you're delusional. WPI is NOT right beneath MIT in terms of "highly regarded schools". On top of that, it would be out-of-state tuition for him. OP, take a look at this list and pick the best compromise between cost/rank. http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-engineering-schools/eng-rankings/page+2 Looks like you're going to be paying high tuition if you pick off that list, but there are reasons that colleges make those lists. And, more than the people you go to school with, the school's name on your degree will help with your career. Well....maybe. I got my degree from UT Austin (#8 on the list above), and got a job at NASA after graduation. I got it through connections, so those are important, but not "sell yourself into slavery for life because of student loans" important. Engineering is different from most other careers; engineers are largely pragmatic, skeptical and antisocial. So, the rules of thumb that apply to things like business and marketing and other no-value-added careers don't tend to apply. Now onto the more editorial portion of my reply. You might want to consider going ME instead of ASE, because the degree itself (assuming you only want undergrad) could be a limiting factor on your career. Aerospace is one of the most volatile career fields to get into. It's blown by every wind of political change you can imagine, and, in the private sector, everything is so highly marginalized that the top companies usually resort to massive layoffs in order to make their bottom lines look better when projects start getting into cost overruns. If you'd like, I can continue this more later, after dinner.

saw a video from a tradeshow (thought it was CES, but can't find the video right off the bat) about two years ago of a transparent overlay for any media screen. the demo showed a VERY rigged version of the product over an iphone and coupled to a multimeter displaying its active voltage as the reporter checking it out moved it with respect to a light source. and it was completely transparent. does anyone remember this??

shot? what about tasered? tasers were supposed to be ONLY an alternative to deadly force (used in place of shooting an armed or otherwise deadly assailant), but cops use them regularly to "put people in their place". after they were introduced in that manner, authorities quickly put in place use of force guidelines that give them license to use them pretty much whenever they want to. a conversation with a cop should NEVER allow for the possibility of saying "but..." leading to a partial electrocution.

I've been wondering about just that aspect of this whole thing. As Netflix tries to choke the DVD side of its business model to death (and, apparently, bidding good riddance to the loyal customers who allowed it to bloom into the business it is today), will ISPs choke Netflix to death with more stringent bandwidth caps or (more likely) port throttling?

except that the trade-in value for a used game is virtually negligible. Resale value never factors into my purchases. The biggest factor in my game purchases is "$50/60 is way too much for a game that I may finish in 20-30 hours and then never play again". after that, it's a question of quality - will it be so buggy that it annoys the crap out of me, and will it actually hold my attention for those 20-30 hours (minimum).

um, wrong. gold is an excellent electrical conductor. nickel is about three times worse than gold for conductivity. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrical_resistivity_and_conductivity the only two metals that exceed it's low resistivity values are silver and copper. and by "non-corruptible", I have to assume you mean that they won't corrode. this is true, but gold has a much lower wear resistance than the steel used to actually make the connector sheathing underneath, and too many connections/disconnections would eventually wear through the gold. of course, the number of cycles to do that is in the hundreds or thousands depending on the plating thickness.

Competition actually would be great. If it existed. Right now, most markets experience competition solely based on having two different sets of wires going into their business/residence. Generally, one company has exclusivity on phone/DSL lines and another company has exclusivity on the coax lines, and the service companies associated with each of them offer dissimilar services, so there isn't a direct correlation to compete against. Essentially, this creates local monopolies that can pretty much do whatever they want. I love my FiOS connection, and I would consider their rates to be reasonable, but it is unavailable in the house we're moving to. Not because of cabling in the neighborhood, but because exclusivity is granted to AT&T for phone service and related passthrough in that area. And AT&T is so shady that I have to turn to my only other option for internet: Charter communications. And then you have to consider that if you're specifically eyeing U-verse or FiOS, they tie into your coax infrastructure to prevent you from using one service for cable and another for high-speed internet. It's all collusion and corporate price fixing. The only real way to combat it is to actually be able to walk away from whatever company or industry that is doing it.

Never good to see condescending asses anywhere in the world. I hope you're not in the USA.

I think sycodon's point was that the bureaucracy of the FDA will add testing, regulation, certification and licensing fees to the "simple solution" such that it is no longer simple or cost effective. In fact, if there's a $10k machine that does this already, the manufacturers of said machine will probably lobby for just such onerous regulations.

I don't know if you'd call it the "same" rules. I'm no fan of the RIAA, and I think they might just pee their collective pants - and unfortunately pick up a few tricks - when they start trying to steamroll more senior criminals that aren't afraid to take out a hit on someone who annoys them slightly too much.

obviously, you have not heard of Fallen Earth. Haven't played it, myself. at debut, it was considered a spiritual offspring of FO for the MMO world when the real FO:OL was vaporware (and may still be). There are several MMOs in development with a PA setting. Afterfall seems the most ambitious after Fallen Earth. And there are dev videos available on YouTube. For reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Post-apocalyptic_video_games it would be nice if this list broke it out by SP/MP/MMO

we bought mobile data like we buy hardline data in this country. the service would (relatively) constantly improve, and come down in price with no caps or bandwidth throttling and (relatively) no restrictions on content. This business model has proven to work for the past decade and more, and it has benefited both providers and consumers. But probably not with the 100% profit margin that the providers grubby little hands would like it to. So, now one of the principal reasons for these companies trying to enact the pay-as-you-go model is SURELY to apply it to their landline business, as well. They're already trying it with the throttling, and I know there've been a few attempts at putting download caps on things, which would be a regression to the early AOL and dial-up ISP days.

you would think that would be a red flag to all the Obama/Pelosi supporters, huh?