I prefer to take notes with my laptop but totally agree that too many students lack the self-control not to check email, Facebook or IM their friends while in class. If you allow the professors the ability to kill the room's WiFi the educational experience will be enhanced (lining the rooms with lead to block cell phones would also be heaven).

What to prevent a third party from buying these resources and then selling them to Japan or US?

I'm going to sue!

Your daughters and grandchildren will find more value in your wife's diaries than all the HD video you could record.

It's not that sex helps the brain grow, it's that sex helps prevent stress, which has been found to cause the brain to shrink.

The experiment runs from October 20 to November 18, 2010.... who's idea was that? They could have easily increased their pool of qualified applicants by running the experiment in the summer. I know a gaggle of grad students who would have loved to sign up.

FTA: He thinks only a catastrophic event would now persuade humanity to take the threat of climate change seriously enough, such as the collapse of a giant glacier in Antarctica, such as the Pine Island glacier, which would immediately push up sea level.

So.... how difficult and expensive would it be for someone to force the collapse of the Pine Island glacier? Is there anything we can do to covertly accelerate its collapse within say.... the next five years?

That's true, but I don't think it excuses Slashdotters from knowing about their behavior, as it's regularly posted here.

I wouldn't expect Suzie Homemaker to know about the way Apple runs its App Store, or about Sony's or Microsoft's shenanigans, but I do expect any Slashdotter with a username to know, simply because of how well-informed we are here. Any time one of these companies does something slightly objectionable, it gets posted here. So ignorance really isn't an excuse if you're a regular on this site, IMO.

We all know who is really responsible for most CO2 emissions: greenpeace and other antinuclear groups. Please ask China how much nuclear power costs when you strip off the red green tape. The answer is that it is cheaper than gas, coal, oil, solar, wind, and basically everything except hydroelectric power. So, please stop the environmentalists, and start the building.

Litigation, even on this scale is unlikely to prevent piracy. As anti-piracy technology and techniques evolve, so will the technology and methods used in filesharing. How long until we have BitTorrent with TOR and encryption built in? The copyright juntas will always be chasing the pirates tails, and unfortunately they're likely to continue throwing money at hopeless schemes like this until they've bankrupted themselves, rather than develop a successful business model for the 21st century.

Here in the US, we don't have democracy now. We have a two party, democratic REPUBLIC. The politicians can pretty much do whatever they want after they have been elected because the media has conditioned us to believe that we have only two parties from which to choose (i.e. - "bipartisan").

The two party system in the states has its beginnings in the divide between mercantile Hamilton and the agrarian Jefferson in Washington's first Administration.

"Party discipline" doesn't exist in the states as any European or Canadian would understand it.

The major parties are loosely bound coalitions based on issues, geography, personalities and so on. But a loosely bound coalition can be remarkably enduring and effective.

The third party in the states forms around a single issue or set of issues and a lone charismatic leader - when one or the other are extinguished, the party dies as well.

In American culture, three is the unlucky number. The also-ran.

 

This is going to be interesting to see how this ends up playing out. My guess is that eventually they will just the firewall between permanently, or maybe not. I'm just glad I don't live in china. :)

Dang...according to wikipedia that means on a straight, clear road, I shouldn't drive any faster than I can stop in slightly under three miles. How fast do people drive where you live?!?!?

nothing says "i've been shot" like having a vibrator strapped to your chest.

I bought a mac mini just to run Plex, it's just that nice.