I know several people who stay away from the polls "as a protest", not realizing that they're not affecting anything at all; it's not seen as protest, but as apathy.

Never ascribe to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest. She's not disconnected from reality, she's trying to disconnect you and me from reality.

She doesn't seem to be very good at it.

"You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time," and that's all a politician needs.

I don't vote party, except that I avoid both D and R whenever there's a candidate who doesn't want to put half the people I know in prison for smoking pot.

If anyone but Bruce Rauner had run against Quinn I would have voted for the Republican, becuase Quinn just wasn't a good governor. I think Rauner will be even worse, maybe even as bad as Ryan(R) or Blago(D), both were crooks. I don't know if Rauner is a crook but his policies are terrible. There were only two named on the ballot, so it was indeed a choice between two evils.

Look, Republicans are against the Social Security I paid into all my life and am now enjoying, against unions, without which I would have no pension, against the single payer health care system which has countries with it in place enjoying half the costs we face with far less infant mortality and longer life spans (Obamacare is really Romneycare in disguise); against the Medicare I again paid into and will get in a couple of years; against food stamps (that's simply un-Christian, yet they claim to be Christians?); against taxes (again, an un-Christian stance). Tell me, what Democrat views that the Republicans don't share are detrimental to me, a middle class retired guy?

But both parties are against pot legalization, for our insanely long copyrights, and quite a few more where there really isn't a valid choice.

Well, when a child says bye-bye, it sounds like a contraction (b'bye), but bye-bye is not a contraction. It's more like Cory Doctorow spells sidewalk: side-walk. Wnat contraction uses a hyphen instead of an apostrophe? Not bye-bye, it isn't a contraction of anything.

As to "SyFy", that's a trademark, not a word. It only applies to that bad cable channel. Hi-fi and sci-fi aren't contractions of high fidelity and science fiction, but new words made out of old ones.

I guess that could argue the validity of e-mail and e-books, though.

Yes, if I were in college I'd certainly only lug one book around -- my notebook computer. I'd keep all the schoolbooks on the computer.

As to elderly eyesight, when I was a kid, all the geezers wore glasses, but few young people. Now all the youngsters have glasses and few geezers do. Why? The young are ruining their eyesight with computers, tablets, and phones much like I ruined mine with books.

But when I was a kid, cataract surgery was still rare. The patent on the CrystaLens should expire around 2023, so most oldsters won't need any glasses, since it not only cures cataracts but nearsightedness, farsightedness, and astigmatism. It won't be long before I have to get the other eye done.

We now have a "right to work" billionaire as governor of Illinois. He's calling for "right to work" zones, fortunately the legislature isn't going to let him.

If I weren't retired and lived in a "right to work" state, I would demand that the state's government supply me with employment. After all, if it's my RIGHT to work...

"Right to work" is a flat out bald faced lie, and any working person who supports it is a moron.

The difference is that a middle class or poor person who votes Republican is voting against their own interests.

Actually, TV would use far less power than YouTube. With streaming, you're transmitting as well as receiving, and transmitting is what eats your battery (besides the screen, which each would use equally). It takes very little power to receive, a lot to transmit.

I doubt anyone would buy one just to watch TV, it would just make the tablet more useful.

Programming that would be very simple. Your link shows they've already done it. Guess I'll be buying a tablet and their expensive software.

The only difference between a smartphone and a tablet is phones can connect to cell carriers. If it will work on your Android tablet it should work on your Android phone, as long as the carrier doesn't block it. And they surely wouldn't, because if you're watching TV on it you're not streaming NetFlix on it.

I just checked wikipedia, it did have a cartridge that would play TV. And effort? The hardware is all there -- TV is digital now. A good programmer or perhaps engineer could do it in a few hours. I see no reason why nobody's done it; maybe it was the Sega flop.