I am not opposed to reducing pollution to a level where I can safely walk outside and breath, and fish are reasonably safe to eat.

I am opposed to reducing pollution to zero and getting rid of all the modern niceties that cause it ... like this computer that I'm typing this post on and the server that is storing it.

Everything in between is up for discussion and probably has multiple supporters and detractors somewhere.

I'll wager that almost no one disagrees that reducing pollution is a good thing.

The discussion is how much are we willing to pay or give up for how big a reduction.

Which is supported by the prior Slashdot post about how scientists and the general public are often at opposite sides of things. Those that took the poll need to reconcile their numbers with the numbers from the other poll that said most people don't believe in human-caused global warming. I find it hard to believe that if most people don't believe in it, they would only vote for politicians that supported it ....

So you would rather shaft all non-solar users by forcing the electric companies to not pay wholesale for solar providers (like they do when they buy power from other power companies) or pay retail and at least ask those using solar to help pay for the grid they are using to connect with. Thus raising non-solar rates.

So you would rather force everyone to pay more for a car than the savings in the fuel economy??

So you would rather put a burden on the poor who can't afford to fix their cars or buy newer ones??

Another 'as long as I'm not required to give up anything' argument. Thanks for helping prove the point of the prior post.

Have you ever spoken to farmers?? The half dozen farmers I've talked with all say the same thing (I grew up in a small, rural community), most of them were older than 60 and had been farmers for decades. They don't have the time, money, or resources to collect, process, and store seeds, they always buy them. These guys LOVE GMO crops because of the increased yields and predictability.

It may be an extremely small sample and anecdotal, but it makes a lot of sense. I recall having small gardens growing up, and we always bought seeds every year. Plus, farmers want consistent crops every year and better yields if they can, they don't want some wild child of something they started growing 10 years ago when Monsanto has created a new product that makes more money for them.

I would think a sterile plant would be a good thing for modern farmers, who want's corn stalks popping up in a soy bean field. Farmers rotate their crops, I used to remember scenes like this growing up. I don't see them as often now.

There .. fixed that for you. Don't believe what the media tells you, it's really not that bad over here. Children are more at risk from their family and family friends than strangers.

Other than that, I agree with the concept 100%.

I had the same problem when I first got mine. I didn't wear them for almost a year. My optometrist convinced me to try them again, and within a few months I didn't even notice them. I have dual monitors at work and home, and while I do have to turn my head a bit, it's not that bad.

I think it takes a while for the brain to 'rewire' itself. At first, I really noticed the warping as I turned my head. Now, I hardly notice it at all. Twenty years ago, I lost sight in a small portion of my peripheral vision in my left eye, due to some type of blood issue in the eye. At first, it was very annoying because there was nothing in that area of my vision. It wasn't black, there was nothing there. I couldn't see my finger if I held it in that area, similar to the blind spot one has normally in the eye. It only took about a week for it to stop bothering me. I think the brain does something to adjust to these types of things, it makes things more normal.

For future consideration, this might be useful. I thought I would be financially frugal and just get a pair of single vision goggles for riding my motorcycle. Bad idea, I could barely read the speedometer. I keep them for a spare in the car, and one day when my glasses broke, I had to use them. Same problem, it was very difficult to read the speedometer.

I'm so glad you are in favor in increasing taxes to provide more manpower to the police forces around the country. Please proceed to your nearest voting booth and vote in their favor the next election.

If you aren't in favor of paying more taxes to add more manpower, then shut the fuck up and let them do their jobs the best way they can with the amount of money a hypocritical population will give them. A population that is never happy with the crime rates and criticizes them at any failing, but is never willing to spend the money to enforce laws and provide better equipment and training. A population that is quick to judge based on what the media reports, but never accepts the results of investigations or court cases if it doesn't agree with their snap judgements based on anecdotes and personal experiences.

When I started working in the 70s, my first three jobs were in open office areas. No partitions, Desks side by side. We ate our lunches in the break room, not at our desks. In fact, my third job did not allow us to have food at our desks, only drinks like coffee and water.

We got work done because we did our jobs. We had this thing called a 'work ethic'.

My current job has low partitions, and everyone seems to work just fine. We seem to also have a 'work ethic'. When people need to talk, they go to a conference room or the break room. Or speak quietly.

If people are not working, it's probably because they aren't doing their jobs, have a poor work ethic, or are just plain rude.

Not because they don't have partitions between them.

Based on the skills of the foreign born contractors that work for my company and my experiences with my last job, it's very difficult to determine the skill level of someone with any accuracy without them actually doing work. How does Mr. Graham intend to filter out the just the exceptional????

You can't do it based on resumes, and it's difficult in an interview, I hired an white, female MIT grad who interviewed very well that was worthless when it came to coding. Her code was overly complex and she was reluctant to learn anything new. And my prior company hired an Indian chap who, based on few lines of code he wrote while I was there, didn't know how to code. Yet his resume stated he was a Sr. Java Developer, and supposedly had the job experience to prove it.

There are three Indian contractors on my current team. One is just an amazing programmer, one is just about average, and the third one we released. Yet all three had the credentials in their resumes for us to contract them, and the backing of their employer.

When Mr. Graham comes up with his method for finding the exceptional programmers and dismissing the rest, I hope he shares it with the rest of us. It will save the US economy millions of dollars in wasted wages.

Too lazy to use HTML and proofread better!

Denying many people the ability to play games simply because they think they know best means they are assholes. Assholes who think that the ends justify the means, no matter who it affects.

Worse than just plain assholes, they sound like self-righteous, inconsiderate assholes.

That may not be fair ... saying someone is an inconsiderate assholes may be redundant.

Hmmm .. what do you call someone living in their mother's basement who has delusional ideas about their value to society and is willing to impact the lives of other people to prove a misguided point??

Maybe jerkoffs is more accureate?? Or Dicks?? Possibly Dickheads??

Or maybe they are more like Snowden and Assange and just egotistical assholes but on a smaller scale.

Saying someone could have done something far worse doesn't make them any less culpable for their actions.

I hope the police find them and send them and their assholes to jail, where someone can actually show them another use for their assholes.

When you can get the criminals to do the same, I'll agree with you. To require police officers to be 100% honest is just a naive statement from someone who appears to be totally ignorant about how the world around them is.

If someone is stupid enough to tell the details of something illegal to someone they have never meant via the Internet, they deserve to be locked up.

If someone who didn't do anything is stupid enough to admit to it because the police said they have evidence, <sarcasm>maybe they should be locked up</sarcasm>. The world is obviously too dangerous for someone with so little self-confidence and personal courage to live in.

Ignore the moronic and juvenile posts from above that were more about making the poster feel superior than answering your question. But this is ./, I wasn't surprised.

I've had my Samsung Gear 2 since July, and find the following functions the most useful, in no specific order. Most smart watches have similar functions, the camera probably being the one that is the missing from many of them.
1. Telling time (duh)
2. Timer. Something I use a lot more than I thought I would because it's easier to use and I don't have to take my phone out of my pocket.
3. Camera. Picture resolution isn't that great, but it's good enough to document things and share on Facebook (which I don't post from the watch, I post from my phone. Might be a way to do it from the watch, just not that much of a facebook fan that I care.) Don't expect to print 8x10 glossy pictures though. After having one, I wouldn't get another smart watch without one, it's so quick and easy to use and always easily available.
4. Get text messages. You can send them, but it's either by voice which can be annoying to others, or some of the keyboards. Keeping it to short 'yes/no' type 1replies are possible, carrying on a conversation about where to go for dinner and why .. probably not.
5. Send and take phone calls. As long as someone is in your contacts, the voice recognition works pretty well. The comments I've had from my wife is the quality of the audio on her end is pretty good. Because the speaker and microphone is on your wrist, it can be difficult to hear or hold it comfortably to talk. I had a conversation from about 50 feet away from my phone when I left it inside my car at Home Depot and was in the contractor bay.
7. Get other notifications. This can drive you nuts, unless you are one of those people that insists on being plugged in constantly. I turned off the email/news notifications, just got too many. Other people that I know that have one use it for those things.
8. Calculator. Tiny buttons, good for quick calculations.
10. Store customer cards. I have loaded the bar codes for most of my loyalty cards, makes it easier in some stores with remote readers, useless in others. Since it doesn't care what the bar code is, might be useful in a clean room if you have to scan bar codes.
11. 'Look behind'. This is an app that lets you see what your phone camera sees. Great for looking under sinks and behind furniture. Probably not very useful in a clean room.
12. 'Find my phone'. Easier than finding another phone to call your phone when it's lost.
13. I like the square look more than the round look, makes more sense for a computer screen.

Caveats:
1. It's not a platform to spend long amounts of time reading. The screen is small, and even with support, my arm gets tired after using it too much to read the news and other things.
2. I have to charge it up every couple of days. Because it uses a proprietary cradle, you can't just plug it in to a USB cable to charge it. But .. it's also water and dust resistant, that's the price you pay for those features. I set the display brightness low, which extends the timing.
3. Fitness programs (i.e. pedometers) chew up the battery life. If you want a fitness watch, get one. If you aren't interested in tracking those types of things, this watch is fine.
4. Don't even start to believe you are going to type emails on this. The face is just too small for anything other than very small text messages.
5. While the watch band is replaceable, finding one that fits can be problematic. I haven't spent a lot of time, but because of the way the watch is designed, I think one really needs to go to a store to find one rather than online. I've tried a couple around the house from old watches, and the ones that fit looked like crap. But .. it doesn't require any tools to remove, although the same may or not be true for the one you replace it with.
6. It's a PIA at night driving or really doing anything at night. It keeps coming one when driving, and if I'm sitting on the patio enjoying a drink with my wife at night, it comes on every time I reach for my beer. There is a way to lock it off, but it also turns off notifications. Wish that was an easier thing to do.

So basically, the great thing about it is that it interfaces to your phone so you don't have to take your phone out of your pocket for some things. I would never buy a smart watch that wasn't tethered to my phone, I will always carry both.

I read an article bemoaning what watches had become. I realized the article was wrong. This isn't a watch, it's a wearable computer. Watches have been passe for years and will continue to be worn more as a fashion statement than something very useful.

As I said above, I've had it for about 6 months now. I'm pretty rough on it, I don't take it off to mix mortar or dig trenches and stuff around the house, so I've put it through a lot. So far, no scratches on the face and the rest of it is holding up really well.

I'd buy another one.

I've had many people ask about it, and they all thought it was cool. I haven't met anyone that thought I was a glasshole, because I'm not rude when using it.

As for the Apple watch .. meh. I like the crown thing on the Apple watch and the way it charges, the Samsung cradle can be a pain. Most of the app differences are relatively minor and will probably be seen on Android once developers get their hands on it. It doesn't have a camera option, which I think is just stupid now that I've used one with a camera. I really didn't see anything that makes me think one is that much better than the other, so I guess it's just a matter if you would rather be locked into Apple or Samsung. Or go with one of the other generic Android watches and lock into Android.

And if you want one now, you really don't have a choice. Apple is still giving generic responses to release dates

'Sony' != 'America'

It seems that the terrorists also seem to know how to get the UK/Germany/France/Other EU country to pay millions in ransom to ISIS.

I'd rather live in a country where an inconsequential movie is dumped over a country stupid enough to pay a ransom.