I've been a programmer/aka software engineer/aka web developer/aka IT Director for 39 years and the hardest thing that programmers have to deal with are changing expectations which manifest themselves in scope creep and scope creeps (i.e. users who don't really know what they want or need but they need it like yesterday). I think Agile techniques have helped to channel this quite a bit but that requires the right corporate culture to be successful. The truth is that computational tools are still "magic boxes" to users and it's a rare project manager/agile team that can bridge the gap between the effort required in implementation and the user's perception of what they really need.

If you're going to regenerate Doctor Who to the female variety, how about keeping some nice female companions around? Now that WOULD be interesting, and politically correct to the vilest degree.

Just a meme from a game? I think not. Aside from the vendor lock-in that you are imposing on your own body, you will be exponentially widening the gap between the have's and the havenot's. That always becomes pot that boils over and leads to blood shed. Purity First :-)

I applaud the annoucement and access to so many scopes, but it's not a first. SLOOH is a service (i.e. you have to pay for it) that has access to some robotic scopes to do very short observing runs and capture some crude astrophotography. I'm sure that GLORIA will probably be much better but the question is, how are targets going to be prioritized. That's the problem with professionals getting time on scopes. Just imagine what a nightmare that will be for all us Amateurs.

This kind of imperialistic attitude is just one of MANY reasons why I'm not on facebook. Hey Zuck, you suck!!!!

It's called Aliens vs Predators.

You can give developers slow, old computers with a single monitor, but they won't be nearly as productive. I actively develop in about 10 languages (computer, not human). Have you ever tried to keep straight all the different ways that an if statement can be coded? I look all that stuff up and/or test things on my secondary and tertiary monitors (the third monitor is hooked up to a second computer) and do my coding, compiling, scripting, administrating, email checking, etc on my primary monitor. I could do all that on a single monitor but then that's a lot of task window switching and when cutting and pasting example code, looking up the parameters of a function, etc. that will kill my productivity by 25% minimum. So a couple hundred bucks for a second monitor is paid for in a couple of days. Really, that's a no brainer. BTW, I'm writing this email on the third monitor/second computer, +50 Geek.

That was easy!

DON'T!!

Well I watch MSNBC for MY news. And I know Barak Obama was born in the good old US of Mars and that the war in Iraq was not fought over Islam or Weapons of Mass Deception but over states rights! So there, take that Fox.

The President's appearance in media would be more appropriate in "Jackass 4: The Movie" rather than "Myth Busters (The Myth Busted For the Third Time).

James Lovelock is himself producing quite a few greenhouse gases, so if we suspend him (i.e. put him in suspended animation, involuntarily of course since democracy is a "bad thing") then that seems like a pretty good start. At least he'd be made to own up to the implications of his own wrong headed opinions and green house gases would drop, albeit a very small amount.

There seem to be quite a few comments here that say basically "What's wrong with being positively ID'd?) That's not actually the real problem. The problem is reducing a person to a number. Regardless of what is "promised", as soon a a person can be identified with a number, everything about that person will be accumulated under that number, including how many calories you eat in a day, how many miles you drive and what kind of vehicle is used, what you write, how many times you breath, whether or not you have an STD, and how many times you bought cold medicine that just happens to contains psuedophedrine, etc. Is this really the business of Big Brother? And when you want to speak against the excesses of Big Brother, do you even begin to understand how difficult that will be without some modicum of anonymity?!?! You are dangerously naive if you think this is a good idea. I am a human, I am NOT a number, derived or randomly assigned. As I have said previously, this is quickly becoming an Imperial State where our inalienable rights are being alienated at a frightening pace.

The United States of America as it was constituted in 1787, and as properly amended thereafter, will no longer exist once the Health Care Bill and its companion "fix-it" bill is signed into law. We now live under an Imperial Government, with an Imperial Retribution System (IRS) that will take whatever the Imperial Congress and Emperor Obama deem desirable. That's change I can revolt against!

I'm waiting for the magic Pi Day of All Pi Day's in this millenium... that's right March 14, 2015 (3.1415)!