Anything the brings it down to buying something makes all of it look like commercial transactions. Instead of trying to fit into a loophole, it would be better if it fell under a different classification entirely.

Instead of miles, what if it were karma points and managed by a registered 501C3 religious institution? One person could contribute to society by driving for others, another can donate time to charity, etc. Each person gets and gives intangible religious benefit from the arrangement.

Would you have a problem giving a ride to someone and getting nothing in return, knowing that they are helping others too, such as:
Charity workers (e.g., soup kitchen)
Boy/Girl scout leaders/helpers
Volunteer for kids weekend sports

I carpool to work frequently. A coworker gave me rides to work for a couple months when I broke my hand. I've been driving the carpool for a couple of years since then. I get to use the carpool lane, collectively we create less pollution by leaving his truck behind, and I'm coming to work anyway. It's been a win-win arrangement for us.

Self promoting douche buys item that causes other people to talk about him. Looks like it worked. Any press is good press for some people.

Why isn't there an entire TV service for each cult? They could only see things that match their beliefs 24x7, and leave the rest of us out of it.

Though, it would be nice to see an entire episode on Pastafarianism. Today's youth just don't have the attention span for a good short book anymore.

Children don't always take productive criticism or advice. In fact, many of them continue to blame everyone else for their situation for the rest of their lives.

I know I did my fair share of ignoring people I later learned were right all along. I used to think that adults were people who matured to realize that. But boy was I way the hell off there. All anyone needs to be an adult is to wait out the clock.

That gives me an idea for a children's cartoon - kinda like Thomas the Train, but call it Francis the Fence Post. Every episode can be 21 minutes of blaming someone else for everything bad that happens to poor Francis. But he's not really a fence post, he's a bitter little boy who believes he's a fence post because he's sitting in the middle of a fence and is too lazy to get up and do something.

I'm sure there would be millions of people who would identify with Francis and spend $29.95 on a T-shirt to express their unique comradery with Francis the Fence Post. What size do you want? Who am I kidding, all of the shirts will be XXXL. =)

BTW, you realize that we know who Woz is, not because of what he said, but what he DID. And by all accounts, he continues to use his smarts and money to help others. He's a totally kick ass role model if you need one.

Even our deficit is famous. Everyone knows we've got the biggest, baddest deficit around. We're #1, who cares if it's for something bad?

If it "ruined" your growth, it's only because you didn't try. As a wise man once said: it's better to have tried and failed than to have just failed.

Most of my public school education was a complete waste of time, but I didn't expect those people to help me. I learned computers on my own, read countless books on all sorts of topics on my own. Libraries, even sucky ones, are filled with tons of stuff you don't know.

I never asked for permission or for people to give me opportunities to try different things, I just did things that interested me. My programming teacher in high school talked to a local business owner and recommended me for a database programming job when I was 15. That was the first time I realized people would pay me to do stuff I enjoyed doing on my own time. None of that came from what the school gave me, but what I did on my own.

The only one who will ever help you is you. If that guy gave up on you, you're doomed.

And for those who are doomed: when I order something with onion rings and a shake, I don't need to be asked if I'd like fries and a drink with that.

What logical arguments?

Is this about creating jobs for unskilled people to go door to door and offer a clock setting service?

I don't think the school comment was about teachers - it was more likely referring to the increasing sizes of school district administration staff making 6 figures and contributing basically nothing to the education process.

I've been programming for most of my life and I find it to be relaxing. It's mentally challenging, but physically restful. I've felt like I had plenty of energy after working 80 hours a week doing programming. I would equate it to playing a video game - how many video game addicts say they gotta stop after 40 hours a week? There are lots of people who can easily put 60-80 hours a week into a game.

OTOH, 40 hours of project management drained everything from me and took longer than a weekend to recover from. It's just a matter of how a particular type of task affects the individual.

Watson may not be able to do the programming itself, but imagine if it took the requirements and/or expected inputs/outputs and found existing libraries that do most of the work. It could tell you what language that it would take the least work, the relative difference in complexity of choosing one language over another and the technologies that should be available. That would be a great benefit to an IBM project manager who needs to know what kind of programmer to hire and how long the contract should last.

If I have a problem that I could easily solve with a week of programming on a LAMP stack, I have no reason to research the topic and find out that 95% of the solution may already be available if only I were using .NET and Access. If it's a 6 month project on LAMP and 2 weeks in .NET, I don't have the experience to do the .NET solution, let alone in 2 weeks. On the other hand, if the application needs to be rock solid and I work in an environment with hundreds of Unix guys and one Windows admin, the .NET solution can't meet the business requirements. Many of these kinds of details can be factored into a robust knowledge base and help feed good recommendations.

If Watson could do some of the research, the programmer becomes more like a kid with a Lego kit but no instructions. Knowing you have all of the right parts and a picture of the end result makes it easier to create the step by step instructions.

Swearing was implied, but I figured if someone at RSA wanted to own their evil, they'd want to jab at F-Secure for their vocal opposition.

"The researchers and experts who have pulled out include Mikko Hypponen, chief research officer of Finland-based antivirus provider F-Secure, and Adam Langley and Chris Palmer, who work on security practices at Google."

Are they going to do this in already contaminated areas, or are they going to potentially screw up some new place?

It's not unreasonable to want to know more from a scientific standpoint, but hopefully someone is asking "what if this goes worse than expected?"

They could market it with a twist on google's "do no evil" motto:

RSA 2014 - All evil, all the time. F security, F US technology, and F YOU!

Typical glitch in the matrix. Your story would be easier to explain if it happened in Amsterdam. =)

One time, leaving a weekly lunch with friends, I commented that the weather was going to trigger the "earthquake weather" nut jobs. On my way back to work, there was a minor earthquake. It was under 5.0, so by California standards, it rates mention only on slow news days and ends up on the USGS daily summary. It would not have been memorable if the conditions didn't give me such a strong impression and if I didn't have multiple friends tell me about the quake that happened shortly (within the 45 minute commute back to work) after I said that.

Even though I'm strongly inclined towards the scientific mindset, these kinds of incidents strongly suggest there's a lot more going on than we understand.