That's no longer really true. According to the NOT.ONE.MORE movement, we should impinge the rights of 100 in order to forbid the 1 potential criminal to take action. Even if impinging on their rights in the end may have absolutely no impact.

In the end ALL our freedoms will be destroyed by FEAR because we're demanding security and, well, fuck liberty.

And in the end the governments just giving us what we want. So what if it happened to be executed by secret laws, using secret courts that issue secret orders.

The only problem I have with what she said is that it basically boiled down to, "we need to improve Computer Science education by educating kids in a whole bunch of other basically un-related things."

Stories are circulating that Harry Reid is the one who exerted pressure on Lahey to pull the bill.

Reid is as corrupt as they come.

https://www.techdirt.com/artic...

What, you mean I can't calculate all the physics necessary to play basketball and be ready to play the game.

You are exactly correct. So many disciplines utilize applied mathematics. It must be a skill that children can readily call to use (like dribbling in basketball). To master that skill, drilling is required, not optional.

Addition leads to subtraction, subtraction leads to multiplication, multiplication leads to division, division leads to suffering.

Disney spent 4 BILLION for Star Wars.

Yep. Now imagine that everyone be required to have one of those in their car. There would be a huge backlash from the general law abiding populace.

â¦. and no one has more firepower than they do.

What to do about it is easy.

We have to replace coal fired power plants with nuclear ones. All other technological options are not ready to start solving the problem (at the scales needed) right now.

I am actually frustrated that there is not a nuclear plant being built now near my city. I live in a very sparsely populated area that is geologically stable. We already have much of the power infrastructure in place for windmills and a natural gas power plant. Nuclear would be a sensible addition and expansion.

If you say you want to solve global warming and you say that we can't build nuclear power plants, you're a hypocrite.

Ironically the same people the argue with "deniers" about the problem argue against nuclear as part of the solution. So switching to working on the solution actually doesn't end the argument, it just creates a reactionary hypocrisy that makes your head hurt.

... is a time-tested Slashdot commenting strategy!

But seriously, I don't always carry my wallet with me, but I almost always carry my phone with me. Last year I found myself in the perfect position to benefit tremendously from a mobile wallet on my phone.

I was on mile 4 of a long bike ride when my rear tire failed. Not the tube (I carry a spare), the actual tire. I had decided not to bring my wallet with me, but I did have my phone. Anyway, I needed a replacement tire, but I had no money on me, and I realized that despite having my credit card number memorized, I didn't actually have any direct way to pay a bicycle shop for a tire, so I walked home.

But it felt silly - that I was carrying around a smartphone that has access to multiple bank accounts and payment services, and that I even knew my credit card number, yet without a little piece of plastic, I couldn't pay for anything.

Since then I don't go on bike rides without my wallet, but that's not really the point. Sometimes I take walks and don't want to bring my wallet. Occasionally I change my mind on the way home and decide it would be a good idea to stop at the grocery store. But no wallet, no way to purchase anything, despite having my phone.

In other words, there do exist situations in which one might reasonably have a phone but not a wallet. You may argue they are edge cases, but I am just one person. Other people mentioned check splitting, which is especially a headache in recent years since no one seems to carry cash anymore.

While reading you post I imagined giving a lecture and then in the middle yelling "STOP. Hammer Time!"

I'll have to try that next semester, although the closest I came to teaching about hammers was explaining the $5 password security exploit.

Except we'd have to solve the OPPOSITE problem.

Population density in from the coastlines is much lower than it is on the coastlines. So yes as oceans rise there will be places for people to move to.

This line of reasoning always makes me fee a bit uneasy. What if we do all the hard work of fixing the climate, only to get hit by an asteroid and have it all go to shit anyway?

I mean really, it'd be global scale Murphy's law to fix the climate and then get hit.

But in all seriousness, it does bother me to see near Earth asteroid detection projects loose funding, IMHO they are as important as climate change projects.