i just think this whole issue is plain simple: freedom of culture.
People need art in their lives, even if they won't die of it, i believe it to be an intellectual boost needed for everyone who wants to be even remotely succesful in life.
And yes, I know there are tons of issues surrounding this, so this is NOT the ultimate solution, but taking into account all the issues surrounding the current model, it makes me wonder if it wouldn't be better to try and solve the problems from the artist side, instead of chasing every single consumer..
I for one wouldn't mind an "Art Tax".. it's way better than a 'Save Wall Street Tax'

my genes didn't let me finish homework

I think that there's no way to prove WHO you voted for, just that the vote registered isn't the same as yours.
For each image, there corresponds a unique ordering of the candidates, so the only way to cheat would be that the votes appear in a diferent order as in your ballot

But if the algorithm that counts the votes, which should be freely available, works individually on each ballot, then it would be possible to decipher your vote just by looking at the count before and after summing your ballot. I really don't know if there's a way to make the algorithm fail for a single ballot.

we'll just have to run around with voltmeters
it wouldn't be hard to make an awesome wristwatch sized one!

wouldn't this solve the only issue around this? then it would be just like torrent. sort of.. it would just lack the comments, but that could be easily done on a website.. is there a way turning autoplay off wouldn't work??

i've never had an android, and i don't really know what's all the fuzz about it.. but if at some point of history they could offer some variation of my default phone (i always buy small and simple phones), like, the option to add some sort of anti theft tech, i would go with android, since it looks (that is, by what i've heard) aimed to be an open platform. the same goes, i think, to anyone who stays with one type of phone (not the ones that like to have the coolest phone out there. that market couldn't care less for functionality) i think this is great to expand the market.. we could all sit and say how people don't like to have some sort of bash 'cause they 'freak out' when they see it, but the truth is that more and more people are getting used to it, at least enough to know they haven't broke anything by opening it.. and that's quite enough to change that uneasiness of having a customizable phone into a powerful incentive, as in ''i don't know how to use it NOW.. but with time this phone will rock''

i'm not sure about this, but i can think of a few reasons..

first, the bond it makes when crystallized is very weak (similar to a noble gas crystal) so maybe gravity is able to break it??? :S

second, the pressure at different points of the bowl is different, so the freezing point is not equal, and when the temperature drops more (you'd need to do this to get the whole bowl crystallized) different parts of the bowl would contract in different proportions ruining the shape.

and finally, ... well.. those are the two reasons i can think of :p someone more into this could give you a better answer, but i'm sure this guys already thought about it and found out it can't be done that way!

um... it's nothing like the thing on the article.. what you're talking about is a lens with adjustable focus. what they're talking about is a mirror with ultra smooth adjustable shape. though they may seem similar, there's a big difference. also, you can afford a lot more focal dispersion (i just made that word up) in eyeglasses than telescopes**, hence the bitchiness about it being ultra smooth.

**just take think about it this way. if you have a small imperfection in the eyeglasses, you may get a really tiny solid angle of the image wrong. astronomers like to look at objects that cover very very very tiny solid angles from where they look :P

"The district considered PCs but decided to go with MacBooks because Apple offers a better package with educational and technical support, Hayes said. Plus, the software the district would have to purchase for a PC adds up. "When it came down to it, there was a minimal difference in savings," he said. "

So, the obvious comment here would be "WHAT ABOUT LINUX????????????". Everyone would be allowed to keep their old notebooks and the software would be free.. OH, but i hear you complain about tech support. Well, it seems, no other than, the school already thought about it:

"Apple will also provide free technical support at the high school. A teacher is becoming certified through the company, and students in tech support classes will get hands-on experience fixing other students' computers if they break. The school will provide a replacement laptop while it's being worked on. "

Basically change Apple for Canonical (or any other major linux distro corp), and you'll get the same results, if not better ones. Besides, there's tons of educational software for linux out there, and i'm sure more and more will boil to the surface and get improved if they'd go with linux.

students learning to give support will also learn about coding in the way, and soon enough they'll start improving the very software they use in classes (which would be a neat idea actually for a class project).

of course, there's the possibility that the computer actually breaks, and it would end up to be the student's responsability to fix it since the school can't have deals with every manufacturer...BUT, is that really a problem? AND, is apple gonna give that kind of support for free as well?

i wouldn't be surprised if i went to the school board's houses and find iHouses instead, with a real scale, full-body photo of Steve Jobs in their bathtubs and a huge briefcase of iCash hidden inside their iCloset. This kind of things makes me mad, sort of.....

wouldn't this allow people to change the meaning of sentences?

well.. maybe a word's meaning is always subject to the ways we see them used, but this makes words a lot more flexible in meaning..

it also gives marketers a very sweet way to impress their bosses (and the audience) with this fonts..

intellectual discussions about the true content of the fonts will start all around the globe. Poets will commit mass suicide.

No, really. is this a good or a bad thing?

and we'll be charging our cellphones by plugging them to our....

bellybutton.

definitively, the bellybutton

(there was a pun there, but i forgot what it was)

Galactus is way cooler ^.^

we shouldn't worry, Galactus is fair and gives earth a chance..

umm.. on second thought.. i think we should be worried :|

in any case.. i'm asking a friend of mine what's the book that regulates this things, and start taking them with me to the airport.

I've seen my lawyer friends work their way out of cocky-cops just by saying they're lawyers; it scared the shit out of them hehehe.

well.. i'm just worried about the consequences of letting a batch of miseducated young people run freely to lead the country :(

The US already has a reputation of 'going out to get' anyone who stands in its way, but i always soothed myself with the thought that it was only greedy people's action, and they got away with it because most people were unaware and stupid.. so that would only get better with time (parents learn about it by chance and pass over the morals to their children etc..) ..

this may prove me wrong. and it scares the willies out of me if you ask. Next thing you know, they're approving bombings unthinkable of today..

just to be sure... are all the bombs stored in the north or the south??? :S

he/she meant that the problem is looking directly at the source of light.

when you read with an overhead lamp, the light travels twice the distance to reach your eyes, plus the absorption of the surrounding objects.. it ain't the same stuff.

i do agree that it's redundant to say ''laptop or iPad'', and btw, the kindle uses e-Paper.. it ain't lit.. RTFA before commenting -.-