With an expected voter turnout of 37% ( http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0781453.html ) , isn't all this analysis too much bellyaching over nothing? The reality is, most "Citizens" don't seem to care. Core partisans, who are generally loyal to their party or philosophy won't be persuaded by any kind of ads. I don't think the Citizen's decision, bad though it might be, is not all that harmful. In fact, from a Libertarian viewpoint, what is the harm in ads that don't reveal donors? An intelligent voter should be able to recognize the third party sponsor and filter the ad appropriately. I think the citizens who do vote are generally capable of keeping their skepticism & cynicism threshold high. (At least I am, I generally ignore all 3rd party ads, unless it points me to something I can independently verify)

That is what I feel every time someone talks about climbing Everest. Why not develop a high altitude Everest class helicopter. Then someone can even setup a penthouse on Everest and arrange tourists to visit ( like the Russians are doing with that "Most Expensive Motel" AKA International Space Station)

I have to agree: I have not used my standalone DVD player more than may be a couple of times in the last year. Will probably never buy a Blu Ray player. Got rid of premium cable (for over the air) due to compression. We get most of our entertainment, recreation, knowledge, information and telecommunication over internet. Have land line phone and basic cable more out of irrational fear of cutting "connections".

Could it be due to the founder of modern terrorism, Yasir Arafat of PLO, being an engineer? May be he selected similar people in the new enterprise and the culture and know how dispersed from PLO.

Not a big deal where one wants to locate the origin of a co-ordinate system. In fact, who knows IF there is a center (as in centroid) for the universe. What is more worrisome is (the much larger population that believes in) the 6000 year old earth or that modern humans descended, not from apes but from "Adam & Eve" That 20% consider Obama is a Muslim is less worrisome than the fact that they probably think that should disqualify him.

Could it be IPOD + ITUNES + Podcasting have made radio the cassette tape player? Satellite (Digital) Radio isn't doing too well either, though cars are throwing in receivers for free. Sirius (recently merged with XM due to financial weakness) extends me $5 per month inducement subscriptions which I ignore. So, cost is not a factor; lack of usefulness is. At home, I use shoutcast etc., for "digital radio".

He probably means SSB. But comparing FM, a music friendly mode to HAM modes that are phone/Text/CW oriented isn't right. (HAMs can't transmit music) KE7LNS

When there are trillions of big balls doing this without anyone designing them. Where you ask? Just look up the (night) sky!

In a system of capitalism there are no gaps or shortages, just disequilibrium between demand and supply that determines price. The current "science gap" is that U.S. produced "science" is price uncompetitive with global "science". Same problem as in automobiles or consumer electronics. Even U.S. Government knows this; e.g. NASA uses Russia whenever possible to "do science" to stretch its $. U.S. talent is naturally seeking highest value occupations: e.g. financial engineering, law, management, health care etc., As long as these occupations are valued more by market (than "science"), it is absurd to talk of "science gap", especially when global markets are producing enough "science". A day may come when the currently lucrative occupations may not be so anymore; then the talent may flow to "science" if "science" has more relative market value. Two years back, mortgage & real estate were highly lucrative; now, many previous 6 figure earners are on food stamps. May happen to financial engineering too some day.

What if the language gcc is written in creates new subtle bugs that wont be caught by the test system that has been tweaked over the years to catch code generation bugs of previous (c based) gcc versions? Till the test system matures enough to catch the new family of c++ assisted code generation bugs, it is arguable that high reliability and safety critical systems avoid using the new generation of (c++ using) gcc.

Well, as the discussion above demonstrates, there are plenty of people who suspect the quality of gcc (yes, that means quality of compiled code - read bugs introduced by the compiler) will go down after gcc starts being written in c++. If so, they have the option, in the full spirit of openness, to keep the c based gcc alive as long as their lack of trust in the c++ based gcc remains. Once that trust is acquired, say after plenty of people use c++ based gcc in building critical systems for 10 or 20 years. So, by 2030, this can all be forgotten and studied as an amusing transition. However, if a rocket blows up or a reactor melts down or pacemakers fail (due to a bug introduced by c++ based gcc), software designers don't have to feel the sky has fallen. (the way petroleum engineers feel now about the gulf oil leak). but switch to the good old, trusted and proven, c based gcc for their next project.

Can the C based versions be labeled clearly for those who prefer a gcc written in C only? If this is not possible, it may be a good idea to create a fork for gcc in C for those who may need it. Ideally, a compiler flag that can switch to C only version if requested would be good.