How did it fall apart? I think his point was it's up to the parents to keep the Oreos out of reach, much like how the government should do something to prevent this behavior by Verizon.

And we don't just expect these organizations to behave like toddlers with no impulse control, we watch it happen regularly, and we certainly do need to rethink how we handle their criminal behavior. As for them not being run by sociopaths, isn't it already established that sociopaths are ideal candidates for upper management positions like CEO? If they had morals like good people, we wouldn't need to regulate the crap out of them, they'd feel bad screwing us all over.

Combine it with this and dreams start to come true, scan yourself in first for added realism and then move on to scan in women you want to have virtual sex with! Obviously they'd need some method of simulating the nude version of a woman, as it's unlikely you'll find many willing to undress for a 3D scanning, but the future of cyber sex could be amazing. Amazingly invasive, too, but wouldn't it be worth it?

Imagine, in just a few short years, I could be banging your wife!

Seriously. I can think of more than a handful of Larpers who would kill to have one of these set up before or after an event so we can have figures made of ourselves in costume. Maybe offer a 1-inch figure for DnD!

But the Chinese might be spying on you!

Hah, gave myself a good chuckle with that one.

Right, so, electricity. It doesn't stop being electricity when it comes from solar panels or diesel generators, so I'm not sure what you're on about. Clearly, they were getting carried away suggesting you'll be able to connect to the internet without any electricity.

Agreed. With the recent headline about people using "Find my iPhone" to track down criminals, this headline made me immediately think somebody had their phone stolen so they loaded up their gun and went criminal hunting. Headline should read, "Police act reasonably, suspect not so much."

The article you link to has nothing to do with the Solar Roadways project, it's just another link to the same story about glow in the dark roads that was already posted in the summary. Thanks for trying, though.

I'm not defending Solar Roadways, mind you, as much as I'd love to see this being used and working perfectly as intended across the world, I don't really think it's going to happen any time soon.

Totally right. What makes anyone think someone who is well trained in the use of a firearm and required to practice with it regularly so they're prepared to use it as they are likely to need to in the line of duty might be more responsible than a guy who passed a background check keeps his gun in his closet for months or years at a time? And with all those incidents of criminals using firearms acquired from police on a daily basis, it's a wonder we haven't taken their guns away already!

Seriously, though, this is a stupid argument. Obviously the police won't and shouldn't be required to use them until the technology is reliable enough that it won't fail more than the officers do. For everyone else, I'd wager the failure rate is much higher than that, when you consider the problems a smart gun may solve. Just to throw out some wacky numbers because I don't know the real ones, if there are 100 incidents where a non-police firearm saves a life a year, and one accidental death a smart gun could have prevented, then the failure rate for the smart gun should be lower then one percent to justify it's use. Obviously it's more complicated than that, but you get the idea.

Now, if you want to make all of the training the police go through (for as long as you have a gun, not some one-time class) a requirement of owning a gun, then you can compare police having firearms to everyone else having firearms. And before some guy jumps out to say "I train more than them," it isn't that I don't believe some people can be trusted as much as police (maybe more) with firearms, it's that these laws apply to everyone.

The usual problem people have with corporate personhood is more of a campaign finance issue than anything, and it's obvious that's the problem here, but there were arguments against it before anyone made a big deal of that. I think some of the arguments were based more around the idea of corporations being equal to people and less with the legal ramifications, but there have always been legitimate concerns. Corporate personhood is used to shift blame around, and as we've seen recently in GM's case, it can help people avoid jail time for murder. It's helped con men get away with ruining lives, charging for goods and services then closing up shop and disappearing. The only reason we need it now is that the laws aren't written to apply to corporations, they're written to apply to people. Without corporate personhood, contract law can't be enforced when it involves one or more corporations, because the laws just aren't worded that way. Basically, corporate personhood let us avoid rewriting other laws specifically so they can be applied correctly to corporations, it was the easy way to do things but that doesn't make it the right way.

Problems with corporate personhood long predate the "Occupy" movement, and if you've done any of the research you suggest he does you know that. I'm not saying I have a better idea in mind, rewriting laws to apply to corporations wouldn't be easy, even deciding which ones to change would be a challenge. But you're a fool to think there are no real problems with corporate personhood, especially replying to a post that perfectly describes the result of the most commonly cited problem with corporate personhood; their influence in government.

And before you spout some BS about how people can collectively donate as much as corporations, no, most of us can't. Here's a quick explanation of the situation: The people who decide how much money they will pay us have already decided how much they're going to need for lobbying efforts, and when we spend money fighting against them, they spend more fighting against us, and then pay cuts cover it. Like I said, this is more of a campaign finance issue than a corporate personhood issue, but every individual problem with corporate personhood appears to be a problem with the laws being applied. This is because we've opted for corporate personhood instead of rewriting the laws. The trouble is all we really do is swap the word "person" with "corporation" and that isn't enough, not by a long shot.

I spent four years studying and working full time, passed rigorous tests and would surely pass a background check. Why doesn't my government guarantee nobody who hasn't can work the same job as me?

I understand why there are regulations cab drivers must follow, but there is no argument beyond the safety issues, and those can be resolved without appeasing the drivers' desire to keep regulations as strict as they are. The fact that regulations exist does not mean they need to persist in their current form. As it is, you are taking a chance getting into any normal cab, bad things can and do happen. Do I think Uber should be required to vet drivers to some extent? Sure do! Does anybody think that's all these guys are after?

I want to believe they just want people to be safer, but I can't. Cab drivers get up in arms about everything that might dent their industry; where I live they complain about the buses, when I go to Vegas the complain about the monorail (for literally whole car rides), in NYC they flip out at every red light for costing them time, and now in London they are threatening to gridlock the city and deliberately cause chaos. If safety or serving citizens were any concern of theirs at all, this wouldn't even be considered.

See my above replies. I graduated almost ten years ago with a degree in computer engineering, I spent over two of those years unemployed and have spent more time working in retail and a hotel and I did in IT. I've never been fired, only laid off, and I am always willing to work overtime. Convince me I just don't want to work hard, go on, try it.

Oh, and my degree? Computer Engineering. Outside of those few years in IT (where I transferred from the warehouse) I have never had a job where I use the skills I learned, and that's certainly not because I'd rather ring up shirts or move tables.

I've been laid off twice, once from a STEM job, the first time I went to several dozen interviews and took the first job I was offered, it was in retail, my standards were not high and my degree gained me nothing. The second time, after changing jobs and gaining several years experience running a small IT department, it took two years and I lost count of the interviews, finally I ended up in a hotel setting up function rooms. After almost a year of 50+ hour weeks and job hunting in between shifts, I'm out of that but still not applying anything from my major. I spend most of my days off looking for something better, and one day I'll find it. Some people I've kept in touch with since graduating have fared better, so I know it isn't so bad for everyone, but a few have had it worse. Specific reasons aren't often given when turned down, but several times I was told I was "overqualified" for the simple tasks they could offer, something I've been told means they don't want to hire someone they think will leave for something better. If you've been handed this BS excuse, you know there's no talking them out of it, they have options and you do not. This tells me we don't have any sort of shortage of skilled workers, or they wouldn't be so picky.

Oh, and it might also be worth pointing out that the article you cite only suggests there are enough jobs for 6% of jobless working age Americans. Are you going to try and convince me less than 6% of the jobless are looking for work? Stop being foolish. People aren't up in arms about wages and unemployment because they just don't feel like working.

Nobody is forcing them to pack up their family and move here. What you're describing is the same for anyone who needs to relocate for a job, though I admit it's more difficult when relocating to another country. All of the potential consequences need to be factored in if they're going to move, the same as for anyone else who relocates for a job or any other reason. If they're living a good life, one of the two is well employed, and they don't want to pack up and leave, they're not being forced to. As it is, unemployment and underemployment are still serious issues in the US for everyone, and that's killing marriages for citizens as well! While I can see people making the argument it isn't fair to tell the H1B workers' spouses they can't work, the H1B worker has already been granted a special privilege to be able to work here and it's also unfair to grant that same privilege to the spouse just for being married to them.

There are a lot of problems with our immigration system, and I would never suggest we stop allowing people to come to this country and work toward improving their lives, but the fact is there already isn't enough work to go around and it isn't fair to those of us already here to keep willingly increasing the rate at which we add workers to the pool, not until jobs are added at the same rate. It sounds like you'd have to be a dick to say, "You can't work in the country you live in," but that only looks at half the story. It's still pretty damn generous to say, "If you want, you can take your family and move to this country so you can be employed here, but your spouse won't be able to work while they're here." If that doesn't sound like a sweet deal, simple solution, don't take it. It's up to them to decide what's best for them, it's not up to us to sweeten the deal until it is what's best for them.

My understanding was that part of it is to study the effects of life in space on people. You can't really do that remotely. I'd say it's rather important, too, but I'm also one of those crazies that thinks the earth is getting crowded and expanding would be a fantastic idea.