No its not, especially if you're old enough to have seen the history firsthand.

There certainly was sort of an odd chauvinism among the mainframe/minicomputer group against personal computing. Luckily, the newbs to the industry didn't even bother listening to the "professionals".

Ironically, I'd have to agree with the Beeb on this one, even if it may be a propaganda newscast. They're absolutely right; if you don't know enough about 3D materials & basic firearms, you could end up blinding yourself, or damaging you hand. I could definitely see a teenager trying this, using their parents/brother's/friend's 3D printer.

But we all know the march of technology is inexorable.

Don't you also think its unfair to conclude Ballmer was a failure based on what Jobs was able to do? Its like saying Patrick Ewing was a failure because Michael Jordan was always in the way. (Except when MJ wasn't, and Ewing still failed, to the Rockets and the Pacers. Ewing was still a player to be reckoned with for most of his career, even if I think of Hakeem Owajuan as moreso, as well as having a higher opinion of Charles Barkley, Reggie Miller, and Shaq.)

Its unfair to compare Ballmer's tenure to Microsoft's peak in market cap, because that peak occurred before 2000, crashed real hard during the the 2000 bubble. Based on when Ballmer took over, and when he left, it only lost a fraction of its market cap at the time. Basically, Ballmer guided Microsoft into mediocrity, not really growing its value. But that's not the mark of a failure, considering that Sun Microsystems, Palm, etc. don't even exist today. IBM increased in market cap over the past 10 years, but it was a huge player in tech over a decade ago, and now is kind of a market afterthought. Where's the contempt for Sam Palmisano?

Lets face it, not every company can have a Steve Jobs for CEO. Does that make every tech company that didn't quadruple its market share a failure?

Believe me, I see the branding and false dichotomies. And I wouldn't even be a supporter of the liberalism that causes many liberals to be disenchanted with Obama. I'm just annoyed at the hero worship and demonizing that's used to frame Obama. Its neither. And I'm sick of the operation of the current Republican party which makes it near impossible for me to consider voting for any of their politicians. But that leaves me with these defective Democrats.

He sure acts like a Republican. Pass a Republican health insurance bill (ACA). Protects national spying programs and secret security police at the expense of individual rights. A few other details that escape my memory... Obama runs the country the way a Nixon or a (either) George Bush would.

Its more than just a great idea in principle. Its a way "money" becomes an accepted form of currency exchange.

From the 18th century, paper money issued by a government was "backed" a specific amount of gold. Once you could exchange the piece of paper for goods, as if it were gold, that was the establishment of paper money. Coins didn't require quite a conceptual hurdle, because minted coins had a specific amount of gold or other precious metal smelted into the coin. That is what's called specie currency.

In the 19th & 20th century, gov'ts would "back" their paper currency with some other form of valued commodity, if backing it with gold became to prohibitively costly. Its how the Nazi's broke the inflationary cycle caused by them printing out papermarks (german dollars). The bank printing rentenmarks backed the paper with the physical assets owned by the bank.

The dumbass cryptocurrency hipsters are so in love with their dream of bitcoin working as a governmentless currency, they fail to realize is that bitcoin is not money. Its not used as an exchange medium for goods (to a significant amount). bitcoin has no intrinsic value, like fiat currency.

What Rand Paul suggests would be what bankers have done for centuries in order to make a "new" currency acceptable. Granted, you're stuck with a form of centralized authority (but it doesn't have to be governmental) "backing" the currency with something of tangible value, but cryptocurrency fans would still be able to have decentralized transactions of bitcoin, without require active participation of a government.

What is this AHCA you're talking about? There's the PPACA, or ACA. Are you talking about your screwed up Florida system of health insurance?

The cost has doubled and tripled because gov't has been regulating all aspects of the medical industry before the PPACA, and its aided pharmaceutical companies and hospitals (and doctors) to gouge the crap out of customers. In every other developed country, they all get medical care, while sufficiently containing costs. The US has the most inefficient health care system in the world. That means we pay 2.5x more money for the same treatment as other countries. But its the greatest system in the world, if you're rich.

Sorry to rain on your parade, but no way is the ACA a "long term" solution to the health insurance problem in the US. Politicians will be back to the drawing board at some point before 2030.

The other problem is that the ACA will only marginally control health care costs (according to the CBO). Overall, health care costs are going up, regardless. What the ACA really addresses is the health insurance collapse the country would have been headed towards if it didn't change the status quo in 2009.

But your perspective is much more accurate, compared to a Republican partisan. I hope there isn't huge bad news on this front before November, this year.

I wish I could upvote you.

Every place is going to be a battleground state in November 2014. Presuming Obamacare is going to sway votes, we'll know exactly how successful or unsuccesful the initial phase has been by then.

It doesn't matter if the federal gov't is lying about the number of people enrolled. The federal gov't lies to its citizens all the time, for political perception management. And we've never seen Republicans lie about what the gov't has done and not done. /s

The key thing to realize is that the federal gov't is not going to be able lie to the actuaries who set policy premiums. And after business health insurance pools sets its rates later this year, and states/businesses opt in, or drop out, we'll know by 2015 if the ACA seems to be working, or was a bald faced lie.

The worst "penalty" would be uninsured, and have to pay a tax for it ($350-700?).

The "deadline" was all about being covered for health care in 2014. There's nothing stopping you from enrolling next year, and paying a premium minus the tax, to be covered in 2015. Or pay nothing at all and have insurance in 2015. Or pay an increase in your health insurance because the health insurance exchanges didn't get enough young people to enroll.

I actually have a smidge more sympathy for the crooked-ass contractors. I believe Kathy Sibelius, and every manager associated with the website, should have resigned for the piss poor project management done by HHS to implement the federal website.

Eventually, hospitals and clinics won't be able to charge $37 for an aspirin. They will have to meet eligibility requirements, via ACA, and they were never able to charge $37 for an aspirin through health insurers. That was the ER admission cost. Finally, profits from insurance plans are capped; if the insurance company charges too much for their premium, they will have to return the excess to policyholders.

It doesn't mean the PPACA is going to fix health care costs. I predict the health care tax burden is going to be unmanageable some time after 2030. But having the PPACA now was probably better than keeping the status quo in 2009.

You live in a state that did not accept Medicaid expansion or run a state health insurance exchange. The Federal gov't covers 95% of medicaid coverage costs for the next three years. So basically, your state had to accept pre-existing conditions, while not getting access to the 95% medicaid payment pool. Presuming the federal gov't only offset medicaid costs by 50%, that's an addition of pre-existing conditions added, with only 50% federal medicaid payments, rather than 95%; of course there's an increase. Also, when you don't have health insurers offering plans in your state, you don't get the increased competition needed to decrease premium costs. That's what it means to be on the federal health insurance exchange. You should be able to get tax rebates to offset your premium increases, unless you make over 4x the federal poverty level (you probably do, but dependents will affect that "level").