Clearly this is a system where a few people get to dictate scarcity and inflate prices to keep competition out of the market. I'm glad it's being turned on its head.

I got distracted by the crazy link bait crap at the bottom of the page. Come on slashdot... I've been a member for nearly 15 years but you're about to lose me. I don't mind a banner ad here or there but I see one more "10 foods that'll make you old" I'm going to scream.

Oh yeah, so the intersection of a crazy and computer science brought this to life... oh great.

Really? The US is now a net producer of energy and our economy is the healthiest in the world by a large margin. What's the downside to the US to continue to punch Russia in the gut? We mainly import raw materials from Russia that we can gladly import elsewhere or get domestically.

Currently Soyuz is the only way to get to the ISS, but once SpaceX gets the DragonRider fully man rated, then we don't Russia for that either.

If I was Russia, I'd be looking at the current situation in a state of horror. The crashing price in oil, the Europeans quiet but steady reduction in their dependence on Russian gas. I think the next five years in Russia are going to be interesting (as in the Chinese proverb)

After the results if this midterm election, it's not surprising Facebook is ending their get out the vote program?

Why? Because Millenials are increasingly voting Republican and Libertarian after decades of lip service from the Democrats. Jobs, college debt, and personal liberty are extremely important issues to this generation.

Facebook, with its left leaning executives, would see no reason to mobilize their opposition's base.

Unfortunately, with school crisis situations, it's about mitigating loss.

Hmm, unlike, um, every other situation that police are involved in? Kinda the nature of the beast, I woulda thought.

I came here to make this joke but found it already made. Thanks!

He turns it up to 11

I know this is crazy but what if we just addressed the mental issues that were causing people to run into schools and start shooting. I imagine in the long run this is a better solution that deploying mechanisms to stop shooters. What's next? Ceiling mounted turret guns to neutralize shooters? Remove all the windows and build the school as a bunker?

At some point this becomes a perfect attacker / defender death spiral?

I agree whole heartily. As a white guy in IT with a BS in Comp Sci. Here's what I've seen.
1. In a class of ~500 CS majors, we had maybe 10 black students. Of that number, I *think* only 2 or 3 graduated?
2. In my ~15 year career as a devops IT guy I've worked with exactly two black co-workers who've been in the same org-chart as me.

Why is it that other racial/ethnic groups aren't attracted to STEM? Unfortunately, I don't a good answer.

Moffett is the place that Mythbusters conducts their more messy experiments such as crashing cars, etc. I wonder if google will still be amicable to them blowing up /crashing / setting fire to stuff.

Likely they won't have access to the giant hangar anymore...

I'm just big genetic'd

Can we posit that the big bang quantumly precipitated the universe out of a uniform solution?

Is to not play at all.

The Russian government while claiming one thing does something completely different? We can't even throw stones in that regard around here either. It's been long known that being openly gay in Russia is very hazardous for your health.

How is this surprising to anybody? Exactly, it's not.

I think that you are missing the point of why judges shouldn't be elected. Say you're accused of a high profile murder. Do you want your case tried by a judge who is following her or his own conscience? Or one who is trying to convince voters that he or she is tough on crime?

Say you are going to court in a civil case. Do you want your case tried by a judge who is secure in office? Or someone who has accepted campaign contributions from your opponent in the past and could really use more for the current competitive election?

Even if politicians appoint worse judges than elections would provide, elections cause active pressure on judges to change behavior. This makes elected judges exceptionally bad during the election period or leads to good judges getting kicked out for not being responsive enough to voters.

It's also worth noting for the purpose of this thread that not all elections occur in even years. For example, the governors of Virginia and New Jersey were elected in 2009. Also, some governors serve two year terms (e.g. New Hampshire) or serve four year terms that roughly coincide with the presidential terms.

It's not uncommon for odd year elections to be used for local elections (mayor, township commissioner, etc.) but that too is not set federally.