I completed a B.S. in Computer Information Systems and am currently working on a M.S. in Information Assurance. Neither my bother or sister ever attended a single college course. My sister was at best an average student in high school and graduated without having to struggle. My brother was a sub-par student who only graduated on-time due to a last chance program that really makes a mockery out of obtaining a high school diploma.

As far as the worth of the degrees it is very mixed. I didn't go to college right out of high school and instead got a career going. I got a good job at a large company and at one point was the youngest person on a 30 person team and I was the supervisor. I was working on my degree and did earn it while there. Since then I've moved to a much smaller company that treats employees well and having a degree was a requirement. Since it is an accounting firm most of the people I deal with have degrees and many have Masters.

My sister used to have a job at a call center for a cell phone provider and made remarkable good money to just answer calls. The cell provider closed that call center and now she is looking for another job. She is finding that no call center pays even close to what she made for someone with her lack of education and skills.

My brother has never really done well at all. Local truck driver and currently handles truck routing. Since we don't get along I really don't know what he makes. Yet talking with my parents he can barely afford his small apartment and used car payment.

Based off of comments from my parents when I was hourly and had a couple years of overtime and lots of on-call work I ended up making somewhere between 3 and 4 times what my brother and sister made combined. Before she got laid off I made a base salary of roughly what they earned added together.

In the end it comes down to education and drive is the best foundation for success. Drive by itself can result in great rewards but those people are the outliers. Lack of education and drive results in very little.

Comparing the Goodyear blimp to this is like comparing a Geo Metro to a 18 wheeler. First off it is listed with a seven ton cargo/supply capacity. Doing a quick search on the Goodyear blimp didn't find a rating but the next generation blimp is listed at just over 2 tons. I'd be surprised if the Army blimp doesn't have low observation technologies built-in to it. All in all I'm not surprised at the price and comparing to the Goodyear blimp is an unfair one.

Now at the same time I'm sure there is an over sized profit margin but nothing like saying the Goodyear only costs 2 million implies.

Last I heard the United States is a First World nation and thanks to foresight of our founding fathers we can own assault and select fire battle rifles. All it takes is living in a State like Colorado that hasn't butchered the 2nd Amendment and filing paperwork for a $200 tax stamp. If I had an extra 16k - 20k in my bank account I could start the purchase of a M16 today, depending on the BATF backlog it would be at least a couple of months before a FFL could hand the rifle over to me, but it can be legally done.

Actually a total of five books, 3 in the original trilogy, 1 book of short stories and 1 book with time and dimension travel.

Though I'd say the worst part isn't that the Draka win, but that the "good" Draka fully understand what they are doing and rationalize it. The Draka fear the serfs and even more fear other societies that don't embrace the same concepts they do. The only solution the more noble Draka see is to conquer the entire world and modify the serfs so that they can never be a threat again.

Look no further then the Tom Swift and Tom Swift Jr. books. Sure the older ones are outdated, but they gave me a love of Science Fiction that I still have.

According to the wiki article they are still being published as of 2007.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Swift

When we have kids I plan to read these to our kid very early on.

My biggest complaint with the fourth edition of D&D is that it has become a miniature game. If I want to play with miniatures I'll pull out Warhammer 40,000. Even the published material really just encouraged people to buy various miniatures to use on the supplied maps. Before the GM became a total ass, half the group I was playing with had not played role playing games and just don't understand what a game is. I tried suggesting other systems and the questions were always how do the maps work, how do the miniatures compare. D&D 4E is not a role playing game and I hope WoTC goes back to a role playing game.

You left out the obvious, make crazy amounts of money. If you even managed to save 25% gross salary in a year you are making $180,000 a year. Really your advice is quite meaningless to the average American.

Great news! You can go buy a Direct Injection gasoline engine today. My 2010 2LT/RS Camaro had one. Great little motor pushing out about 305HP.

Did you bother to read the article? Besides saying the new technology in development uses basic gas principles that is where the similarities end. The CVCC technology was purely a way to get better emissions and still largely used conventional technology, they only thing they did was add a complicated way to ignite the main fuel/air charge. The technology being talked about in the article combines direct injection with ignition through compression.

No mayor has overstepped his legal boundaries like he has. Running multiple illegal so called sting operations, not only in New York State, but in other States as well. New York city also has some rather questionable intelligence units that partner way to close with FBI and CIA.