Stress can be depressing, and creativity correlates with chronic depression. No surprise that depressed people could have a great idea to turn into a startup, or that the stress of doing so could express as depression. In the case of BiPolar disorder, that manic phase has obvious advantages for an entrepreneur, but people with BPD rarely consider themselves depressed.

As a personal note - excessive, semi-random use of rhetorical/grammatical tools like "scare quotes" also correlates to BPD. Combine that with starting a number of successful businesses during periods of high-energy, optimism and a sense of operating at a mental optimum, along with phases of crippling depression, and you've pretty much announced that you have BPD. I'll be the armchair asshat who says it - you just described the symptoms perfectly. No criticism, no shaming, I'm just going to recommend you repeat that to a psychiatrist.

Wow, you sound depressed.

My name is Matt, and I suffer from Major Depressive Disorder.

It sucks, but it's common enough that I don't feel stigmatized. Although it could just be that my Wellbutrin is doing the trick (so did Paxil, but the sexual side effects were intolerable. Ruined a relationship or two, which was depressing). That sense of being stigmatized could just be another way your depression is expressing itself.

Depression does seem to correlate with creativity though.

Stress. Could just be that 30% of people faced with high levels of stress react by sinking into depression. I know it happens to me.

We can't do both? Mightn't researching how to terraform an uninhabitable planet lead to valuable insights into how to "unfuck" ours?

I wholeheartedly agree! Venus is a much, much better target for terraforming. Mars can't even hold an atmosphere, Venus already has one. We just need to fix it.

Although it would really stink for the first colonists.

I thought it was a size issue. Well, a mass issue anyhow. Mars not having enough of it (so not enough gravity) to retain an atmosphere for very long.

One of the reasons I think Venus is a better planet to terraform. It has an atmosphere, we just need something that will break down carbon and sulphur dioxides. The first is easy, and I bet we could engineer something to do the second.

What if girls are more likely to get more out of the toy if it is painted pink, and boys more out of it if there are explosions on the box?

If making cosmetic changes so you have two versions of the same product, one targeted for boys, one for girls, means both will want it and use it more, then that is the way to go. Complete gender neutrality might not be all that appealing, which means the toy will sit on shelves gathering dust instead of getting kids interested in anything.

Why pretend that men and women aren't different and shoot ourselves in the foot by making things less efficient, when working with those differences can improve outcomes?

Yet if you present a child with both sets of "gendered" toys from the start, the majority will prefer those for their own gender. So far as I know it is not well studied. The fact that Larry Summers lost his job running Harvard for suggesting it was worth studying may have had something of a chilling effect. But, he tried it with his own children, from birth, and his son went for trucks and his daughter went for dolls.

That kids will play with anything they can imagine as a toy doesn't mean they don't have preferences that might not be satisfied by the available options.

This isn't about reinforcing gender stereotypes, it's about presentation! Boys and girls like different kinds of toys. If you want a kid to use an educational toy, it had better be a kind of toy they will be willing to play with. Giving a boy a doll (well armed action figures don't count) probably won't work, nor will giving a girl a gun shaped toy.

If you don't give kids toys they will be interested in picking up, any educational value is meaningless.

You absolutely shouldn't. It's total nonsense. It's like saying you should pay a tobacco tax when you purchase a lighter, because it could be used to light a cigarette.

Offer them a "deal" - one for $500k, both for $750k

Why worry? Federal law requires that providers allow you to use your own hardware. You'll probably have to tell them, maybe rent a card, but past that they have have to shut up and take it.

What about the federal regulations requiring them to allow you to use your own hardware?

This pleases me greatly. I'm sick of having to uninstall that crap from all my workstations.