Telling kids there are laws (of physics) that forbid them to do something? That mommy (nature) doesnt allow them to go there?

Are you kidding? We would have been there already by now.

That was my first thought too.

There are so many problems with this sollution and shoulderlooking is a huge one.

It's nice that humans are good at remembering graphic data like images on a map but the same goes for the guy standing behind you.
If someone knows you personally in most cases he or she wouldn't even have to see the exact location where you click.
"ah... that looks like her old neighborhood, let's see if she picked her old house as passlocation"..

Also, it seems way to slow to be functional.
The way it sounds they want me to pinpoint a exact location somewhere on earth when I want to log into a site? So I get a 2D? 3D? earth image on my screen and then navigate to that spot?
By the time I get to that point my interest is already gone "scroll, scroll, scroll, zoom, zoom, damnit, zoom out a bit, more scroll, more zoom, ah, there we go..

Or can I type out a adress ala google maps that takes me to that location?
Would be convenient no? MyOldSchoolroad 10, OldTown, Country... yeah, that would be nice and secure :-)

Might be a good time to start up a book publishing company by then. All those religious and 'holy' books that have to be rewritten en distributed...

Exactly, I hate it when people make mockery of people that actually are doing something to improve themselves.

No, it's not a feast for the eyes when a seriously over-weighted person is jogging through the streets. But it should be a feast for the brains though, instead of making downgrading remarks you should compliment and encourage them.

They are the brave and strong ones in a society where looks are almost the single most important thing to judge a person on.

To be honest my heart skipped a beat while reading the summary.
But alas, it has been debunkt allready.

The day that the un really appoints someone as a sort of intergalactic ambassador will be the day that we'd really should ask some serious questions. I don't believe that the un is efficiënt enough to do something like that "just in case".

Would be a fun meeting I reckon.... "alright, we need a alien ambassador, who wants the job?, Who's carreer is on a dead enough track to not mind the lifelong laughter and mockery when your political functions are discussed.....? " :)

No, not gonna happen unless there is a real reason to do so

The thing that keeps amazing me every time I read something about the mars rovers is their stamina.

Think about it, it landed in January 2004 for a 90 (ninety) day mission on the surface of mars.

As we speak it's still driving around and making new discoveries, just mindblowing.
That's 2343 days more than expected. Massive kudos to the engineers of these little wonders.

Even worse, not wearing your seatbelt may disable (some of) your airbags. I found this out the hard way.

The only time in my adult life that I didn't wear seatbelts I got involved in a car crash (talk about karma eh..)

A few years friend bought a BMW earlier that day and wanted to show it to me. While driving around a few blocks he got in a spin.
The road was a bit wet, the previous owner of the car had worn the tires out pretty badly and my friend was not used to the power of the car yet. Not a very good combination.
At the end of the spin we crashed into a parked lorry and instantly totaled the car. We both didn't wear seat-belts at that moment, I simply forgot about it I guess.

However, the car itself was pretty much stuffed with airbags but none of them had inflated at the impact..
A few minutes later a policeman showed up, he checked if we were ok (which we were) and the second thing he said was "you guys didn't wear your seat-belts, that was pretty stupid".
I asked him how he could know if we did or did not wore the belts at the time of the crash.

His reply: "the airbags aren't inflated, that means the seatbelts were not in locked position.
There is a sensor in the seatbelt lock that prevents airbags from inflating if you don't wear the seatbelts. It's for safety. Without your belt you'd crash into the inflating airbag so hard that you most likely would break your neck from that impact"

To this day I still don't know if that is true, but it does make some sense. The speed of a inflating airbag is huge, if you combine that with the forward speed of a human during a frontal crash I can imagine that's even more harmfull than the crash impact without the airbags.

Good news, if this doesn't get the commercial space-race going nothing will ;)

That was my first thought too.

If language is the problem and the students need dictionaries let them bring a paper version, problem solved. These things are dirtcheap so that won't be much of a problem.

As for the calculators, compile a list of say 10 or 15 models that are not networked and tell them they can use any calculator from that list. Make a range from cheap and simple to expensive overkill so everyone can be happy.

If they use iPads, phones or other e-devices for dictionaries and cheating I'm pretty sure they will figure out a new calculator in no time really.

You're forgetting something important here I think.
Only a very small fraction of the iPhone users actually attempt to jailbreak their device. The majority of people is perfectly happy with the way it works and have no desire to 'hack' it.

Let's not forget that apart from the very closed system it uses the iPhone itself is very very well designed in terms of usability.

When I bought my 3GS it didn't even come with a manual. Just the phone and some cables and stuff. Now, that's a bold statement.
Telling your customers 'our device is so user friendly that you don't need a manual, it just works and you'll understand completely how it works without any help needed at all'.

Steve's fight against jailbreaking is a useless fight and he knows that. I think apple only tries to not let it get out of hand. But I don't think it worries them too much. 90% of their customers don't care about it anyway and rightfully so.

Of course, when I saw a HTC desire running Android in action I ditched my iPhone and orderded a Desire rightaway ;-)

Did I just see a robot chair designed to move you from A to B inside your own friggin house?

That's just too much for me.
I can't even begin to comprehend why I, or anyone else for that matter, would want something like that.

If walking from your bedroom to your living room is a to difficult, to exhausting and daunting task you don't need a robot. You need some goddamn exercise.

Disclaimer:
Of course this doesn't apply for the elderly or disabled but there are already plentiful solutions for that. This was just a glorified bling bling version of it.

But since this add (or demo) was clearly targeted at young, healthy, trendy (and probably rich) adults I just find it sickening to watch how pathetically lazy some humans can be.

You mean something like the way the new digg.com works?
Or what's left of it anyway ;-)

Sometimes a tough call.

I'm 35 now and got diagnosed with adhd 2 years ago.
I've been through some counseling and training via a "adhd for adults" program and started taking meds.

Man, has my life changed! For the better that is.....
Suddenly the things I do (or don't do) make a lot more sense. I've started learning and understanding my own behavior a lot better. The medication (Concerta supplemented with Ritalin) make me feel and act a lot more "normal" (whatever that is). I can now actually watch a complete movie without getting distracted and bored within 10 minutes. I can focus on my work and jobs a lot better, get things done a whole lot more..

So, for me getting that diagnose now in this stage of my life is almost a revelation...

But!
When I think of my childhood, I wouldn't have wanted that.

Yes, I was a annoying little son of a....Got bored very fast, always busy, with, well.. being busy.
I'm sure a lot of teachers would have executed me on the spot if they had the chance to do so. Later on I became a true wildchild. Sex, drugs and rock'n'roll? Hah, that's what pussies do so to speak..

But I enjoyed every moment of it, wouldn't have wanted to miss that for a second.
Of course, I would never have known if I'd had started taking meds at a much younger age. But still... Looking back, I don't regret it.

I was just a kid, being a kid, though on natural steroids..
I'm glad they let me be.

Wrong,
No amount of f-stop can make you look better in real life....

The single most important thing in the online dating game is the first impression. On a website there are only two tools available to you to make that first impression.
1. Your written profile.
2. Your photograph.

Anyone can write a good profile.
Just take your time for it. Read, re-read, adjust. Don't rush it, take a couple of days to work on it so you have time to make sure it's well written, and perfectly targeted at the demograph you'd like to meet.

Your picture is even more important since it's the very first thing people look at when visiting your profile.
The difference between having a normal, average, shot and good quality photo is huge.

I've been dating via datingsites for a long time, for shits-n-giggles, to get laid, to just meet other persons, etc etc. I basically just like the game and the challenge of it.
I'm a average looking guy and I guess I get a average amount of replies/succesrate.

At one point a friend of mine, a professional photographer, wanted to experiment with some new techniques and asked if I could pose for a couple of shots.

They turned out te be quite good, gave me a bit of a "rough" look and I started using pictures of that session in my datingprofiles. The results were quite staggering. The amount of replies and comments I got on my profile shot through the roof, four times as much as before when I used just a average pic.
In online dating a good first impression isn't winning half the battle, it's winning 75% of the battle.. The steps from having a few messages send back and forth to a actual date is pretty easy after that.

Lesson learned: Looks matter, A LOT, and they can be manipulated..

1. write a good profile
2. get yourself decent pictures
3. .
4. profit

No "????" at 3 because you can skip that step if done right.

Oh, and get yourself a iPhone ;-)

Unless a event occurs that is so impacting and unprecedented in known human history. Humans will never learn to unite and live in cooperation with each other. Like you said, it's not in our nature.

And with 'impacting and unprecedented' I'm thinking in terms of Divine intervention, alien visits (which might turn out to be the same thing), natural disaster killing 70/80+ percent of the human population, the made up Mayan prophecy turning out to be true after all..
That sort of stuff.

In other words, ain't gonna happen.

If we can hold out long enough hopefully technology will be so advanced and relatively cheap that at least the more fortunate in our society can get a second chance somewhere else.. (where they can start all over again)