Maybe. Certainly with today's approach.

So a guy walking around with an artificial leg, a plastic heart valve, dentures and google glass ISN'T a cyborg? What is?

Seriously?

By the parent using the parent's bank card. By the kid splitting a larger card so he can give some amount to his buddy or combining several cards he got from his buddies.

I'm against a cashless society but not because there's any practical obstruction to it working. There isn't.

Shame you don't understand logical fallacies.

"Appeal to consequences" means an argument that something must be false because the consequences would be bad. I made no such argument. I said, "we'd better be damn sure we're right" before undertaking an effort with such negative consequences.

Unproven is not the same as false, nor is disputing unfounded conclusions the same as calling the conclusions untrue. This is one of the central fallacies that the alarmists have been perpetrating: that anyone who says, "hold on, it looks like you should investigate this a little more thoroughly" is a "denier" claiming that the hypotheses are false.

Climate alarmists may yet find sufficient scientific evidence to justify drastic action. I claim only that the ringing of the alarm bells is premature and I even suggest a form of acceptable evidence which, if found, would sustain the yet unproven claims.

Unfortunately science only works when scientists are at liberty to try as hard as they can to demonstrate counter-examples to your theory. The whole "denier" politics discourages folks from asking the questions scientists must ask in order to sustain or refute the hypotheses on the table. Your politics have gotten in the way of actually proving whether you're right.

Not exactly. When someone with good credit pays off his "cash back" card at the end of the month, the bank passes on a portion of the merchant fees. That's the "cash back."

Of course, if you use your card as an unsecured loan for longer than the billing cycle then you pay interest. And if you're late paying you pay late fees. You're a fool to do that in anything but a dire emergency, and your parents, friends and colleagues have warned you about it all your life, but you're free to live your life any way you want to.

What would we like about the dollar coin? Except by sight it's nearly indistinguishable from a quarter worth, well, a quarter of what a dollar is worth. And when we see it... it's ugly. I want to see George Washington on my dollars, not obscure companions of explorers however worthy they may be.

I do think it'd be reasonable to replace the penny and nickle with a better designed $1 coin and a $5 coin. Then the new system of cash transactions in tenths of a dollar instead of hundredths of a dollar would make sense and the universe wouldn't end because of it.

Pre-paid debit card.

No approach to "programming" for normal people ever has allowed normal people to go beyond the canned capabilities. Excel macros are as far out of reach.

But why would this be surprising or unreasonable? Most people can't change the oil in their car either, or replace the stereo. And most of those who can can't make engine repairs. It'd be absurd to suggest this reflects faulty thinking on the part of car manufacturers.

We are talking about something "regular" people can do.

Regular people can build web apps. It's called "Microsoft Sharepoint."

Haters gonna hate.

I was going to say wake me up when he has a production-grade model that's still the most reliable, most advanced, and faster than any 3D printer but the kid gets major style points for the Bustin Jeiber game.

Yes and yes. But I would suggest that those who fall into the latter category generally also fall into the former.

A theory has to coherently explain all of the evidence and make correct predictions about experiments not yet performed. Epicycles had no contenders for quite a while. But anyone who considered the orbits of the planets a settled matter was a fool -- each time data collection improved, epicycles' prediction was a little bit off yet again.

Put another way: I don't have to know the truth to know when someone is full of bull. I merely need recognize the characteristics of BS. It could still be the truth, but the guy BSing me is ruled out as a credible source for that knowledge.

Go right ahead. This should be entertaining. Or was that the limit of your analysis?

Before you get too worked up, allow me to point out that the phrase, "In my opinion" encourages critical thinking but pretty much precludes offering the statement which follows as a scientific result.

How do you make other people do what you think they should do? You don't.

You tell them what you're sure is true with a simplified explanation of why using the language of certainty. Then you tell them what you believe to be true and why, using the language of uncertainty. Then you acknowledge any competing theories that haven't been strictly disproven, again with the language of uncertainty, and briefly discuss the merits behind those points of view.

Anyone who needs to make a decision on that information will then ask their personal subject matter expert to spot check you -- do any of your certain claims appear questionable? Does any of the uncertainty in your beliefs appear to be mere wishful thinking? Did you deliberately omit the competition?

Folks won't make their decision on the facts. They'll make their decision based on whether they believe you're honest. Behaving like a used car salesman, using the language of certainty for everything you believe and ridiculing that which you don't, dissuades folks from finding you credible. The hard sell sometimes achieves a single result but it never achieves sustainable results over time.