The word "organic" means that no "inorganic" pesticides were used.

Although wikipedia says that is not where the word "organic" came from.

The data I've seen indicates that American school children don't work as hard as their counterparts in other industrialized countries (in terms of the number of hours per year spent in school), but American workers do work more days/year because most of us aren't given 4 wk vacations like all Europeans.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_statutory_minimum_employment_leave_by_country

and at any rate, Slashdotters are a poor statistical sample!

I totally agree. I've heard lots of people tell me, and I'm becoming convinced, that a traditional college education is simply not the right choice for many people. Although US high schools suck, if they didn't find the initiative to learn something there, why should the public front the money for a few more years of irresponsibility? Chances are pretty good that they'll go just because they can get a loan and all their friends are going, and thus merely delay the inevitability of getting a job they don't need a college degree for.

An interesting anecdote. When I was taking the senior year undergrad class for my major, the professor gave hard tests. After the second test, he basically told us that those who got below a certain score were probably in the wrong major. Students complained and the professor had to apologize later, but I think he had a good point... the department had financial incentives to get as many butts in seats as they could, which in the long run probably hurt some of them.

On the other hand, if you're studying something that's actually valuable for the economy and you get good grades, I've found that funds tend to become available...

Since apparently the definition of a supercomputer is a machine capable of 1 gigaflop, SGI was scooped by Apple 10 years ago!

It looks like you didn't take the time to think through your logic before you jumped to this conclusion!

relax. you always need to make a few simplifications/approximations in order to do a back-of-the-envelope calculation...

after reading this summary, my secret hope is that the story can be used as precedent for the US. you kid yourself if you think that americans really care what happens in mexico...

for websites, it's super easy to see who's visited, with many online services providing this.

why isn't there a way to attach a counter to your inbox (i'm looking at gmail)? could it be embedded in a custom theme?

If they want to raise the price, then so be it, and don't waste my time with arguments about why fees are "justified". I'll decide what I'm willing to buy at the new prices.

But why raise the price of the ipod and not the music?

No, I'd hypothesize pretty much the same as what the article stated, that there's something more or less special about Tetris... It's a puzzle, so it has a thinking component, but it's also real time so you're rewarded for solving that puzzle over and over as fast as possible. I know my mind works in two modes: one when I'm solving problems alone, another when I'm in a testing situation (e.g. school, interviews, etc), so there is a difference when you're trying to do things as quickly as possible.

I'm just trying to explain the economics, as I understand it, which is simply to point out that a linear curve *can not* beat an exponential curve!!! Fine, add whatever fixed costs are necessary to properly dispose of the excess trash generated, and my point still stands.

Well, ok, but I don't think you've identified the driving force, because the real question is:

When is the obsolescence date of the device you're thinking of purchasing?

If a better/cheaper device will be on sale next year, then you're not going to pay as much for what you can get today. On the other hand, if the product you buy won't become obsolete for another decade, then you might as well pay the extra money to get good quality. Technology improves on an exponential scale. To illustrate my point: why buy a laptop now that will cost 3000$ and keep it for 3 years, instead of buying a 1000$ laptop every year for 3 years? I'll get a better deal with the cheaper laptops!

Look... they were given $100,000, which is a TINY amount of money when it comes down to it. The US gov't can cough up $trillions for wars with highly uncertain energy related benefits. Compared to that, these guys have been given a TEENSY WEENSY amount of money. It's like giving your kid brother 2 pennies to make your bed for you. Chances are, he won't do it, but the cost was essentially zero!

I agree, to some extend. Here's the xkcd I wish I'd been able to find for my first post. Those games/movies back in the late 90s were just as immersive as the good ones today...

The thing I couldn't figure out is why do people spend so much time and money, when they could be content with less?

Exactly.
1) they release movies with pretty graphics and no story.
2) then they release movies with graphics AND story.
=> profit

If you *reverse* the order, then they only make half the profit because nobody would pay to see movies of type #1 if type #2 are available!