It is also sad that kids these days no longer know how to use a quill to write.

Quill?!?! I say the kids need to learn how to write Akkadian cuneiform in clay with a blunt reed.

Why does the helmet only have padding on the inside?

Most football concussions now come from "rotational acceleration", the twisting of the brain inside the skull. It is much harder for a helmet to protect against there than "linear acceleration" forces, the helmet has to literally slide around the head.

John D. Rockefeller basally created the modern petroleum industry, dramatically advancing technology, and reducing the price of oil for customers.

Cornelius Vanderbilt was an early steamboat and shipping entrepreneur, and dramatically improved the operation of railroad lines into New York City.

Andrew Carnegie greatly enlarged the US steel industry, including the first serious of the Bessemer process. Personally, Carnegie was a leader in the American Anti-Imperialist League, in opposition to the U.S. annexation of the Philippines. He also gave away 90% of his wealth to philanthropies.

All three of these men created companies that enhanced the lives of consumers.

will we be seeing more high-tech startups opening shop in Africa and Central America?

If you want a tech job in Central America, check out Tecoloco (which was a high-tech startup itself).

top 1% AGI is $388,905 (in 2011, the most recent year for which the IRS has final data, reference).

Netflix is no exception - they produce House of Cards and it's available exclusively via Netflix.

No, "House of Cards" is produced by Media Rights Capital and licensed for initial distribution through Netflix.

In Australia, "House of Cards" was shown on Showcase, a Foxtel-owned premium cable channel. In New Zealand, it was shown on TV3 broadcast channel. In India, it was shown on Zee Cafe cable channel, and in Latvia is was on LNT. It also has been released on DVD and Blu-ray.

Want to stream movies like Lawrence of Arabia and The Shawshank Redemption? I'm sorry, they're only available on Playstation Vue.

"Shawshank Redemption" is on Amazon Instant Video, Blockbuster On Demand, M-GO and Redbox Instant.

By the way, Comcast also buys early access to Sony films, including American Hustle and Captain Phillips.

Even on TV networks, companies swap content and distribution. For example, "The Mindy Project" is produced by NBC Universal, but distributed on the Fox broadcast network. "How I Met Your Mother" was produced by Fox, but distributed initially on the CBS broadcast network.

I think you underestimate the desire of Hollywood to distribute TV shows and movies through all appropriate mechanisms, though at the appropriate time and price points, in order to maximize revenue.

Perhaps the federal Department of Education is just a complete boondoggle?

Have schools really benefitted from this department, which was only formed in 1980? Has the quality of education gone up since then? Have the costs come down?

Here is a list of solutions to non-problems of the Internet:

Clipper Chip (1994) - "those terrorists will encrypt where the bomb is!"

Communication Decency Act (1996) - "a.s.b. will destroy our country"

Net Neutrality (2013) - "I think my Netflix is too slow, so let's make some crazy rules about it, even though I have no idea about the realities of modern ISP interconnections and protocols"

This too will pass...

I think the ESA media relations is pretty bad. There is really no explanation of what is going on now...

This is a horrible event, but for the future of Virgin Galactic it is one of the better scenarios for the failure not to be in the rocket engine itself (which is always a challenging situation, putting the strength of materials at the edge of breaking), but instead on a faulty deployment of the feathering system. Hopefully it should be simply to work out a solution to avoid pre-mature feathering.

H1B applications contain personal data (of the type Slashdotters are usually passionate about protecting),

Slasdotters believe in lots of freedoms except the freedom of movement of labor. Because they believe in the religion of nationalism.

Privacy?

Sadly, we likely lost the war on Global Warming back in the 70-80's when China industrialized. Oil was too cheap to force innovation in renewable power.

Oil is not the big CO2 source of China - coal is. China would love to get rid of all coal and move to nuclear, and they plan to have 150 GWe of nuclear by 2030. Unfortunately, today they have 707 GWe of coal.

Genetic mutations are largely a constant. Every generation will continue to exhibit mutations, the vast majority of which have no impact on procreation and are either carried on, or not.

But any effort to create a protein or change regulation changes the metabolism, which can be a selection pressure when competing for resources with native strains that don't spend the energy to make those proteins. For example, genetic alterations in bacteria for DNA computing elements) can disappear rapidly in a culture, sometimes this happens on the order of hours.

The Economist has a great article on free-routing. Not only does this save time & fuel, but a "continuous descent approach" is also quieter at airports.