I agree, which is the purpose for the following statement:

In his own post, he refers to social programs as things which "[pay] people to stay home and watch TV." By his own definition, and my interpretation of its meaning, he is completely wrong. He made a very ambiguous (not to mention loaded) statement and I called him out on it.

I'm not attempting to impregnate my own opinion here (or maybe I am, but not on purpose), but you can't defend his statement by saying things like education are covered under his definition of "social programs."

Also, that chart is about the nicest way anyone could possibly portray the "defense" budget. As mentioned in a later comment, the defense budget is actually sourced much differently than the alleged "social programs."

In other words, the "defense" budget in the United States is greater than the next 20 countries (ranked by their defense budget) combined. And just FYI, only 11.5% of that budget goes into that R&D you praised. But hey, I guess that's doing pretty well since we only seem to think 4% of our federal budget belongs in education! (now my opinions are showing)

Old news! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPgV6-gnQaE

Maybe where you live, but I wear a Timex Ironman Triathlon and I receive complements all the time.

Here's one good example: http://store.apple.com/us/product/H3791ZM/A
Or, here's about 50 more: http://www.amazon.com/s?ie=UTF8&keywords=ipod&rh=n%3A377110011%2Ck%3Aipod&page=1

Seriously, I'm a huge Android fan but... I'd take an iPod Nano wristwatch over these any day: cheaper, better battery life, and easy to use

I'm assuming you're talking about welfare. If so, have you checked your facts recently?

Or are you trying to argue that anything that benefits people (social security, healthcare...) contributes to "paying people to stay home and watch TV"?

Source: http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/year_budget_2011USbf_13bs1n#usgs302

What happened on 9/11/2011?

It's shocking to me how many people are so bent out of shape about this.

This is a capitolistic society. If you don't like it, go elsewhere.

But don't forget, schools have two major responsibilities: make sure kids attend school (by law), and make sure kids excel at school (see previous); whether it's a computer or a person, someone or something is keeping track of where your child is at school and how often they aren't there (because they have to).

Is fingerprinting the best option? I don't know, that's what I expected people in a "tech" community to discuss (especially when non-tech related political discussions outrage so many who visit here), not about how doing the same thing school's have always done (keep track of student attendance) is turning the world into a communist wasteland.

So, can someone post something objective and relevant so I can get back to what I was doing?

That may not be a bad start, actually...

Which is... not at all?

Kind of looks like a toxic green cloud settling over New Jersey... Maybe all that methane off-gassing from the dumps is accumulating in the atmosphere above the bigger cities. Could also be a by-product of spray tanning chemicals.

I used to have to ask someone where the nearest this or that could be found. I used to have to ask how to get from A to B. Local landmarks used to be paramount in navigation and route finding. Now we can haplessly ignore the locals and find our own way straight to the restaurant we chose based on Yelp reviews. Word of mouth is not very useful anymore, at least not in the traditional sense. What I'm getting at, is that smaller cities/towns lose control of their identity. It's the internet that decides which restaurants and hotels are the best, and how to get around town. I'm not trying to commend on whether or not this is better or worse, but it's hard to find one piece of technology which has contributed so much to this trend.

GPS has removed the need to "memorize" local street patterns or common routes. Why bother to remember how to get to your favorite vacation spot when GPS will "always" be there to guide you? (Again, this is stripping local landmarks of their significance)

In another sense, GPS (GNSS for those of you modern enough to embrace foreign constellations) has really complicated the idea of "location." The instability of consumer-grade GPSr observations and the steep price curve for more accurate instruments has created a rather cluttered mess. Everyone seems to think that their coordinates are better than the other guy. I'm in the land surveying/geomatics field, and even at that level GPS is rarely brought up in legal disputes because it's just not an acceptable replacement for good old fashioned direct measurements (or acceptable substitutions, like EDMs).

In my opinion, GPS/GNSS has not solved *any* issues in the civilian world. It has (over)simplified and depersonalized navigation (non GNSS alternatives exist and have worked wonderfully for centuries), created clutter and confusion, and in conjunction with the internet helped to strip local societies of their identity.

Why should I take this kind of data collection personally? After all, they know what I do on the internet but they don't actually don't know anything about me. I'm just a number, a component of their statistical calculation. I'm a source of data used to seed their advertising rotation algorithm for shit I never buy (mostly because I don't even acknowledge the advertisements).

Why is it that when we WANT someone to notice our tiny, pathetic existence we decry the cold, computerized nature of big business and complain about how we are "just a number" to them... but when we call it a "privacy issue" it's all about "how much they know about me!"

So what if Google knows you looked up hydroponics kits? Do you think they have some useful purpose for that information which is ultimately going to negatively affect you in some way?

Really? this wasn't clear and upfront enough?

Was someone under the impression that any of this was a secret?

One need only look at the privacy policy to figure this out: http://www.pandora.com/privacy/

Information about your computer or device: We may also collect information about the computer, mobile or other devices you use to access and listen to the Service. For example, our servers receive and record information about your computer and browser, including potentially your IP address, browser type, and other software or hardware information. If you access the Service from a mobile or other device, we may collect a unique device identifier assigned to that device or other transactional information for that device.

With such headings as "Automatic Data Collection", "How we use the information we collect:", and "How the information we collect is shared:" it's kind of hard for me to see how there was any ambiguity?

On the other hand, I know most people never bothered to read the privacy statement but that is by no means Pandora's fault. They provided the information - if users failed to actually read it, that's on them.