My experience during undergrad was that at least half of the people with laptops were just using them to watch youtube or do something unrelated to class. Another ~10% or so were doing their homework/projects (possibly from other classes) during lectures. The rest were actively taking notes.

The students who were watching youtube/facebook, etc were indeed distracting. I usually tried to avoid sitting behind laptops to avoid this problem, but banning laptops just isn't fair to the students who want to use them legitimately. There have been times where laptops have really added to classes (looking up facts mainly).

Therefore I propose a solution: All laptop users should sit in the back rows of the class, unless there is a legitimate reason for someone to not sit back there (eyesight or hearing difficulties). This makes it less likely for the people who are just screwing around to distract other students.

It must be nice having an ideology that is so clear cut. Blaming Israel for everything certainly seems like an easy way of rationalizing what happens in Gaza/the West Bank. But you are the one, after all, who suggested we pretend that we "come from another planet" earlier in this thread, and yet you blame Israel even for actions that are very obviously the choices of Hamas. Israel has nothing to do with Hamas's oppression of their own people.

You can criticize Israel for its blockade, for its demolition of houses, for its wall, and for a whole host of other abuses it has indeed committed, and should be ashamed of. But when it comes to Hamas oppressing people for trying to speak out freely and practice (or not practice) Islam in the way they wish, Israel has absolutely no say in this, and their occupation is entirely tangential to the issue at hand in this article.

Smiths, you are the one who needs to step back and realize that you have become entrenched by an ideology.

You just had to go and bring Godwin into this, didn't you..

In fact, establishing your religious credentials does NOT give you a free pass! I'm Jewish, and have flown to Israel. They do ask you some religion related questions, but those would be easy for anyone with an internet connection to fake. They always go further in depth. But thanks for spreading the rumor that Jews get special treatment. I'm not going to accuse you of antisemitism, but do try to take your head out of your ass.

Your numbers for Social Security, Medicare and Medicare D are way off. Do you really expect anyone to take your post seriously when you suggest that social security is currently $14.7 trillion in debt, nearly the same as the entire GDP of the US? And moreover, that Medicare is currently $77 trillion in debt, which is $16 trillion more than the world GDP!.

Perhaps your numbers are over long periods of time, and if they are, then say that! Instead you just come off as someone who has absolutely no clue. Yes, SS/Medicare are doomed if we don't fix them, but keep the FUD numbers out of the discussion.

I'm not going to bother starting some whole thread on the merits of SS/Medicare, they are simultaneously incredibly successful, but broken programs. However, I do want to respond to one point of yours, which is the idea that you'll never get your SS/Medicare back. There is one extremely important component of Social Security that even young people sometimes benefit from: Disability benefits. If you suffer an injury that will keep you out of work for 12+ months, you can get compensation. This is, of course, assuming you've been paying into SS for long enough (which varies based on your age and a whole host of seemingly random factors)

The Wikipedia deletionists are already trying to delete it. Go support this term! KEEP.

Which is exactly why you will never see anything more than an expert system in space. There is no way any space agency is going to punt hundreds of millions or euros/dollars/pounds into space without a full understanding of the decision tree in the spacecraft control loop. It is hard enough at the moment without introducing outliers into the system.

Insightful? This is flat out wrong, by over 10 years now! See: Planning in interplanetary space: Theory and practice (A Jonsson, P Morris, N Muscettola, K Rajan, B Smith). This group of scientists from NASA Ames and the JPL used AI planning as part of the Deep Space One mission.

From the very first line of the paper's abstract:

On May 17th 1999, NASA activated for the first time an AI-based planner/scheduler running on the flight processor of a spacecraft.

And note that since 1999, much more work has been done in using AI planning (and perhaps other techniques) in space.

Actual quote:

We do not wish, we do not need to expel the Arabs and take their place. All our aspirations are built upon the assumption -- proven throughout all our activity in the Land -- that there is enough room in the country for ourselves and the Arabs.

Go fuck yourself.

Looks like somebody is embarrassed that they clicked the link to the virus. No, those weren't pictures from the party. Sorry.

But seriously, how is that a non-relevant criteria? Especially if you had somebody who has done it multiple times, that is a major risk to the company's network. Especially for a company with people's financial information, you can't have people downloading such ridiculous things.

The entire idea of rising up violently against a democratically elected government because you disagree with it has a major problem: What do you replace that government with? If you replace it with a democracy, the electorate is just going to elect someone you don't like again with good probability. Your only option is to replace it with a dictatorship, in which case you've definitely not made things better.

No, violence against the government simply isn't justified unless it is no longer a democracy. And at the moment, the US remains very much a democracy, and a rather vibrant one. Sure, there are problems -- incumbent Congressmen seem to last way longer than they should in Congress, and it would be nice to have more choices than just 2 parties. But ultimately the elections are fair, and you have the freedom to try to convince people that there is another way. In fact, a call to violence is an obvious refusal to take part in a democratic process, one that I will not join in regardless of how many people take part.

No, violence isn't the answer. The answer is education and eliminating voter apathy. Too many voters are simply too ignorant of the facts. And I realize the right-wing partisans will accuse the liberals of being stupid, and the left wing partisans will accuse the same of the conservatives. The problem is that for the most part they are right. Ignorance has nothing constructive to offer in the political discourse of our nation -- all it provides is screaming, hyperbole, ad-hominem attacks, but worst of all: loyalty. Loyalty to the party leaders who perpetuate this madness.

So go forth and fight for change, but not with guns; show people how to think rationally, how to question society and the world. And even more important, how to debate an issue without demonizing the opponent as a terrorist/socialist/.

The discussion is about bicycles, not motorcycles, which very obviously do not lower the rate of heart disease in their users. (Unless perhaps you are doing push ups while riding the motorcycle, in which case the comment about "biker putty" definitely applies)

This is just grandstanding by a politician running for office.

You can claim grandstanding all you want, but those of us from CT know that Richard Blumenthal goes up against corporations from all around the US all the time. Sometimes they get picked up by the media more than others, but this really ins't anything out of the ordinary for him.

And you can like him or hate him for that, I'll keep this post apolitical, but this is just not unusual for him.

Note that certain mushrooms are still contaminated! Chanterelle mushrooms are still somewhat radioactive, at least the ones from Belarus, and that's where most come from. You can only eat them a few times a year, which is truly a shame, as they are one of the most delicious mushrooms that exists.

No, you fail.

Of course, if the government managed it, it wouldn't work.

So let me get this straight; You think that the government could never organize something like Slug Lanes, and yet the government is the one who set up the HOV lane on the highway in the first place. The government is instrumental in the smooth functioning of slug lanes!

You should consider taking a step back from your anti-government ideology and realize that just like any large organization, sometimes things are done right and sometimes they are done wrong. Government is no different from any other large bureaucracy.