Uh, yeah, we can measure -1. The charge of an electron. The distance along the x-axis that I travel when I walk one meter west. The effect on a wave when it encounters an identical one 180 degrees out of phase.

Not at all. None of those things "are" -1. They are observable phenomena that we tag with the human invention, the word/concept, "-1". Mathematics is not an aspect of objective observable reality, it is a language that we have found useful for describing our observations.

Imagine you had to pay every time you wanted to watch a YouTube video? Like when you goto a movie, or order cable TV, I'll gladly wait 10sec & click skip...

If it takes 10 seconds of your time, then you're paying with your time.

If you're a professional making $50/hour, then 10 seconds of your time is worth $0.14. If you're a laborer making $10, then 10 seconds of your time is worth $0.03. That's just the time wasted, mind, not counting the fact that watching ads is essentially subjecting yourself to black magic, attempted mind control, and trying to put a value on your neurological integrity..

IMO, if ads stopped across all internet sites, or the online advertising industry completely collapsed. The internet as we know it, would be gone.

And since the Internet as we know it has become, thanks to scum-sucking advertizers, a hive of scum and villainy, little would be lost, and we could go about cleaning out the cruft and building something better. Fuck the online advertising industry with a rusty dildo.

Attendance and evaluation are done directly into the SIS in most cases now. The biggest systems are web only, in fact. Many schools are tracking attendance by the minute to maximize their funding. Data is available to principals via their browser (or pushed in some cases) so they're aware of what's going on in their schools. Tracking of performance can be done across skills now, giving a much better picture of what the student needs help in rather than just "C-."

I'll admit I don't work on the lesson plans much, though I'm certainly aware a lot is going on.

This isn't 1952. Technology can help.

Facebook can be pretty easily blocked at the router level. On the other hand, there's a variety of lesson plans and administrative tools used in education that can benefit from better connectivity.

I get paid for cleaning up after things that don't work right the first time.

The average human is only of average intelligence, and average intelligence isn't all that smart.

If we ever get to the point where there are self-aware machines, it is infinitely more likely they will be borg-like with a collective consciousness than not, which means no one machine needs to "know" or be able to "remember" everything, just to know where in the network to access the knowledge repository.

And saying "only natural" about artificial constructs completely invalidates your conclusion, as does thinking humans optimize. People, in general, follow the path of least resistance. See my first sentence above for why.

It's more complex than that: Cassini has 3 RTGs, plus a dozen or so pellets in the Huygens probe to keep its instruments from completely freezing during the 7 year trip to Saturn. The ultimate "doomsday" scenario would have to have the entire spacecraft vaporizing less than a mile over a major metropolitan area, scattering plutonium dust as it goes. However, I would be much more concerned if it exploded over a fresh-water lake or reservoir, tainting the water supply. Given that 70% of the Earth's surface is covered by water, an ocean landing would have been much more likely had it crashed. The biggest risk was the launch: 1 in 40 rocket launches blow-up on the pad or before maximum velocity is reached.

you need to learn how to read BADLY.

Wouldn't it be better to learn to read well, than to learn how to read badly?

And it would be good also to learn to write well. Your prior post is utterly incomprehensible.

Part of my understanding is that a 501(c)3 is a public, mutual benefit corporation where all assets are actually owned by the public, should push come to shove.

I'm sorry, but you're confused -- that's not correct at all. The assets of a 501(c)3 have to be transferred to another exempt organization if the organization shuts down, but they are in no way owned by the public. We had that baked into our articles of incorporation but I'm not sure if that's a requirement.

501(c)3s can include religious corporations and public-benefit nonprofit corporations. A public corporation is something completely different, a corporation set up by a government; for example, some state universities are set up this way. A mutual-benefit corporation, which includes some co-ops, insurance companies, and other groups set up to benefit their members, cannot be a 501(c)3.

but the IRS's definition of a charity requires that you be serving a distinct, disadvantaged group of people.

No. 501(c)3 organizations can include churches in rich neighborhoods, symphony orchestras, museums, and plenty of other groups which do not serve "disadvantaged" groups.

PHP is the language for web programming, just as C/C++ is the language for system programming.

People have been hating on C since at least the 1980s. It's still here. People have been hating on PHP since 2000 or so. It's still here.

If water is that good at dissolving plastic we're all in a lot of trouble. As for a new, plastic-eating bacteria? That's nothing to be concerned about at all!

Seriously, fish eating it terrible. But it is probably the least bad alternative, unless we're going to include "space aliens carefully harvesting it, while leaving sea life alone" on the list of theories.

Hippie doesn't usually extend to "caring at all."

The feds threat was six months, not 10+ years.

Bullshit. Threatening "50 years if you make us go to trial, but if you confess we'll recommend six months but the court can still give you 50 years" is still threatening 50 years. The threat of heavy sentences to get people to waive the right to a trail is an egregious violation of due process and the the guarantee against cruel and unusual punishments.

I suggest that you e-mail the 784,000 web pages that say Aaron Swartz snuck into the closet, and inform them they're using the English language wrong:

They're not using the English language wrong, they're reporting the facts wrong. Just as the mainstream media did for decades in the War on (Some) Drugs, just as they did in the run-up to the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, the media is lying and/or negligently passing on the government's story.

Store credit has always been legal. Stores allowing customers to use credit from other stores it has a reciprocal agreement with for honoring store credit has always been legal. As long as a place of business is willing to accept US dollars, it can accept whatever other form of credit, discount, or voucher that it wants. And given that the federal constitution declares that the US dollar is the currency of the nation, the state law was, at best, redundant.

Individual states weighing in on bitcoin doesn't make it any more or any less valid or relevant in the market. When the IRS, SEC, and US Treasury finally make definitive policy statements specifically mentioning bitcoin, then you'll have your validity, or invalidity, as the case may be.