Hell, even that would be an improvement.

I graduated in 2009 from a public school in New Jersey. To answer your question, no. There were no civics classes. Not even available as an elective. We were however required to take a mandatory class on Microsoft Office. Our priorities are completely screwed up, aren't they?

As a young American I fell very much the same. During my childhood there was a period where my country had no national debt, then all of a sudden we spend more within 8 years then the whole time since we we gained our independence. Then I became an adult. My generation was born into a 14 trillion dollar debt and that we will be paying off for the rest of our lives. For better or worse, sometimes I dream about us defaulting on this debt. It would be better then paying for the baby boomer's idiocy. If only taxation could work in a way where you could only be taxed for policies passed after the point you are allowed to vote.

I picked up an nVidia GTX 970 about a month ago, and though I had to tinker a little bit with Debian to get it up and running, after I got the newest drivers installed it's been running rock solid and I haven't noticed much of a difference in performance between Debian and Windows 7 (Maybe 4 more fps in a game on windows where the game is running with the fps in the 290s. This wasn't an ideal test though because the renderer on windows was DirectX 9, while on Linux it was OpenGL). To get it going in Jessie, the upcoming stable release, all you need to do is add experimental to your sources and apt-get -t experimental install nvidia-kernel-dkms. Experimental should be pinned by default so things won't get installed unless you are explicit.

Before I put the 970 in, I had been getting by with the integrated graphics in my i7-4770k. If you haven't built a new PC in a while, the capabilities of Intel's integrated graphics will blow you away. Yes, dedicated cards are still miles ahead in performance, but on the Haswell HD Graphics 4600 GPU I was able to play some pretty modern games at modest settings. The coolest thing about it though is the completely open source graphics drivers and stack on Linux. If you're looking for the best performance possible on a completely open source stack, Intel is your answer.

I own a laptop with an ATi graphics chipset and their drivers are absolute garbage. Their Linux driver causes visual artifacts all the time on a composited GUI, and the machine to crashes on shutdown one out of 5 times with fglrx dumping core causing the machine to never shut off (and potentially turn my laptop bag into a toaster oven x_x). I guess I'm going to return to the open source radeon drivers now that I can scratch my gaming itch on the desktop.

As someone working in manufacturing, I can tell you. Materials and expendable supplies.

Yes, and it's called EVIL for a reason :)

Hey dude, even though some of us Americans are scumbags, it isn't right to wish death upon anyone... Especially a bunch of civilian scientists.

I don't know if all shops work this way, but I work as a CNC lathe toolsetter and programmer in a non-union shop in New Jersey and what you say is pretty accurate based on my experience. Most of our operators will typically run a cell of 2 to 4 machines. As long as there are more contracts than we have machines (which is always, or we'd be out of business) we are constantly breaking down setups and retooling our machines for the next production run. We produce hundereds of different parts for some of our clients, and print revisions happen somewhat regularly. When we get a revised print, it usually only means we have to change a couple numbers in the g-code to define the new toolpath and tool the machine exactly how we did before the revision. While it may present an oppertunity to re-negotiate, It is hardly something we are willing to loose a contract over.

Now, I'm sure making microprocessors is quite a bit more sophisticated, but I can imagine that the biggest difference between different model CPUs built on the same process would be the code controlling the machine (automagically generated by CAM software from a CAD model), and they can probably be switched without making significant physical changes to the machine itself. If I remember correctly, it can easily take a couple years of calibration before a fab can produce anything reliable consistantly. I imagine once those machines are set up, they probably spend most of their time worrying about an earthquake happening on the other side of the world, not about loading a new program onto it.

I'd never trust any of this crap. All of these captains of industry complain about how few skilled workers we have here in the US - be it tech, manufacturing, whatever. All they really want is to pay as little for the labor as possible, and as long as it costs less in China, they will keep making up excuses and funding think-tanks to support their point of view. If they were trying to have their products manufactured with the best craftsmanship possible, by the most skilled workers they could employ, they wouldn't be outsourcing them to the cheapest place they could find. I'm not going to be that guy that says we do everything best in the US, but doing things best is not why we are outsourcing to China either.

Is this a case? Can someone drop the name or a link to the docket so I can follow it? (Typed in total sincerity. No sarcasm here.)

This reminds me of my mechanic's old Snap-On MODIS II OBD2 diagnostics machine. The thing is literally a handheld computer (heavy and bulky) except instead of a keyboard and mouse it has 6 buttons. When you plug it in, it takes 5-10 minutes to boot up Windows 98, then eventually the front end software starts up. It's a terrible hack of a machine.

I'm the future, and this is crazy,
so here's my number, call me maybe...

That sounds terriffic. This whole thing started when I was a minor. Guess who's going to be paying for it for the rest of his life even though he had no say in the matter? It's kind of really fucked up.

Even then, the market will show that it prefers a well advertized heap of shit over a buggy piece of software with more supposed features.

My high school instructor told us that when he was in high school electronics, the kids would toss a charged capacator at you if they saw you trying to sneak in after the bell rang. Either you try your best to catch it, or you let it drop and the professor turns around from the chalk board and notices you walking in.

I'm going to be competing in my first official Super Smash Bros Melee tournament (ie. paid entry, prizes) in a couple of days and have been soaking in many videos of professional tournament games over the past couple weeks. It's truly amazing to me to see the strategies and techniques that the pros employ. It takes a LOT of practice to be able to exploit a character's specific intricacies in order to optimize your offensive and defensive game. It practically gets down to the point of playing mind games with your opponent. Always being able to predict their next move (not always possible with a good opponent), or at least knowing what options they have available to them at each split second is essential. (Watch this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v... - a good example of professional players pushing technique to the limits)

I don't think I've ever sat in front of the computer and sucked down video after video of historic baseball footage... ore ever will.