Awesome. So 12 years isn't enough? How many more? Who pays for it? What endgame would you create to make it acceptable to "pull out" of a region that neither wants us nor desires us to be there (but please keep giving them money, kthxbai)? Hrm?

Shut the fuck up.

Indeed. I, too, grew up in the '90s, and remember (briefly, in elementary school) the library still having an actual [paper] card catalog instead of an electronic database. Does that make me somehow not a "digital native?"

I even used DOS when it really was DOS (on my first computer, a Tandy 286 with DeskMate). In fact, I think I was learning to use the computer at the same time I was learning to use the card catalog...

All those 80s era AI LISPers are rejoicing.

I can see self-driving technology, but all-electric powertrains? Other than aircraft, long-haul trucks seem to me to be the hardest things to run off batteries. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that even the future of "green" trucking is standard Diesel engines running on biodiesel or synthetic diesel, not electricity.

A microwave users much less power than a conventional oven, that's part of the point. A 1kW (electrical power) microwave should be fine for most households and you only use it for a few minutes at a time.

Wait, are you suggesting to replace an oven with a microwave? You do realize that an oven can do things microwaves can't, right?

Blah, blah, blah.

I have one word -- just one word -- that renders your entire argument moot. You want to know what it is? Alright, here it comes:

EUROPE.

Somehow, the police in Europe manage to deal with the same kinds of crime we have here, yet manage to do it without killing nearly as many people as our police do. One statistic I've heard is that American police killed more people in March than the UK police have since 1900. That's one month vs. more than a century. (And I don't care that the US population is higher; it doesn't matter -- we're talking orders of magnitude here!) There is no explanation, other than American police having a SYSTEMIC problem of incompetence, corruption, and needless brutality.

Also note that, while bad cops are bad cops, "good" cops that cover for bad cops are bad cops too. The problem in Ferguson and Baltimore is not that one bad cop fucked up, it's that one bad cop fucked up and all the other bad cops -- namely, the vast majority of the cops in those jurisdictions -- defended him!

In other words, it's "only" 99% of cops who make the rest look bad.

Apparently, Mr. Aleynikov's real mistake is that his behavior wasn't profitably illegal...

That's not true: the President is perfectly free to veto all spending until Congress is willing to give him a sane budget (or 2/3 of it is insane enough to override him).

The city fucking deserves what it got!

If Baltimore's police wasn't made up of murderous, jackbooted thugs, then there wouldn't be any riots in the first place.

Compare and contrast Baltimore or Ferguson to Charleston and how the latter city handled the Walter Scott murder. Whereas the governments of Ferguson and Baltimore (until recently) dug in their heels against their own citizens in defense of their corrupt police, Charleston's leadership had the basic decency to prosecute a blatantly obvious crime without trying to spin or weasel their way out of it. As a direct consequence, there have been no riots in Charleston.

The lesson for government here is simple: if you don't want riots, then respect the citizens' rights!

No, I mean like how the old, old AT&T (before the monopoly was broken up) used to only allow "approved devices" on its landline network, gave you exactly one choice of phone (the Model 500), and had to send a technician out to hard-wire it, using screw terminals, to the phone network (i.e., this was before RJ-11).

My bank can and do notify me when there is 'odd spending' happening on my credit card.

The key phrase there is "credit card." Your bank does that precisely because it is the one liable for fraudulent charges. If you were the one liable -- is is the case with debit cards, or phone bills (as per this article) -- then they wouldn't give a shit.

That sort of thing happens with old people. When my grandmother died (in the '90s), we found out that she had still been renting her phone!

My Comcast bill is autopaid... using my bank's system, where the payment is "pushed" (not "pulled") only if it conforms to the rules that I set (namely, that it is not more expensive than usual). In fact, I got an email a few days ago saying that my most recent payment was not sent because Comcast tried to increase the rate by almost double. It's time to negotiate again... Google Fiber can't come soon enough!

Hey, it could be possible on planes flying the Tripoli - Mogadishu - Kabul route!

The words "engineer," "architect," and "developer" have been rendered meaningless by all title inflation (especially bullshit like "sales engineers").

Here's a newsflash for HR and others who hire workers:

IF THE JOB DOES NOT CONSIST MOSTLY OF DOING MATH AND REQUIRE THE WORKER TO BE LICENSED BY THE STATE, IT IS WRONG TO TITLE IT "ENGINEER!"