Or to be part of a 'well regulated' militia. Self-defense is not specified in the amendment.

There was a day at the end of the term when the students in a chemical engineering course (10.something) coming back over the Harvard Bridge would take the rubber bands off the stacks and stacks of punch cards accumulated while writing FORTRAN programs for the course and toss them off the bridge. There was usually a stiff breeze and the results were satisfying.

I took an introductory version of that course. Punch a hundred cards out on the big old typewriter workstation thing. Take the stack to the computer window. Come back next day for the wide printout. Unfold and see all the fucking errors. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. All failures separated by a day or a weekend.

Instead of public net backbone, we might end up with private bridges and private highways.

Yes, Netflix. Pay then for backbone access. Then pay them for last mile connections. That's probably enough to satisfy Comcast. Why would they want to find more ways to make you pay? Why would they want to squeeze every last cent out of you? That would put you out of business. Surely they don't mean to do that.

How about instead of transferring customers like they were cattle, you let them have a freaking CHOICE?

Why shouldn't I work for the N.S.A.? That's a tough one, but I'll take a shot. Say I'm working at the N.S.A. Somebody puts a code on my desk, something nobody else can break. Maybe I take a shot at it and maybe I break it. And I'm real happy with myself, 'cause I did my job well. But maybe that code was the location of some rebel army in North Africa or the Middle East. Once they have that location, they bomb the village where the rebels were hiding and fifteen hundred people that I never met and that I never had no problem with get killed. Now the politicians are sayin', "Send in the marines to secure the area" 'cause they don't give a shit. It won't be their kid over there, gettin' shot. Just like it wasn't them when their number was called, 'cause they were pullin' a tour in the National Guard. It'll be some kid from Southie takin' shrapnel in the ass. And he comes home to find that the plant he used to work at got exported to the country he just got back from. And the guy who put the shrapnel in his ass got his old job, 'cause he'll work for fifteen cents a day and no bathroom breaks. Meanwhile he realizes the only reason he was over there in the first place was so we could install a government that would sell us oil at a good price. And of course the oil companies used the skirmish over there to scare up domestic oil prices. A cute little ancillary benefit for them but it ain't helping my buddy at two-fifty a gallon. They're takin' their sweet time bringin' the oil back, and maybe even took the liberty of hiring an alcoholic skipper who likes to drink martinis and fuckin' play slalom with the icebergs, and it ain't too long 'til he hits one, spills the oil and kills all the sea life in the North Atlantic. So now my buddy's out of work and he can't afford to drive, so he's walking to the fuckin' job interviews, which sucks 'cause the schrapnel in his ass is givin' him chronic hemorroids. And meanwhile he's starvin' 'cause every time he tries to get a bite to eat the only blue plate special they're servin' is North Atlantic scrod with Quaker State. So what did I think? I'm holdin' out for somethin' better. I figure, fuck it, while I'm at it, why not just shoot my buddy, take his job and give it to his sworn enemy, hike up gas prices, bomb a village, club a baby seal, hit the hash pipe and join the National Guard? I could be elected president.

If things continue along their current path, in the not too distant future crimes against Comcast will carry the death penalty.

When printable guns become more feasible, it will be revealing what the NRA has to say about it. One one hand, you would think they would support this in the name of the Second Amendment and so on. I predict that the NRA will not be able to spit out the teat of gun manufacturers corporate money and will find some convoluted way to oppose private citizens making their own arms.

"Nano" gets grant money. "Tiny" or "minute" or "itsy bitsy" does not.

I'm in the market for a Tesla. If it takes D batteries, I'm all set. I can get those at Costco for cheap.

Plane-pilots don't have that emergency reinflation tube just below the belt buckle.

Really? My motto is don't treat your idiots and children like users.

She is not against vaccines. She just wants safe vaccines. The fact that no vaccine will ever meet her definition of 'safe' is your problem, not hers.

Perhaps if you are a company which should have privacy concerns right up at the top of your list of to dos you should not appoint a board member who by all accounts gives not a shit for privacy concerns?

By the by, wouldn't life be the tits if I had no background in tech other than abusing it but had political connections as 99% of my resume and could land sweetheart preIPO deals like this?

It's really cute how he thinks that NASA is powerful enough to suppress a fundamental cosmological arrangement observable by anyone.