Exactly, there is no shortage of work to do, whether it's fixing crumbling infrastructure, doing maintenance or even just providing customer support. The problem is of course finding the money to do it. Even if the money is available, there's no incentive for a company to spend it. So what is the solution? I suppose you could try to pass a law about maintenance or quality of service, but the companies will fight it tooth and nail. And in the end, even if something like that got passed, it will cost more to the customer for the sake of maintaining a profit margin. Either way, the problem always comes down to money. As a society how do we provide an incentive to do things like this, without driving away business? I don't know that there's an easy answer

Exactly. There are plenty of solutions; the problem is there is currently too much momentum built up in the idea that we must work 40 hrs a week to have a relatively high paying job, with no significant gaps in employment. It's going to be difficult for society to accept anything different.

Taking your example, we could set the full time workweek at 20 hrs. In theory, businesses would have to hire twice the people to cover 40hrs worth of shifts. In fact, many large corporations are already starting to do this with job sharing... two people split a job, each works 2-3 days a week, with one day overlapping to get up to speed. It's very popular with working moms. But these are the exception rather than the norm.

The Planetary Society is doing an optical SETI search for laser signals. http://www.planetary.org/explore/projects/seti/optical-seti.html/ Is it pointless? Well, you don't know until you look, and even then it could take a very very long time. Problem with a laser is you have to point it somewhere

Since this is a Slashdot video, what would be really nice is if we could have some screen captures interspersed throughout the transcript.

It seems like if someone were to create a small 486 single board computer, similar to a Raspberry Pi, for under $60 or so, there would be an incredible market for it. For running everything from industrial equipment to a DOS/Windows retro gaming rig. Are there any cheap systems like this out there? I've seen lots of cheap ARM based boards but haven't come across any x86 ones.

As someone who was fortunate enough to see the northern lights in the lower 48 last year, this is good advice. Keep your eye on the forecast; unless you're far up north, good opportunities don't come along too often. Find a dark spot in the country with a good view, and be patient since they do ebb and flow. Although it can vary based on the space weather, your best chance is usually around midnight, and you can get frequent updates here http://helios.swpc.noaa.gov/ovation/

It took me a couple tries to finally see them the first time. And even that night, for the longest time, until my eyes adjusted, I thought I was just seeing hazy clouds. Every once in a while it would light up with color overhead, but sadly those only lasted a few minutes. Most of the time it was pretty faint, but still an amazing experience, and yes a long exposure is a must to get a decent photo!

That may be true, but think about the sheer number of hobbies devoted to building or fixing yesterday's technology that are neither practical or efficient...but still fun! The way I see it, if we get to that point technologically, people are going to create a planet just because they can. Who wouldn't want to design their own planet??

I'm the opposite; I would love to just browse around Best Buy like in years past but I can't do it any more due to the constant badgering by their employees. I ventured back there for the first time in probably a year, and it got to be so ridiculous I left without buying anything. I was asked about a dozen times in less than 5 minutes if I needed help with anything. Some people would love this constant attention; I'd prefer to be left in peace to actually browse on my own. I'd much rather read reviews online and then buy from a B&M store in case I needed to make a return. Even if I had to pay a reasonable premium. But the customer experience there is just so terrible due to the up-selling and constant badgering, I just can't do it.

Wish I had mod points, because I couldn't agree more. If you've been there that long, you might as well make the leap to management. Although it may not always seem like it, companies desperately need people in charge who know what they're doing. Demonstrate that you have the 'people' skills and know how to present to upper mgmt, and you're probably a shoe in.

I have a friend that was in the same situation a while back. They had been an expert for years with new managers rotating in every 12 months or so. Being new, the managers were terrible at understanding what was going on, and even more terrible at explaining to upper mgmt, which only served to make the rest of the group look bad. Finally after 3-4 years of this they just told their director they were considering their career options but what they were really interested in was being a manager as soon as a position opened up. The implied threat of course, is that they were willing to leave. This is the kind of thing that gets things moving. They were promoted within the month. So if I were you, I'd give it a shot, but take a look around and see what else is out there. If nothing else, maybe you'll get a raise or some perks while you're looking at other options.

Why are we still working more than 3 days a week? All this technology we have is being wasted on stupid crap like this... monitoring employees is not progress.

My problem with the whole situation is that as a society, we are rewarding the wrong kind of risk taking. We should be rewarding risk taking that is actually an investment in our future... things like developing technology like a fusion reactor or a high capacity batteries. Not betting whether the derivatives market will rise or fall. These banks are simply gambling on the price of stocks and other securities at a given point of time. Fundamentally it's nothing different than going to the casino, and that should never be supported with taxpayer money. One simple thing to do is say no more bailouts, ever, for what is essentially gambling.

Yeah, that was a catchy TV theme. Golden Girls in space... who knew?