I also figure with our inept, corrupt lawmakers, they'll mandate something too specific that will tie future classrooms full of kids into the 2014 equivalent of punch cards.

Why manned? Because the record they are planning to break is for manned wing-borne flight. Atmospheric flights capable of carrying people and food have been limited by the need to carry fuel. Unmanned aircraft can already run indefinitely on solar power, but don't have the lift capacity to carry passengers and all the supplies they need.

I wanted to keep my phone and they were fine with that. They just warned me that they'd had other customers try with that phone, and it had issues with data. I already had an unlocked phone (Verizon has to unlock their phones since they use Block C airspace) and I'd rooted it and put on a stock ROM so it wouldn't whine about being on a different carrier.

The sales guy gave me his SIM and I tried it. Voice worked great, but data was flakey. Kept trying to sync up at 4G, dropping back down, etc, etc. I decided it wasn't worth the trouble and got a new phone.

They also weren't bad in terms of upsell. Guy was pointing me towards the Nexus 4 because it is one of the cheapest new generation phones (at the time). They happily sold me an expensive Note 3 when I said that was what I wanted, but they didn't try and push it (despite me having a Note 2 I was trying to bring over).

They didn't offer to jailbreak the phone for me, in part I'm sure because at the time they couldn't legally, but they certainly didn't mind if I tried, they just warned me of potential issues.

In post-WW2 Germany, especially history class pretty much spends one year telling you that Germany was the bad guy and how horrible your grandparents were, to the point of inciting counter-actions by pupils because really after some months you can't hear it anymore.

Welcome to my library, take a look around. You might notice most of the books are in english. The history section is over there...

I think you've been indoctrinated a little. I've talked with people from many, many countries about politics and history, and few of them have such a bad view of Germany as, yes, the Germans do.

Trollish nonsense nonwithstanding, I've worked with DOS, Windows, Linux, Solaris, HP/UX, OpenBSD and some ancient VMS whose exact name I've forgotten. None of them worked as well and went out of my way as nicely as OS X does.

YMMV, but my experience is my experience, like it or not.

I've seen bus drivers take a corner without considering the other lane, and wipe out a driver and passenger in a truck, waiting in the turn lane. I've seen a bus driver carelessly activate the bus-stairs-convert-to-wheel-chair-lift before it was safe, completely knocking over an elderly wheel-chair bound person onto the concrete, head first . . . and then just sit there, not doing anything, requiring myself and another passenger to jump off and assist the person.

I don't see how automation can do much worse.

Netflix gives me unlimited access to an enormous library of content for $8/mo. Playstastion Now gives me temporary access to individually purchased items. The two are nothing alike, other than the fact that they transmit temporarily owned content over the internet to the customer.

As to the pricing issues -- yes, they are destined to fail. Netflix and Amazon Prime made it cheaper and easier to pay for content than for people to acquire it through other means. Services like RDIO made it almost absurd to bother acquiring music any other way, for the mere $5/mo. A gaming service could accomplish this, but they need to provide a massive catalog of consistent content without a thousand strings attached and for a really low price. Additionally, it needs to be through a unified distribution channel; nobody wants to subscribe to EA, then to Ubisoft, then to Valve, then to Activision/Blizzard, then to Riot, then to Sony, then to Microsoft.

Gaming suffers from the problem television still does and that others (music and movies) used to (but still do, to a smaller extent). They want to profit from constraining their distribution; not operate like the manufacturer of ANY other product. Almost every company in the world wants their product in as many stores as possible for as many avenues to the customer as possible. They don't care if they're sold at the gas station, convenience store, Amazon.com, Target, Albertson's, and Safeway. Unfortunately, when it comes to digital media -- especially games -- some are available only on Origin. Some only on Steam. Some only on GOG. Some only on one platform for awhile, then no longer. This model has to change. Constraint and hassle needs to be eradicated. Distribution channels need to compete not on exclusivity, but on price and service and interface and community.

Until that happens, this ridiculous "pay a dollar or more an hour for a twenty year old game streamed over the internet" idea is dead.

Sorry, I don't buy into all this "we need to get kids using computers and programming in grade school!" crap. Or this "we need everyone to be in STEM!" crap.

Why do we need this, exactly? To keep the pool of employees huge and the pay low? Where is the push for teaching kids automotive skills in grade school? Cooking? Surgery?

Let's just focus on the basics. Teach kids to be inquisitive, critical thinking, human beings with a strong grasp of reading and writing and math and history and geography skills and knowledge. Those with an interest in other things will pursue them and doing so will be much easier with a solid primary foundation in these universal fundamentals.

No, Uranus.

Other animals that IT personnel may impersonate include canaries and guinea pigs.

Their monthly rates are attractively low, but they do their absolute best to _insist_ that you buy a new phone from them instead of migrating your old phone, and their sales people do their level best to discount even the _possibility_ of such an option.

Not the experience I had talking to a T-Mobile guy a few months back. Showed them my old phone, they told me to get it unlocked by my old carrier, and they'd be good to go....

We'll stop that comparison as soon as libertarians stop using soviet Russia as an example of communism. They are at the same level of truthiness.

Back in the 1800s, foods often did contain noxious ingredients, much the same way present day drug dealers cut their products. That's why developed countries started having government departments responsible for trading and food standards.
The reason very you can shop for your plums without worry is because of regulations and departments that check them.

You just demonstrated the opposite of what you hoped.

Even so, this shows what happens when you plan a one-shot operation with a single point of failure.

In this case, two: the drill itself and the seals. Either one means failure. When it's a one-shot operation with no provision for pause or repair, you're SOL. Fixable in this case? Yeah. For a fortune.