I was one of the poor saps who preordered Homefront....

At least I got Metro 2033 for free with it! Hell of a game if you haven't played it.

I would contend that it depends on the subject. I'd seriously consider teaching math or science but given that my friend is making $42,000 with a masters in Industrial Engineering to teach stats and CS, why bother? I can make twice that or more in industry when I finish my doctorate. I'd bet if you were offering $70,000 to math and science teachers, you'd get plenty of talented folks.

I was a part of the group that did the second engine study to defend continuing the funding for the F136. Since it was cancelled, I'd expect GE to continue funding it internally and when the F135 can't do the job, they show up with an engine that costs significantly more than it would otherwise and they've got Uncle Sam by the balls.

I would actually argue that it's not an R&D problem but rather a requirements problem as well as a military acquisition problem. The former is largely due to the VTOL requirements that the Marine Corps want is largely incompatible with the Navy and Air Force requirements. The problem is that the Marines needed a replacement aircraft and Congress wouldn't approve two aircraft programs so they tagged along. The latter is a far bigger problem in that Congress dictates what systems the military get, which is why we're making tanks that we don't need and sending them directly to the Boneyard.

I personally think the military should be able to establish their own priorities and initiate weapons programs as needed subject to review from Congress. Congress could then insist that the military defend their position but they would not be able to force systems on the military that are unwanted or unneeded.

The house I currently live in apparently existed in the early 1900s. It has slowly been improved but it has tons of problems. So many that it would be far more beneficial to tear it down and start over from scratch. But my landlord has no interest in doing that or even having people come in and make minor improvements. Why bother putting that kind of money into a house you're not living in? And there are many houses in the area in the same boat, if not the country. What I would do is come up with a metric that looks at annual energy used vs size of the house and charge a hefty tax on properties that are higher than some particular value (might be a function of residence so some places aren't as penalized). And over time, reduce that value to include more houses.

I'm honestly not sure how one should fix it as electric cars become much greater in number. I'd hate to have a hybrid system where gas cars are fuel tax and electrics are per mile tax. But the solution I like is to have everyone pay a per mile tax to cover the roads and then gas cars pay the fuel tax as well with the revenues going to energy research.

Is the plan to keep the fuel tax and introduce the per mile on top of it, I assume? What a pack of jackasses. They could just increase the fuel tax and problem solved...

Yep. Unlike aircraft, there just isn't a significant desire by the auto manufacturers to really get serious about drag reduction. It's really a shame too since things like wheel skirts are really simple.

I think part of the problem is that they intentionally put them on the most unconventional looking cars just to help ensure they don't sell because people are hesitant to significant change. I'd rather they step up and tell people how much fuel that would save with them on and what that would cost annually. And have it as a package you can put on at the dealership.

Abrams didn't write either of them. Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman wrote the first one and Damon Lindelof joined them for the second one. But I do concede that if you have Abrams, you get some combination of the rest of them.

Are we supposed to feel bad for those towns? Hampton was a 500 person town that pulled in $200k in traffic revenues in 2012. It was done by annexing part of a state highway and lowering the speeds abruptly to cite people. That's utterly absurd.

Either move them to other types of crimes or let them go. I don't see why law enforcement should be immune to downsizing. If it's essential to keep these guys on the force, it shouldn't be hard to make the case to the taxpayers.

Well that sounds like a problem with people not properly securing their guns. Put severe negligence laws on the books (which many states don't have - http://smartgunlaws.org/child-...) and enforce the penalties when they happen and I imagine that the numbers will significantly drop.

Are there cheap, shitty safes that kids can get in? Yes. So let's certify them to some standard and go from there.

What qualifications are they looking for? I'm finishing an engineering doctorate in the coming months and am still looking for a job. Not that I think I'm qualified but I'm sure intrigued.

I read that report when it came out. Those safes look like cheapest of the cheap. That doesn't make their failures excusable but they certainly shouldn't be advertised as safes.

Trigger locks work fine. As does a higher quality safe. Will they stop the most determined of individuals? No but it's enough to stop young children.

We shouldn't need "smart" guns for things like children finding their parent's guns. We just need severe negligence laws for not properly securing your guns.

Most of those "do this and you'll be fine!" folks are generally out of touch. If you spend all day around smart engineers, it's pretty easy to think that most of them will be able to make a career shift fairly easily. But when you interact with people that aren't so sharp fairly regularly, it's overwhelmingly easy to conclude that those folks are shit out of luck. I think in the next 20 years, many of the repetitive simple jobs will be reduced such that we're going to have a hard time finding things for these newly unemployed people to do.