Exactly. We're not enemies with Mexico, but it's not a perfectly safe and stable relationship given the amount of violence on both sides of the border. If the US wants to check for drug cartel influence at the highest levels of the Mexican gov't, I don't care. NSA can spy outside our borders all it wants - go for it.

Creating a Mac-only scripting environment in the 1980's, then complaining because users are so stupid that the market chose Javascript instead is nothing more than Mr. Whiner [sic], well, whining that cross-platform, open, networked standards won over his proprietary precious inventions. Wah, wah.

Yeah, I know Frontier is GPL now, but that wasn't always the case. Open sourcing failed proprietary products doesn't guarantee their success unless being proprietary is their only flaw. And maybe not even then.

I don't see anybody mentioning it yet, so I'll just say my first exposure to programming was a CARDIAC:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CARDboard_Illustrative_Aid_to_Computation

My science teacher in 8th grade (1977) asked me to look at it. I spent an hour doing a tutorial multiplying two integers using iterative adds. I then told the teacher she didn't want to use these in class.

Later I programmed a Sinclair programmable calculater, BASIC on UGA's Cyber, and finally in 1982, my own Atari 400 (Basic, forth, Action!, assembly).

Krugman is loud-mouth idiot. Having said that, I think he's correct that the tech revolution still has a lot of gains to make. I think he's dead wrong that it will kill poor people unless the government steps in.

In the 1980's, I was told I was stupid to major in computer science because CASE tools were going to replace programmers. In the 1990's Indian programmers were going to replace American programmers. And manufacturing jobs were supposed to disappear by in the 1970's (replaced by robots). Liberal control freaks will use any excuse to claim that there will be armageddon unless the government takes control. Yeah, some jobs have been eliminated by automation, but overall that has grown the economy and the job market. So I don't see any reason why it's been essentially wrong for 30+ years, but suddenly it's right now because Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman (tm) said it.

H+ Digital Series

It's all about biologically implanted software/hardware and malware. I've watched a handful of episodes and it looks like it was made to be an advertisement for Free software (Know what's running in your own head!).

Or maybe that's too much on the pragmatic side and I should ask Eric S. Raymond.

'We need to do something new,' he said. 'We need to try something different.'

Since education spending has tripled or quadrupled (depending on who you ask) over the past 30 years, and and educational outcomes have been virtually unchanged, yeah, dumping more money into a crumbling educational bureaucracy is really new and different. That'll probably work.

Until we do something about this, more money is not going to help any more than it already has:
graph

With oil running out, why would you want a car like the tesla that requires more of it than a regular gasoline car?

When I have a micro nuclear power plant in my neighborhood, then I'll be interested in a Tesla.

Sounds like shit.

No, he's not.

The quality of education has declined every year since Carter created the Dept. of Education. It started declining before that, but the Dept. obviously has done very little good, and likely, more harm.

Even if that is true (and I don't think it is), almost all slums and getthos are public housing, and federal intrusion virtually always ruins the neighborhood.

Actually, I've never read a research appear, whatever that is. Corporations don't spend my money or force me at gunpoint to donate to them. I don't care how private individuals spend their money, it's none of my business. Your analogy has no validity.

Well, there it is. I bow to your impeccable logic and persuasive prose. How could I possibly disagree with such eloquence and rational discourse.

OMG! No more ethanol boondoggles! No more Solyndra investments! Whatever shall we do!??

Now who will create more slums and ghettos?!?!

Ron Paul called for abolsihing all state, county and city governments! Lynch him right now!!

So, are you actually a Ron Paul supporter, or did you think listing mostly craptacular failures of fedzilla and responsibilities of local governments would actually scare people into throwing away the constitution?

No, it really happened. They CCW'er was convicted. It happened a few years ago, and I can't remember the guy's name, so I can't find the link. Just because you don't like the outcome doesn't mean it didn't happen.

Eh, no, he was just a cop doing his job trying to arrest a prostitute. IIRC, there were other under-cover cops around, also. The prostitute was just trying to get out of getting arrested. The point is, if you don't know for damn sure who the bad guy is and you intervene, you're very likely to get it wrong. She was in no danger of being raped despite the Internet Armchair Quarterback protestations otherwise.

I read an article about a delusional criminal and kept waiting for a hero to show up. I never saw one.

Now, I've been called lots of names because I carry a gun every day, but I'm not a vigilante. Intervening in that situation was just plain stupid. No, criminal. And it could have been much worse. There's the story of the guy who heard a woman screaming rape, so he came and shot her assailant. Turned out she was a prostitute and the guy he shot was an undercover cop.

I will defend myself and my family. Intervening when you have no idea who is the good guy and who is the bad guy is a good way to end up in jail or dead. For no good reason:
http://www.stoppingpower.net/commentary/comm_dangers_in_intervention.asp
http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2010/09/robert-farago/dont-shoot-three-reasons-why-you-shouldnt-sav-a-stranger/

.30-06, 7.62x54r, .243 Win, .223/5.56 are all good reliable data wipes. Pistol calibers, maybe, but it's more fun with a rifle at 50-100 yards. Clean-up is easy, too.