The point of TRON:Legacy was the same as the original TRON: Wouldn't it be cool to actually BE inside the computer where you could interact in a meaningful and tactile way with computer programs (that weren't designed to have a 3D representation).

The graphics were nice, especially if you paid for the IMAX 3D experience. I thought they provided the same role as in Avatar: stun the audience into not noticing the plot.

The plot wasn't the point of TRON. The graphics, while nice, weren't the point of TRON. The idea of physically interacting with arbitrary computer programs directly was the point. It's "cool" and "neat" almost because it's impossible and ludicrous.
 

If terrorism follows the power law, then that actually just confirms that terrorism is as random as sunspots and global earthquakes.

It's random. Nothing to see here.

Your wife handles all the bills too, then?

The difference in the post 9/11 world is what kinds of hijacking get what kind of response.

If there's a terrorist who takes a passenger hostage to get the pilots to fly to an alternate destination, they'll probably get to their destination: preserving human life is worth a little inconvenience. If the terrorist wants to actually physically take control of the plane, then you (as a passenger) are going to die anyway, so it might be worth the sacrifice. As a parent who travels with a little one, I'd not-so-happily but enthusiastically sacrifice myself in the hope that my child won't die.

If, however, some people just direct (direct might be too gentle a word, perhaps "threaten the life of another passenger if demands are not met" would be better) the pilot to land at a different airport, then my doing something rash would not help protect my child.

"...it would be so onerous that it might finally provoke some kind of sizeable backlash against the whole pointless process."

Which is exactly what the virtual strip search is doing now.

When I compliment another child's behavior to their parents, I'm really complimenting the parents' parenting skills. When someone tells me my daughter is so nice, I take it as a direct compliment to me.

There's both nature and nurture involved.

The situation here isn't a pay-as-you-go situation is a pay-for-access situation. I don't pay each time I need police service, I pay a flat fee (i.e. taxes) for access to as much police service as I need. Same goes for all the other stuff. I've never called 911, but I still happily pay for the service to exist.

To be honest, if you expect your house to catch fire more than once every 1000 years, then the $75/year fee is a win for you if your house is worth at least $75,000. The long and short of it is that the homeowner in this situation is a COMPLETE MORON with no sense of where the services that make up society come from and the fact that these services must be paid for.

In a country where drug lords rule, you want to spend how much money on this technology? How about using that cash to support basic infrastructure like roads and potable water?

It's not that someone could google to get the answer, it's that they could communicate with another thinking being that is willing and able to do the problem for them. The professor doesn't have a problem with a beefy calculator that can store an arbitrarily large amount of static information, he just wants to make certain that the student is the one to retrieve and process that information.

I'm a past math teacher, and the real cruelty is a student that gets a D in Algebra. They pass, so they can't take it again, but they don't know enough to pass any other math classes.

I did a lot of mastery-based stuff, so if a student couldn't show mastery of a particular subtopic, they would get a 0 on the quiz for it. If they could show mastery, they got a 9 or 10 (out of 10). An 8 meant they could try again with a different version of the quiz.

So a student that gets a D in my class has actually mastered a solid 60%-70% of the material, and they're not auto-screwed for later classes because they can pick up a couple of missed topics later.

There were other things that bifurcated the students into sub-D or C-or-better. I could do this mostly undetected because I'm very good with the numbers. TFA's school is just not hiding it.

I gave out a lot of F's. Those students get to try the whole thing over, and perhaps learn enough the second time around.

I'm still a fan of the "a D means you can't count it as a prerequisite, but you get credit for it."

A senior who gets a D in biology isn't going to be doing anything with it anyway, and preventing him from graduating isn't doing anybody any favors.

On the SAT, the range of scores is from 200 to 800, so 500 is 50%, not 62.5%

"Although it was a project that would take a complete amateur no more than 5 minutes to perfect in MS Word..."

If that was the case, don't you think the woman with the lost cat would have done this?

Microsoft was walking across the street in a hurry and accidentally dropped $200,000,000.00 on the ground.

It didn't notice.

I haven't done any statistical research into this. It's just my personal observation based on anecdotal evidence.

I have a couple of friends (without degrees) who've had successful careers, but haven't seen projects through to conclusion. When the going gets rough, they jump ship at the company where they're working, and move on. It limits their success, but since they're still doing well, why change?

I have other friends with degrees who've stayed with companies that were floundering when maybe they should've moved on to find something better. I also have friends with degrees who stuck with companies that were going through a rough patch, and when they came out the other side, they were much better off for it.

I know a lot of people who consider themselves smart, but never finished college. It still bothers them, and it limits what kind of success they can enjoy.

Not having a 4-year degree doesn't say anything at all about your intelligence.

It does, however, often say a great deal about your ability to see a long-term project through to completion.

A great deal of getting a 4-year degree is simply managing time effectively, especially when there are so many distractions that are far more interesting.