Insertion of genes? An advanced degree?

Yes, we could. (We could call it "free trade".) Actually, until we get over our nationalities, people could keep them, provided there was a way of internationally agreeing (and enforcing) that your nation can do what it wants provided people are free to leave.

A bit of a tangent, but that reminded me of a physics teacher I had who told us something like (more jokingly than seriously) "You know why I hope there's a god? Because the afterlife could be like a physics seminar, we'd all be sitting at tables, God would be up at the chalkboard, and we could ask him questions; "Hey, that thing about information lost in a black hole - how'd you do that?" (And God picks up the chalk...)

This is not meant as a dig at the entertainment, artistic, or leisure industries; but is it possible that these economic activities, being arguably optional to our basic maintenance, have up til now depended on a significant economy engaged in more "necessary" activities, like food and manufacturing, with "disposable" income available to spend on the "optional" stuff? Sure, a fair amount of crap food and idiotic manufactured goods can be regarded as unnecessary, but is there a distinction here? For example, in a recession does a tool and die shop suffer less than a movie theatre? And what will our economy do to itself when vast numbers of people are no longer needed to meet our basic needs? IANAEconomist, so any enlightenment (or, smacks to the head, I suppose) are welcome...

I've wondered about doing the above for the simple reason of fairness: would it not make tax evasion more difficult? If taxes are a necessary evil, I'll pay my fair share, but it really bugs me when I see others ducking them. It's not hard for a contractor to do "cash" deals, or pay someone under the table, but you can't avoid a property tax since it's recorded at the deed office (or also the patent office, etc.).

And on that note, why should we try to insert the tax collector into every economic transaction? Although that very concept offends those with a Libertarian streak, aside from that it simply seems inefficient. (Down to retailers charging and redeeming sales taxes, to entrepreneurs doing our increasingly complicated taxes*.)

Sure, I'm probably being simple-minded and ignorant about tax policy; I've never studied economics (yet), but I do find it fascinating. Were there reasons we generally moved away from wealth taxes (aside from the fact that the wealthy didn't like them)?

*When families or organizations need more space, they'll have to acquire it. Sure, higher property taxes will incentivize us to rent, but our need for space will be met by someone who's willing to own (and indirectly pass on to us some of the tax hit). OTOH, are current systems of having a wide net of taxes on everything seen as advantageous since we aren't putting a lot of "friction" in any one place?...

Error (in cmp_phenom_numer), missing argument 'scale'

"...of clinical ECG machines" (summary). Does the submitter or anyone else care to elaborate?

Here's that odd keyboard. Geez, form over function is bad enough; it's not supposed to actually hurt your eyes...

The wiki-p page for the 35s. Wow! - the first time I've seen this; looks like their classic design. Is HP back when it comes to calculators? In the Reception section of this page, among other things, we have: "While welcoming the improved handling of complex numbers compared to the 33s, the incomplete support for them has been criticised."

Notice that on the above wiki-p pages for the 33s and 35s, although in the right-hand sidebars it says "Manufacturer: HP", it also says "Design firm: (company name)". It does not say that for the 32s or the 42s. Can the sort of dedication to a product line that we miss be contracted out?

FWIW, back in the day I had a 48s - but sold it and bought a 42s because I wanted something I could more easily nudge around a desk and use 1-handed (and for nontrivial stuff I would use desktop apps). It's still within reach right now. From my cold dead hands!

What about debugWire? Not full-blown JTAG, but it is an in-circuit debugging interface (uses the RESET pin). I believe it's now on all but the simplest of devices.

(also replying to belthize above) Earlier today I was toenailing rafters with a hammer, and yet right now I'm still glad I can rest my forearms on my desk and nudge the mouse around. (And no, it's not because I'm tired or out-of-shape!)

The difference with physical labour is that it's usually gross motor skills in short intervals. Also, you're usually benefiting from the interface being not only haptic but able to resist and support real forces, e.g.: to place a block, you only have to wrestle it in the plane; it's being supported vertically by the wall it's sitting on.

OTOH, using the Minority Report interface for the wrong task would demand fine (or medium) motor skills w/o the usual bracing of your hand against the work, piece of gear, or the tool itself when in contact with the work. So neither physical labour nor many hands-on crafts would make you immune to gorilla-arm syndrome.

Maybe only ballet could prepare you properly? But you may still want to brace your elbow on your chest while you point. Of course, this is just another case of "where appropriate", i.e. applied to quite particular industrial and/or creative tasks.

Seconded. I have the first 5 or so of these books; each contains 2 or 3 novellas by various authors, some self-contained, some continuing in later books. Damn good reads!

In a preface or two, Niven tells how contributions had to stay true to the canon. Nitpick: I wish that included the cover art - Kzinti don't look like tigers; they're orange, barrel-chested, and have bat-wing ears, tanj damnit!

...were suddenly silenced, and cried out in terror - ?

(geez, disappointed in you all I am; this story was posted 4 hours ago...)

Re. Schmartboard adapters, here's a 0.5 mm pitch QFP to 0.1" adapter. It's 10 bucks. OK, a BGA one is $45. But still, what are you looking at that you don't find inexpensive enough? What family of devices are you wanting to work with?

Aside from hacking some existing proto- or dev-board with the device you want to work with (e.g. with short patch cables or headers to a breadboard or other daughter proto-boards), you should consider just biting the bullet and learning to design and solder your own SMT PCB's.

Sure, you may not have a completely tested and threshed-out design on a rats-nested breadboard to work from, but OTOH designing and having fabbed simpler double-layer (or even 4-layer) moderate-speed boards is now very accessible*. Part of it is accepting that for projects you're serious about (or, of course, stuff that's "work"), the first board may not be final, so go ahead and make one that gets you up and running with an initial design (which you have the experience to be confident in) but for which you may still be patching interfaces to, etc. If you know it's not final, you can save a bit of money by skipping the silkscreen and soldermask.

*Depending on what you're doing, you will have to become acquainted with proper layout techniques re. EMI/noise to some degree.

Yes! In a separate room because when MOTHER writes to the green display, it will still be making annoying lineprinter sounds!

That's what the new SmartRing is for! Tells you what hour it is! Flashes when there's a message on your smartwatch, which you then check to see what's on your smartphone!