Actually, yes, 10 years ago the tablet computer did exist. It wasn't a capacitive touch screen available to everyone+dog, but I know I coveted the touch devices that were hitting the computing market more than 10 years ago. There was one in particular that was very promising and ran linux but never got past prototype stages.

Even smartphones were around back in the day. The term smartphone is 14 years old and I remember co-workers with handsprings that could make and receive phone calls over 10 years ago.

I'm not arguing that technology is screaming forward at an unprecedented pace, but it's not nearly as fast as everyone wants us to think. Apple, Samsung and Nokia didn't just spring out of the woodwork 5 years ago with fantastic new phones. They built on the work done by others, many of whom couldn't innovate fast enough to even exist today.

Flying cars on the other hand just seem to have stagnated for the past 40+ years.

Really? Didn't seem like it when I was getting back off my honeymoon. I wasn't searched, but the the cop at the airport really wanted "snoopy" to investigate me further.

I will say that I am sure that I stood out from the crowd. Hair bleached from 2 years of Mexico sun, face and arms equally tanned. I was also dressed head to toe in traditional white cotton Jarocho clothing. I probably was extra haggard from a severe second degree sunburn all across my back and shoulders.

If the handler was trained to avoid a false positive, why was he so sure that the dog needed to have a go at me? He was dragging the dog by the leash to have a go at my suitcase and carry on. The pooch was clearly disinterested and I am 100% certain I wasn't carrying anything that would have triggered a reaction.

I like to look at it as coins. Take a 10 cent coin and a 5 cent coin with distinct heads or tails. There are the following possible combinations:

10 | 5
H | H
H | T
T | H
T | T

They are very distinct in the sense that if we toss the coins, we have a 25% chance of any combination appearing. If we're told that in a given toss, there was one that was heads and are now asked what is the probability of the other being heads, it is one in 3 since we've eliminated the third option.

The point is, the boy/girl combinations really are distinct and unique outcomes that do factor into the overall probability.

And as much as you have thinking about it, Richard Stallmans way of life starts making sense. The thing I do like about stallman, is that unlike many ofther extremists, he doesnt push his ideals where they aren't wanted. If asked to speak on the topic he will, and at lenght, but he doesnt go around lobbying govertment to make sure all software development is open source and free, he just wants to make sure there is enough of it that you can create a "free" computer system if you want to.
The hardest stuff to do as open source is the hardware, becasue this does cost a lot of money to develop and reproduce, but guess what, Linux juns just fine on my Mac too, and even when using OS X, based on Unix, most of the software I do use is opensource. I dont need iWork, or MS Office, Open Office does the job, Handbrake takes care of video file transcoding and ripping my own DVDs, VLC plays nearly everything, GCC and other compilers still work in Linux and OS X. Infact lots of opensource stuff works better in OS X than windows because of a smaller number of different systems that might be running it, not like with Windows, which might be XP, Vista, Win7, Server2003, 2007, etc. Most of the intel systems would have gone 10.5 altleast, and most PPC systems will be there as the last stop before 10.6. (also PPC based Macs make good linux systems too)

The fact that the GP only said that the name and the icon are closed invalidates your entire comment. Open Source means that you can get the source code, that is it. Free Software means that the software provides the user with certain freedoms, like the freedom to modify and redistribute. You don't have the right to redistribute your changed version as Firefox, therefore it can be argued that it is not Free Software. Nowhere did the GP claim that Firefox's code was not Open Source.

I'm a psychotherapeutic expert but not a brain expert and much of this knowledge is being updated with fMRI scanning.

As I said, we tend to use both sides of the brain all the time.

There's also a question of defining "logic". Spatial logic would be processed more in the right hemisphere I suspect

Sunlight. At least it isn't a limited resource with regard to the human specie's lifetime. That's right, I'm favoring the extinction of humans prior to the the earth being engulfed by the sun as it turns into a red giant in 4 billion years.

Likewise. I screen developer comments from a documentation website and file bugs against the appropriate teams if the feedback warrants it. Between that and actual problems in the software, I've filed 299 bugs this year internally (more than one per work day), of which 132 involved passing on such feedback. (This also means I've found one real bug about every 1.6 work days.) I've also filed dozens of bugs against open source projects as a result of those comments. And, of course, I've filed lots of other bugs, too. In total, probably significantly greater than one per calendar day.

Yeah, 200 bugs in a year is really not a high number. That's less than one per work day. The sad thing is that the most popular answers are none and less than one per month. If you're really finding bugs that infrequently, you aren't paying enough attention, and if you are finding them and aren't filing them, you're part of the problem.... :-) I'd expect that level of indifference from normal users, but not from geeks.

I have to call BS on your statement that more effective communications occur with young people via text in all cases. I would posit that is an extremely rare edge case.

Writing is an art and a skill that has to be developed for clarity --- and too often even with the best quality and intentions, misunderstanding and confusion reigns supreme. It is something everyone struggles with, even after we have included various conventions in near real time communications (emoticons, and other indicators of emotional context) fatal disconnects between the sender and receiver occur.

Sometimes a face to face meeting is required to gauge the unspoken context. While I agree less meetings are not a bad thing, more care must be taken to choose meetings - particularly in an environment where there are less overall opportunity for face to face. Even then, leaders in such an environment must make more efforts to get face time on an informal basis.

Btw - did you react negatively to the phrase, "call BS on your statement"? There was no animosity in that statement from me - just the first turn of phrase that popped into my head. I left it in there on purpose. Without the process of editing, it is easy to cause confusion in excess of the perceived value gained from instantaneous communication.

That's a pretty incorrect understanding of RMS's economic model. He never advocated a pure donation economy and has clarified multiple times that there is nothing wrong with making a profitable business around open source software. If you want to try relying on the viability of his model, go work for Red Hat for a few years.

Give me access to broadband, and then I'll worry about censorship, packet-sniffing/filtering and denial of service for abusive torrenting.
Granted, there are very worrying trends worldwide about monitoring and controlling people's internet access, and the UK Gov. has a poor record on respect for human rights.
But if I cannot even get onto the damn internet, then the point is moot.