Maybe the friends they want to be with are n'tthere?

While our daughter was in high school (and middle school), the 3 of us would often go to the mall. My girlfriend and I would alternate between shopping and watching our daughter from a discrete distance. This allowed her time with her friends - at least the ones whose parents also gave them enough space. If none of her friends were there, then yes, she'd be on her smart phone - but still managed to meet new friends. Sometimes, her group would use their phones to include friends not there, but usually just socialized with those present.

Is it really shocking to you that teens would want face-to-face social time?

I think it is good they want face-to-face time with their friends (and no, I do not mean "Face Time" on their iDevice). Opportunities for real, face-to-face socialization are far, far fewer than when we were teens.

I also think that most of today's adults would agree that face-to-face socialization is better. Unfortunately, too few are willing to take on the responsibility of enabling self-directed activities like when we were teens. Example: When I was a teen (and even when I was a child), all the parents in my neighborhood made the effort to get to know each other and help each other monitor the neighborhood so that it would be safe for the kids. I have not seen that happening in recent years. If neither of a kid's parents is with the kid, the kid isn't playing outside. And when kids do visit other kids' homes, the host parents expect the visiting kids' parents to stay for the duration. And the parents of the visiting kids expect to be allowed to stay. Another example: My school had informal, after school activities that were only loosely monitored by teachers and/or staff. In recent years, the closest there is to unscripted time is lunch break, which is often barely long enough for all the kids to get their lunches and eat.

I think you greatly under estimate the ingenuity of motivated tax collectors. This is "merely" a "technical limit". They will find ways to work around it.

I think the GP was saying the default would have been much smaller because the bank would have (a) been less willing to loan out the money, and (b) had less money to lend out.

While (a) might be a reasonable assumption, I am not sure about (b). I think that the banks, regardless of the currency, would have figured out other ways to emass gigantic sums of money.

Each metal has a set of properties that differentiate it from other metals that affect its desirability for various uses. The combination of gold's properties and its relative scarcity give it its value. Scarcity can vary over time, thus changing the value. An interesting example is aluminum. Before the techniques and technologies required for large (or even medium) scale smelting of bauxite, aluminum was almost as valuable as silver.

The difference with digital currency is simply that it is easier to assemble the required algorithms and protocols to create new currencies with whatever set of desired properties/features. The main obstacle to its competitors is achieving sufficient level of adoption by users. Part of achieving that will involve addressing Bitcoin's problems without compromising its benefits. - and then adequately demonstrating its superiority,

Um, several million will die quickly, but the rest of the world - both humans and non-humans - will suffer some combination of radiation sickness and freezing weather. I think that is bigger.

Unfortunately, this won't be a deterrent. The ones like the 911 terrorists expect to die during the attack. Even if they didn't die - and don't then kill themselves - even the most humiliating public punishment would not deter others. They will just be more careful to not survive.

Then there are the crazies. They won't even think of the consequences.

So that leaves prevention. Most of the crazies could be dealt with by vastly improving access to mental health care. For latent malignancy cases and "professionals", detection is much harder.

And that means the debate on what and how much data is collected and how long it is stored will continue. Also, just what the true value of any given datum. For example, the use of the terminology "friend" in social media. Or even "follower" or "contact". I think, in most cases, "monitored people" would be more accurate.

The company I work for has a 5000 sq meter manufacturing facility packed full of robots - and only 5 engineers and 10 technicians. The manufacturing, assembly, packing and shipping are all automated. Even the maintenance is mostly automated.

Once upon a time, parents did teach their children this kind of respect. Over time, fewer parents did so. Mine (and my GF's) parents were probably amoung the last. Sadly, my GF and I are not able to give our daughter anywhere near the amount of privacy as our parents did. Not because we don't want to give her that level of privacy, but because the social climate demands that parents watch their children a lot more closely than prior generations of parents. We watch her get on the school bus in the morning (it stops close to our house and there is a public webcam at the stop, as well as a public webcam in the school bus) and watch her get off and walk home each day. When she visits a neighboring friend, we (and the friend's parents) are watching her go and return from the friend's house. Any further than that, one of us takes her to her destination, then gets her, later. And one of us goes with here when she goes bicycling. Within our house, all tools are in either workshop or the kitchen. When she's working on a project, one of us is watching as well as helping with the potentialy dangerous tools.

This is not what we think we should be doing. It was what society demands of us.

In contrast, I was allowed to play outside, roaming all over the neighborhood unsupervised. The only restrictions were that I either be able to hear my parents's bell and return home within 15min, or be where my parents had a phone number to call - and call them to let them know I was there. If I wanted to go beyond the neighborhood, I only had to ask and say how to contact me and about how long I expected to be away. The answer was usually "yes" and I could ride my bike to almost anywhere in town.

And I know I had almost no supervision as I roamed the neighborhood. There were many wooded areas when my friends and I could gather out of sight and out of hearing - something that would scare nearly all today's parents shitless.

As for tools, once I demonstrated I could handle a tool safely, I was allowed to use it - even tools my parents were not skilled enough to safely use. Forexample, when I was a Cub Scout, I built all my Pinewood Derby cars myself - no help from anyone and almost no supervision.

I recall reading, a few years ago, that some were using pr0n sites as a way to have humans answers CAPCHAs. They rigged their pr0n sites to "proxy" the CAPCHAs from the target websites. Once a human successfully answered a CAPCHA, a bot could then get into the target site while the human continued to browse the pr0n site.

It is worse. The bot can just "choose" randomly. If the list is new each time. the correct answer will be the one item that is always in the list. If the items are the same each time, it will eventually get the right answer.

True, limiting the number of guesses at a given time will slow the bots down, but they can do a single to each account in a list long enough to provide enough delay between attempts with out having to idle between attempts.

I keep hearing how great Kentucky's ACA website is. Has anyone looked into getting whoever did that to find out what it would take to configure/adapt it to work for other states?

Assuming that's possible, make a website for each state the fed gov is handling and make healthcare.gov a redirecter to the state specific sites.

How did you test it?

The typical PC sound card as a DAC frequency of 44.1kHz, so the frequency of the carrier tone would have to be less than 22kHz - probably around 15kHz - to reliably transmit data.

No. The input and output circuit amplifiers are arranged to only allow signal flow in one direction.

FYI, amplifiers can be arranged to allow 2 way signal flow (aka "full duplex") over a 2 wire connection. An example is a basic, landline telephone. You can demo this with 2 basic, landline phones, 2 phone jacks and a 9V battery. Connect the red wire from one jack to the red wire from the other, then both to + on the battery. Likewise, the green wires to - on the battery. Then with an assistant, each of you pick up one of the 2 handsets. You will be able to talk and hear each other over the 2 wire connection between the phones.

Over simplified diagram: http://pastebin.com/hQN58jDd - Download and save with the extension ".svg" then open file with Firefox, Chrome or Opera to view it.