I'm amazed of how you lot managed to completely split my OP totally apart, and take it totally out of context and bring in just about any irrelevance you could possibly bring to the table. After reading all of your replies, I tried hard to decipher what could have triggered what I wrote into the obvious troll thread it became and what angered you lot so much that you ended up with the answers you wrote. Maybe I had a moment of "pure idiotic", or I inadvertently stirred up so many emotions in you that you just simply couldn't stay on topic. Let's summarize:

- One contributor attacks me for using the word Censored (which is me misspelling the word Censure) and thus derails the topic.
- It gets better, another contributor thinks that 13% of our population are idiots.
- And then another contributor somewhat thinks it's important to point out that he thinks I must be a far-right Nazi sympathizer or something.
- AAAAND numerous contributors can't for the life of them connect communism to socialism which leads to Censorship, so therefor I'm obviously so illiterate that I didn't make that connection either.
- And if I disagree with all of the above, then I'm one of those tin-foil hatters (obviously) that believe that the would should end yesterday and no matter what they say, I'll still be stuck in yesteryear.

Ok, let's get this topic back ON TOPIC shall we? I'll try one last time before I simply wave my white flag, climb down my prepper bunker and hide until the world according to Urkel returns to the day when my father was a little girl:

We - the people have a tendency to let our feelings get in the way of science. Sure, ethics is what set us apart from the animals...even I will buy that one, but what I was trying to say here was that we need to let science be science and keep ourselves to the facts instead of letting our feelings run away with the better of us.

The Ebola virus MUST be isolated BEFORE it reaches too many countries and gets totally out of hand. The only way to do this is to treat the virus where the virus is, instead of bringing the infected people home and thus risk the entire population. I can't understand why that could be so hard to understand, explain it instead of dumping a gazillion personal attacks.

In communistic regimes - censorship is pretty common and it's very hard to get any unbiased communication across anywhere. But it isn't just communist countries that tries hard to put a damper on communication, socialist countries isn't far away either, Sweden is an excellent example of this (and this is something that a LOT of Swedish people think too, just ask them or read some of the few unbiased uncensored forums & newspapers there are).

When science gets ignored, say...basic cleanliness and routine becomes extinct. Let me take Denmark as an example. In Denmark it's considered very rude not to help out when you're invited to Dinner, everyone wants to chip in. That's the nice part, what wasn't so nice though was that it's very common that the visitors often go directly to chopping up vegetables and handling meat without even bothering to clean their hands. This issue became so big in Denmark that it made headlines in the news, people where simply so social that it was considered fanatic to be too clean and it made you look unsocial if you where to remind others of their basic hygiene.

Now, if you can't see the connection here, maybe I simply suck at explaining it to you, but I can pretty much promise you - these things are really related.

Oh but there are, they just get censored and publicly ridiculed in the mainstream media for being too extreme, tin foil hat news etc. Some of the news reporters from these sites has been charged with racism, hate-crimes and much more and are thus frowned upon and everyone who support them, visit these sites etc. are seen as extremist supporters, vigilantes and society's troublemakers.

An extreme example would be Sweden's recently 3rd largest political party (SD, Sweden Democrats) who got 13% country wide votes, yet frozen out by ALL the other political parties because they felt they're not worthy of any position. The news report on these just like vigilantes, and claim that the only reason this party got to be so big is because the public voted for "none-of-the-above" by voting for that particular party.

One of the biggest threats our civilization faces - is our hellbent political correctness at any cost.

If you don't understand what I mean by that, I'll try to explain: Here in Scandinavia, socialism is on the rise, everyone has the right to everything and the news increasingly censors any opinion that would be against socialism or popular accepted opinions. We have to look human to the entire world at any cost, so if one of us would contract Ebola outside Scandinavia - the politically correct thing to do would be to bring home our own citizens to treat them in our own country instead of isolating it and treating them where it happened.

I see the same thing happening in other socialist dominated countries. Ebola is DEADLY and it's on the rise way faster than we originally anticipated, doctors that have sufficient protection has been infected.

Why did we do experiments on mice, rats and monkeys? Why do we do experiments on volunteering humans? We do this for the good of everyone, political correctness will do you very little good if your future prospects is death, and possibly an outbreak where you live. Where do you run then?

Politics / hear-say and Science doesn't mix. We've got to listen to our scientist and facts rather than depend on touchy-feely feelings and PC.

...we know who you are, or rather I - Adam West, mayor of Quahog will spend MILLIONS of taxpayers money to find who those good programming bastards really are? Who are you, and where do you come from? I bet you're from the Matrix, spreading your ones and zeros all over the place. Hey, YOU! Yes YOU! Come here you, I'll catch you ZeroOne OneZero ZeroOne ZeroZero.

Oh, they're crafty I tell you, those little programming bastards!

I never knew of this universe before I read it here, I decided to try it out on my Linux box, and it worked straight away.

Unfortunately I ended up building areas for hours and hours, before I knew it...I think I ended up rebuilding Hyrule's many castles, doh! Thanks a lot, yet another addiction I really didn't need in my life.

Phun aside, I'm thinking Little Big Planet here, except in LBP we could even create our own games (simulate Pac-Man, Tetris..space invaders etc...) and people came up with the coolest stuff - and before you knew it...there was MILLIONS of levels in LBP. I think that's whats missing in this game, but hey...maybe there already is something similar there...and I just didn't find it?

from the old internet demise.

What a CROCK!

I moved to Sweden about 4 years ago, and this is the BIGGEST fad I've ever heard. I too heard that Sweden was some kind of broadband heaven BEFORE I moved here, but that's only applicable for the BIG CITIES, not anywhere else.

Here where I live, I pay 60$ for 30/12 mbps (where I only get 13/1 mbps actual speeds), and this is the SOUTH of Sweden, about 1 hour from Swedens 3rd largest city. Heck...even Astoria OREGON in the U.S (where I was visiting at my vacation) had 30/30 Mbps and working...at a simple motel somewhere where there was 10.000 citizens 3 hours away from Portland Oregon US.

In Sweden you also got to pay for the subscriber lines, meaning...even if you don't have a need for a phone line, TELIA makes you (FORCES YOU) to pay for a line service you don't even need. Lets say that you only need internet because you already have a cell phone...doesn't matter...if you want an internet connection in your house...even if your house ALREADY COMES WITH A PHONE LINE...you STILL have to pay for a phone line services in order to get the internet.

PLEASE - before writing these kinds of stories in /. - please PLEASE get your facts straight.

Well, now he has an Hello Kitty decal on one of his car windows...

I know how you feel, 4chan has destroyed much more than open source, it has destroyed my entire peaceful suburban neighborhood, now my neighbor has decorated his little car with a HUGE Pedo Bear decal all over the car, and no one so far - have reacted to this.

Funny, I'd say the exact same thing about non-military but well educated IT professionals.

But my experience with military personnel is that they'll not quit until the job is done successfully. Normal IT workers are often drama-queens and little princesses, they KNOW they have the knowledge to do it, and they know damn well that they're hired because of this, and there's not a chance that anyone else on the job can get it done, so they can pretty much say anything and get away with it. And they do. I've heard the worst excuses in the world for not doing a job, just because they can't be bothered.

Military people however? If they don't understand it, they talk to people who do. And if that doesn't do it, they read up on the subject and actually get it done without bothering their higher ranking supervisors or bosses, that's why I love them so much. They just gets things done, military style! (And if you think I'm a military man, sadly - no. But I'm not young anymore, and I never cease to be impressed with the fact that EVERY TIME I'm HAPPY with a job well done somewhere, it's always some former marine, navy or other military personnel that's behind it).

...than most people who haven't served in the military.

In the military there are no excuses for failure, yes - everyone can get it wrong, but if you're a military man...you don't complain, you get it DONE!
That attitude alone solves a LOT of problems. I've been working in the IT Sector for a LONG time and no matter what field you're in, I could spot a former military man MILES away, because they have a positive go-getter attitude, and I've yet to ever hear an long boring attitude related discussion about an issue with such a man, they listen - and work until the problems are solved.

I'd hire people like that in a heartbeat!

It's a good question, and to an extent I do care less and less what others think of me, I guess that comes with age. But I still care how others feel, this is how we learn and evolve. If we where perfectly content with who we are and what we know, we wouldn't learn anymore. Now that would be truly tragic.

In life, you never stop having to prove yourself. Sure - you can have money and riches, as an example I can tell you that I have a fully paid house, property and all the gadgets I could ever want, this "oddly enough" buys me a lot of credit with the locals, but also a lot of envy as very few around here actually owns their own property...rather the banks and their mortgages. Still - I always feel that I need to evolve, to become more than I am.

You have many valid points there.

However, I'd still like to challenge the belief that the technology of today is creating noise rather than giving people the focus and energy they need to concentrate on good education. You have to see these devices as a PART of their education.

Their smartphones, iPads, Android-tables etc. are like carrying around huge stacks of books with all the information they could possibly fit in their heads, the more information you have at hand - the more material you have for making better design decisions rather than book-smarts from the past and gone times.

I can however agree that constantly using smartphones during classes when they're supposed to focus on what the teacher say etc. can create noise and take away their focus from the current lessons. We're already onto that at our schools and we plan to forbid the use of Cellphones during lessons. However, iPads will be available to them during self study.

My impression (and you have to understand that I come from a life as a service tech, designer AND a teacher) of these kids (especially women), are that they are quick to learn, quick to pick up anything technical, even theory. As an example I can mention their Science classes. They had to explain how a computer mice works in technical detail, how a radio works, how their electrical appliances worked in detail (it's a part of their curriculum) - and I took it upon me to explain to them in detail how these things worked, I drew outlines & theoretical schematics on how the various components worked and what they do together, and surprise surprise, they picked it up like NO ONE I remember from my time as a student, it's amazing (at least to me).

I could mention numerous examples like this, but I guess we have to agree to disagree, and basically lean back and watch the show. However, I really thought you had a LOT of valid points to you theory, your theory isn't uncommon at all.

Programmers are often the worst designers in the world. They understand logic and how to code, but often lack the design skills to make the code actually useful to the masses.

The super users of a product often understand the products way better, and even use their products in ways the original designers couldn't even dream of. I've seen kids design their own apps just because they're THAT much into their smartphones.

...I used to believe the opposite, until I became a teacher and noticed that Women are actually quite good with technology if the environment is right.

When was the last time you sat in a classroom full of kids/students? Take a look around yourself, most if not all females are heavily into their smartphones, they quickly share apps and use their cellphones as it would be a natural part of their body. I've been working with computers since I was 12 years old when I even programmed my first videogame in the 80s, still - the women I've seen handling their phones, are nothing short of amazing when they solve problems with their phones, dealing with technical difficulties etc, it's almost like a science fiction movie that you just wouldn't believe would come true. Yessir, they did. Wake up and take a look around.

Also, beware - these kids grow up now, and will take their place into science and technology workplaces, you're going to witness a revolution.