys" get away. The only thing the average person is able to digest is so-called "patriotism," the fight of "good guys versus bad guys" (in this case, literally, cops and robbers), and the kind of chauvinism of association that allows them to believe that they and the other great bunch of guys on the job are hard at work doing good.

This kind of mentality can accommodate any kind of political circumstances just as happily as any other—America, Iran, Cuba, the old Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, or what have you. That's what's so scary.

In all aspects of education, from primary school to university, the growing swarms of administrators soak up the budget. In some school systems, they vastly outnumber the actual teachers, have better pay, and yet contribute nothing to the operation of the schools.

Don't forget those in the construction industry. Like administrators, they contribute where it counts: in the voting booth where they help elect those that will continue to increase spending on that abstraction "education" rather than on actual educators.

There are other advantages to shrinking components. Higher clock rates become possible.

You'd think so, but the problem is global interconnect. Not gates. It was all the way back at the 250nm node when interconnect and gate delay were about the same.

At the 28nm node, wire delay is responsible for something like 80% of the time it takes for signals to work their way through a circuit.

And it some cases inverters are actually used to help signals propagate more quickly down long wires. In other words, long wires are so slow compared to gates that adding gates can speed things up!

We're already at the point where 22nm components are more expensive per transistor than those at 28nm.

Previous shrinks lowered the cost of each transistor. It doesn't look like it's going to happen after 28nm.

and leaves phone on the bar

But for the fact that "blaming the victim" is currently considered a mean-spirited social faux pas, I would point out to you where your friend went wrong.

I believe many ISPs are actively sabotaging customer's connections to some of the internet's content

They don't have to. The protocols we use are more than capable of screwing with things.

Consider TCP: the protocol is BY DESIGN meant to exponentially increase the amount of data dumped on a link until it overloads and begins dropping packets. TCP then throttles for a little while and then soon goes back to bashing the network with packets until it breaks again.

Oh, it's a bad thing, depending on which way you look at it. For union busters this means you can finally sacrifice the weak and infirm on the altar of efficiency.

Wait. Are you talking about the children or the teachers?

Well, maybe.

Many of the worst and violent crimes are committed by men age 16-24.

Now look at this.

Notice that nice peak in the crime rate around 1992? Many of those crimes were committed by people born in the 60s -- a turbulent, uncertain time, and the 70s -- a rotten decade with a corrupt or weak presidents, increasing unemployment, inflation, and plenty of other rottenness.

I don't think it's too much of a stretch to believe that that sort of environment helps turn some children into violent criminals.

We have in some ways similar situation today. While some groups seem to be enjoying the recovery (baby-boomers, especially) many others are struggling. Young people -- those forming families right now -- have been left behind.

And I expect children being born into that world are having a tough time -- and in 16-24 years, we'll start to see the consequences.

surely?

You must be new around here. Let me be the first to welcome you to the United States of America.

Drivers depend on feedback from the car to help them make necessary adjustments.

If a curve isn't banked enough, the car shouldn't fool the driver into thinking that it is banked enough.

That feeling one gets when the car leans towards the outside of the curve is telling the driver to slow down!

They would get them back and then punish them and then separate them.

Exactly. If that's what he deserves, then truth will out.

And I have seen an awful lot of people saying that he wasn't worth any particular effort to get back, which is pretty close to "let him rot." That's just mind-boggling to me.