Fry's electronics stores use a single line, usually with an extra staffer to direct people to the current open cashier (a role which isn't totally necessary since the cashiers have green lights when they're ready, but i'm sure people would still get confused) this works well for them as they have 10-30 cashiers running. In stores with just 5-10 registers it might take extra space to run a line like that.

More importantly, for grocery stores at least, is the ubiquitous candy/magazine rack at the checkout line. People have to wait and so they start looking around and what they see is high margin luxury products. It makes good sense. Stores aren't trying to get people out of the store efficiently, they're trying to make money.

Bills in the US congress tend to get pretty lengthy in order to deal with side effects, liabilities, funding, etc. It would probably be political suicide to suggest an internet kill switch as an amendment to a farm bill or something so obviously unrelated, but usually these things are more vague.

In this case the internet kill switch is being put into a defense authorization bill, and it is easy to make the case how an internet kill switch would be related to defense. This is a big bill with lots of parts, it would be a bureaucratic nightmare to try and pass every part separately.

Of course the internet kill switch is a dumb idea that does more to undermine the ideals of this country and turn public sentiment against the government for dubious benefits. I don't see how politicians like Lieberman can say 'China is doing it so we should too' and still get voted into office.

solar charger is an option, so are spare lithium batteries.

most cell phones (all android phones) can be put into 'airplane mode' to disable the cell radio, the gps can remain on in this mode, because gps is receive only. wifi and gps can also be turned off to save battery.

buying a used device would make a spare battery even more attractive, as the original battery might not hold a good charge.

A rock like this heading to our planet and we've got plenty of time to not just deflect the thing, but to move it into Earth orbit where it can be mined, turned into an outpost, and be used as a tether for a space elevator.

There are more perspectives than that, and our brains are wired to recognize the perspectives of others and empathize. We do have limited resources sometimes, but for this audience, that's not the problem. The problem is people are getting distracted from observing suffering that they may actually be causing, which is a cause for concern.

Check this video out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7AWnfFRc7g&playnext_from=TL&videos=LBxSCCKVtqg

It's not just the quantity of humans that are the problem, it's the way we're using the resources. The biggest contributor to freshwater use and pollution is the fact that humans are raising billions of animals for food every year. China and other developing countries are following the lead of the west and increasing their use of animals in the food supply.

Using animals for food in most places (i'm not concerned with mongolian goat herders or midwest deer hunters) is very inefficient in terms of water and land use, as well as being worse for human health than vegetarian/vegan diets. American life expectancies are going down as heart disease, cancer and diabetes go up with meat consumption. Not to mention reports such as 'Livestock's Long Shadow' which puts animal agriculture ahead of transport in terms of global warming impact, another contributor to water scarcity.

the G1 fills those requirements, except the proprietary jack (htc), i have a 10$ dongle that gives it mini-usb+audio+htc, but the G1 includes out of box an htc-usb cable for data and charging. the G1 is 179 with a tmo contract (400 no contract) and can be easily unlocked to install debian arm.

i think the motorola droid on verizon or most other android phones would fit most of these features as well.

This debate over what motivation to give to our robots is similar to the situation parents face, what motivations should we instill in our children. As adults we also choose and can change our motivations.

The motivation to gain intelligence is usually a good one, but it has resulted in immense suffering in human and non-human animals. This motivation should be secondary to avoiding causing suffering. Another wording might be that our prime motivation should be the betterment of all, not just the betterment of self.

I agree with what you posted about the work involved in education. In my experience, It was not until after high school that I began to learn the value of homework. In high school I would learn the concept and not do the homework, because I understood the concept. My mind would go blank on tests and I thought I had issues with the pressures of testing. It wasn't that, I just hadn't done the repetitions in homework that develops the problem solving muscles and introduces the many subtle nuances that arise in the variety of problems. It still isn't easy to quiet the monkey mind long enough to do repetitive problems, but the rewards for discovering additional concepts by solving problems and being able to test with confidence, are well worth it. This is the message that I think most of your post was about, that you can't just read introductions all day, you've got to spend time working through seemingly repetitive problems. In this regard, any unschooling which would cater to any child who refuses to do work will fail to educate and likely develop a poor work ethic. Of course, homework is not all that school is or should be. Schools and parents introduce a variety of subjects in a variety of ways. Different approaches to motivation and education are tried and have been tried for hundreds or thousands of years. The sense of wonder should grow hand in hand with the hard work required in education.

I disagree with what you've written about the Arts. I have many years of experience, professional and academic, in software engineering and computer game design, subjects which are multidisciplinary, including maths and arts. Clearly, you are an obsessive maths freak, so surely you must know that in the higher and more abstract forms of math, the time for slogging through problems is over, and the time to exercise your mastery of the art of math is at hand. Inquisitiveness, opening doors to wonderment, a novel approach, an elegant solution; these are the tools you use with the basic math skills you worked hard to develop as you approach the state of the art of any subject. Suggesting that these would create imitators seems counter-intuitive. You suggest that arts and humanities students "can master the art of appearing intelligent whilst remaining shockingly ignorant," which suggests that you have a very limited view of what constitutes intelligence, and you are prejudicial because of that. Consider learning how to appreciate subjects other than math, this will actually enrich your appreciation and ability in math.

Statistical analysis is the integration of observational data and scientific hypothesis, it is fundamental to all science. We define physical laws based on statistical analysis of observational data. It is a chaotic world and there will always be exceptions and errors in human measurements, but by statistical analysis of the data, we can make useful predictions and interpretations that will hold true.

Similar study in a different wording:

http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idUSN0430617520090804

Diets high in cholesterol also tend to be high in fat, which will lead to obesity without moderation and exercise.

The body naturally produces a balanced and adequate quantity of HDL and LDL cholesterol (except in rare cases), the cholesterol in consumed animal tissue (including dairy) creates an imbalance in the cholesterol levels and will lead to a build up of cholesterol on arterial walls, which can lead to blockage, arterial wall damage and rupture. This happens in the heart, leading to heart disease, and it happens in blood vessels in the brain, leading to vascular dementia and alzheimers. These are diseases resulting from a loss of brain cell function.

sometimes the smallest softest voice carries the biggest solutions

I sense that you may have some concern over the implications of this study. If you think these results troubling and wish to discredit them, consider asking for a wider study rather than calling it junk science. Their margin of error may be off, but I doubt it's by a significant enough amount to warrant being labeled 'Junk Science'

I would suggest that people try some different tools that demonstrate concepts in an interesting way early on. The first thing that popped to mind was Logo. This can be a fun introduction to machine interpretation. There was a Logo I played with once that had mazes along with the blank sheet for making geometric patterns. Fantastic Contraption is another interesting toy.

An important language that hasn't been discussed much from what I have seen is Algebra. Early students of computer science should put as much emphasis on math studies and seeing the symbolic relations between solving for x and the manipulation of variables. Understand binary and change of bases. Substitution and word problems will strengthen problem solving and symbolic logic. Computer science programs require math well past calculus, so math should not be taking a back seat to writing code early on.

As far as specific languages, most high schools probably teach in pascal and basic, which are good languages to start with, but hopefully the kid will be reading through this forum, seeing what everyone writes about the different languages and something will seem particularly interesting, then the self guided exploration of languages will give insights into syntax. I got caught up in Lisp in this way, although being in a class and going through whatever structured program they have is going to educate programming in a most rapid and robust way.

I think it is important to make a distinction between privacy and liberty; privacy would be your ability to prevent others from having access to information that you have, and liberty is a more general freedom to do all sorts of things. Privacy is a subset of liberty. For example, I may be willing to give up privacy, but I may, at the same time, push for greater liberties in other areas, such as consuming marijuana.

We should understand the benefits of privacy. In the previous example, I may use privacy to consume marijuana without facing the legal consequences. On the other hand, I may be failing to liberate marijuana by consuming it privately and pushing the issue of privacy instead. Of course, we can work towards multiple goals simultaneously. Still, this is advocating privacy in order to circumvent the law, not the noblest of reasons, but certainly one which is widespread. One might suggest this as a negative for privacy, but this perception will probably depend on your perception of the current laws. In the worst case, the laws might seem good and the benefits of a loss in privacy may seem worthy enough to create a transparent society, which could then change the laws into something draconian.

There are other benefits of privacy, I won't cover them all. Another one is the capitalistic motivation to innovate. Without privacy, innovations could become public domain without as much benefit to the inventor. On the other hand, your secret stash of magnet-based free energy devices would be more likely to reach fruition if they were made public, creating more immediate benefits for society as a whole. Here's a quote to chew on: "It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit" -Harry Truman.

It's not like privacy would ever go away. We have our private thoughts and public key cryptography. Are cameras over public spaces so different from random patrols by the police? Shouldn't we feel safer that violent crime is in decline as the dark spaces in our cities become illuminated?