This ranks among many software-things that I never expected to see happen. (up there with a "new" BeOS (never happened *for real reals*))

Look, we're still in the days of "It's best if it says Made in USA" on it. I've witnessed it, anecdotally *all the way*, first-hand. I've got two thermal temperature probes. One clearly says "Made in the USA" on it and works like a DREAM. Even has a ton of memory and sensor options. Then there's the cheapo version I got for way less, DOESN'T say "Made in the USA" on it - and it's CRAP. Sure, the non-US version works...after you let the LCD "warm up" for 2 minutes! There's also no such thing as memory on it nor sensor options...You get what you pay for and to get merch from the US still requires you pay top dollar.

Don't confuse cheap for quality. Plenty of things are better made, here, in the US. You just have to not be a cheapo.

You can't totally blame NASA for crying wolf. Last week some yahoo pulled a prank on everyone, and that yahoo had nothing to do with NASA. That got everyone's hopes up and had, again, nothing to do with NASA.

Meanwhile, we should be cutting way more than 4 billion from the DoD and transferring it *all* to NASA.

But let's talk about what dollar bills we should or should not be printed instead. You know, for reasons.

It's been a while, but I don't remember Matlab nor R being all that useful for symbolic math (meaning indefinite integrals, for instance).

R's kind of a bad replacement since if you're using R then you're likely not as under the gun as if you wanted to use a calculator.

Seriously? I didn't even have my TI-92 until my second semester of college. You think I bought it with any consideration of the SATs?

That's not anywhere near specific enough.

Is the exact algorithm outlined....anywhere?

Seriously? And how was this sold as a currency?

Or even just the best *speakers*. Not every expert is actually good at presenting. Presenting is a secondary skill...

"Hey everybody! We're all getting laid!"
-Rodney Dangerfield

The point is something that is generally capable of whatever task.

I want a drone that flies around my houses and fixes all the dren that I don't want to fix.

You know, broken light bulbs, empties the gutters, etc.

Okay, seriously, the universe, "nature", definitely poses a greater threat to humanity than humanity itself. Sure, we could nuke ourselves to oblivion. But that's just one way...asteroids, mega-volcanoes, hurricanes, Tsunamis, an ice age, floods, droughts, etc etc can all be plenty destructive or even lead to annihilation. Contrast that with "terrorism": no-known "nuclear threat", doesn't even have a country identity. Terrorism's basically a bunch of violent yahoo's looking for ways to hurt the US. They're still just people and with no where near the destructive capability of what "nature" can bring to bare.

I can't think of a better sign that a place doesn't need to flip/flop their clocks.

There's a similar thought process in mathematics. Many really amazing mathematicians died young (Srinivasa Ramanujan, for instance), "and therefore any old mathematician can't possibly be a good one." Well...that's a load of crap. The truth is, mathematicians of all ages contribute importantly to mathematics. CS probably faces a similar thought process because computational technology is still very new. (It wasn't long ago that algorithms were primarily researched as a mathematical curiosity.)