I couldn't agree more, and I have kids (that I love, in a good family environment).

I always said that I was happy without kids, and I was. In my mid-30's, I decided that I was ready to try something else in life. And it's been great - I love having my kids around. No, I'm not ready to say "I can't imagine my life without kids" because I can - I do remember those days of freedom of responsibility with fondness. But I wouldn't give up my kids for that again - it's just a different perspective in life.

Life, like anything, is what you make of it. You can be happy with kids and you can be happy without kids. People tend to judge others based on their own experiences, for better or worse.

As both an underwater photographer and a reef keeping hobbyist, I'd have to refute your claim. When you dive, your brain fills in the missing reds, yellows, etc - you don't notice the lack of color underwater near as much as you think you would. You definitely notice bleaching however - the coral is stark white at first, and then then becomes brown or green with algae.

It's certainly true that underwater strobes provide fill light to corals in exactly the same way that a studio photographer will use strobes to light his model. However, if the colors aren't there to begin with, they're not going to be magically created by the strobes.

In the end, the grandparent poster was correct- either the picture was from years ago or the photo may have been taken from a different part of the world.

I have to agree. I have a daughter who is 2 years old next month, and we allow about one hour of TV per day - about 30 mins in the morning and about 30 mins at night - enough for one or two of her favorite educational cartoons. She asks for them by name (clearly and persistently...), and I feel that as long as she's learning from them, then I'm ok with them.

And learn she has. Everything from identifying airplanes, airports, dump trucks, numbers, colors to concepts like "on/off", "go/stop", etc. We're lucky to have my mother-in-law watch her every other day and she works with her constantly, so she gets plenty of direct people interaction.

She's also allowed about 30 minutes of iPad time per day, which she loves - she plays games that identifies animals, concepts, and such. She can pick out and say aardvark, beaver, lemur, or any of 50 other non-basic animals from a large list of pictures in a matter of seconds. Critical life skills, no, but this is about learning the world around her.

Having said all this - it's not about TV in particular. It's about what type of media they are exposed to, in what quantity, and the type. Moderation in everything, and this is no exception. Before I get raked over the coals, I'll state that she spends as much time daily with me outside in the grass, at the playground, at the pool, with her wooden blocks, etc, etc as she does watching TV. Again, it's not about the medium - it's about moderating exposure and parental involvement.

No. Jobs and his company were based on one thing- making products so that they can make money. Apple hasn't been run as some ideology in order inflict control - they've done so because they know they can appeal to a larger audience - namely, the common, non-techie person. My parents (and grandparents, for that matter), who can use an iPad, don't care that they can't put their own OS on their hardware. They don't care that they can't run their own apps. Nor do they even know what DRM is. They only care that when they pick up the product, it's very intuitive and things just work.

Apple is not a government. It's a company whose success depends on how many devices they can sell. If you want to be able to do the things you've mentioned, then there are alternatives. It's not "control" when people voluntarily pay money for something.

I won't deny that Apple is very draconian from a developer's perspective. I'm an app developer, and I abhor the restrictions. But I choose to write in that environment because I reach a far larger audience with my product.

Apple delivers a product - a choice if you will. If you want to blame anyone, blame the people who buy the products to support the ideology.

Last I checked, the moon wasn't a planet...

> Worthless for anything that requires typing because typing on an on-screen keyboard is a nightmare.

And tablets were never designed for things that require a lot of typing. My computer is worthless for anything that requires a touchscreen.

> Terrible web browsing experience.

Because much of the web is designed for another interface. Most sites work quite well, and my computer can get heavy while in my lap on the couch...

> Rubbish for gaming because of the lack of physical controls.

The 50 million users of Angry Birds might argue otherwise.

> Useless for watching videos because who wants to hold their display while watching a film.

And who wants to hold their phone when not in use? There's these fancy doohickey's for attaching your phone to your hip. Likewise, there's these fancy stands for tablets. And I don't know what kind of traveling you do, but carrying and mounting my 50" plasma everywhere I go can be quite cumbersome.

> Can't be used for any RealWork such as programming, graphic design, stock trading or anything else.

As an app developer of productivity software, I have thousands of users who would beg to differ. Just because you can't do *your* job on the tablet doesn't mean it's worthless for the rest of the world.

> I can't really think what else they could be used for.

You haven't actually used a tablet have you?

$471 Billion total, $790 Billion adjusted for inflation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_NASA

And if this was actually true, that'd be 1 exabyte (1 million terabytes) for shared knowledge. Still considerable, given where the world was just 20 years ago.

You must be a manager... ;)

While I agree that the manager and developer may have equal importance, they don't always have equal value. In some cases, the manager makes the group work as a cohesive team. In other cases, the manager is there to make sure the developers have what they need - feed the machine and keep the shit (political tape, etc) out of the way.

Everyone is only as valuable as the cost of their own replacement. Let's say that I'm a developer who works on medical imaging protocols (which I am). There are only a handful of people in the US that do this. Sure - I can be replaced, and sure, others can learn this skillset - I just happen to have 7+ years of direct experience. Any manager could serve as the liaison between the business and me, but it would take 6 months to a year for another developer to get up to speed, and causing my employer substantial loss in the meanwhile. Loss of my manager would be a speedbump.

Obviously, my situation isn't unique - there are plenty of other developers with industry or niche skills; finding a new developer isn't nearly as easy as finding a new manager. And for this reason, despite their importance in the overall picture of the company, developers should be paid according to the value they bring, not based on some hierarchical org chart. If you're not, find another place to work.

> I refuse to let social networks replace real life communication with my friends

Maybe it's because you're an "old fart," or maybe it's because you're resistant to change, but either way, you're missing the point of social networks. They ARE real-life communications with friends. Social networks are simply the next iteration of social change. I'm sure some long. drawn out extrapolation could be created, showing how technology changes communications. People said that the telegraph would destroy written communications. Or remember how ridiculous cell phones were just 20 years ago? The way that a culture communicates changes, and Facebook is simply a large manifestation of change.

You're a member of slashdot. Why? Surely if you wanted people to communicate with you, you could give them your personal email address? Slashdot is a social network, just like Facebook, but with a certain focus group and a certain topic.

You also seem to think that by being part of a social network, you're walking around naked, for all the world to see, and all your thoughts, good or bad, are splayed out for the world to mock mercilessly. But aside from a few security concerns that tend to make headlines, all the content that's available online is what you put online. Nothing more. Just as I would be mindful of what I said in certain situations, I'm mindful to what I say in any social network.

I was resistant to the Facebook movement, and I'm still not nearly as active as many people I know (I logon about once every 2-3 days), but I see and understand the value. It's real communication with real people; people who aren't involved are seen as old fogies or luddites, scared of this whole "internets thing." In the end, it's what you make it, but understand that it's happening with or without you...

The donor was contacted after the surgery for comments, but was speechless. In a less documented veterinary story, the cat got his tounge...

However, the larynx recipient had a number of things she was dying to say for the past 11 years.

Geez- I guess I'll have to spell it out...

I certainly wasn't suggesting that we start another war - yes - "space race" would have been a much more appropriate term. The space race was fueled by the cold war. In the case of countries improving efficiency, there needs to be some reason to precipitate change. The space race came about largely through national pride (and underpinnings of spying and the ability to launch weapons from space). However, we saw some of the fastest and most significant changes during the space race- arguably more than any other time through history. If that same push for change / innovation could be redirected to a race for efficiency and environmental awareness, then, yes, I still think it's a good thing.

No, an economic struggle doesn't equate to an environmentally sound economy. I'm not sure how that was construed from what I meant, other than I possibly just didn't type out the concept in detail. However, there must be a reason for a company to push for environmental stewardship, and given the capitalistic nature of companies, it'll have to be economically biased. That may be through taxes. It may be through consumers. It may be for the company's own long term stability. I don't know. The point is that, for most companies to change to a more environmentally sound process, it has to positively affect their bottom line.

And that brings me back to my original point. Consumers are not necessarily "green"; however, you do see changes, even if only token efforts - buying more fuel efficient cars, organic food, products like the iPhone sold with environmental impact statements - all at a higher cost than their non-green counterpart. Is it enough? No. Will what we have now make a difference? No. But it's a step in the right direction, compared to consumerism 20, 30, 50+ years ago.

I can only hope that this trend continues. The pinnacle of this would be a consumer-driven "race" for companies to adapt their processes so that there was a overall, global, positive environmental impact.

While not exactly staged liked the US vs USSR during the cold war, an economic battle between the worlds top producing (and consuming) countries would be the best thing we could ever hope for. IE- countries battling to be the most energy conscious or "greenest" or most efficient.

An economic battle like this, of course, would require consumers to push it, of course, although it wouldn't necessarily be based on cost, but on "feel-good-ism", and that's a hard sell...

And let your data center run into another ship....

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703428604575419212377490340.html?mod=googlenews_wsj