I think it's called 'Slashdot Disease'. The symptoms are particular apparent whenever the topic of tablet computers comes up.

No, it isn't.

#1 It is a bad investment. How bad? REALLY BAD. There is one exception. If you get a degree, speak mandarin fluently and decide to revoke your US citizenship and leave, then it can be a good investment. That way you can move to were good employment, healthcare and cost of living is realistic, preferably in a currency that is not being destroyed like the US dollar is.

A very well PLANNED destruction might I add to steal everything you have, unlike China which is importing MASSIVE quantities of gold to back its currency with, at least partially gold and the other of course HEAVY INDUSTRY.

A perfect spot to move to to start a family.

#2 There is no correlation between academic work and work performance. Likewise, historically there is no correlation between work performance and amademic performance. A part of history you won't learn at a american university, beause it is very bad for the whole industrial complex education thing is, all of the major players of 21st century technology rejected college.

Tesla, for example invented many things...all of which power our data centers, and our mobile app technology. At the time they were considered screwy ideas, and politically very bad ideas.

Tesla would have created new forms of energy, and energy transmission, too...but not only did the academics dislike him, so did the Bankers who found out he was developing a new energy source which would tap into the dynamo which is the earth and provide limitless energy for everyone.

When the JP Morgan banker found that out, he tripled Tresla's funding to one TRILLLLLION Dollars!

No, I am being sarcastic. JP Morgan threatened Tesla, and then immediately told him to stop if you want to live to see tomorrow.

The same F'ing bankers who destroyed our economy and since 2007 have been invading every country they can loot to prop up the American dollar.

Oh, they are running out of goat lov'in camel herding countries to invade so now are going after Nuclear powers, like Russia.

How do you think THAT will end?

Yeah, I bet Tesla, and Einstein while he was working on his theories thought to themselves, if only I could get a degree and be a real person.
(Einstein worked as a patent clerk while developing his theories...because academic institutions poo' poo'ed his ideas.)

LOL!!!!

#3 Do you like $50K in debt, and living in your parents basement AND declaring bankruptcy AND not having a job?

I bet you are just that sort of catch women LOVE!!!

Well, then step right up here folks, you can go to an American crapversity and get a degree in engineering, computer science so you can stay at home and setup your families wireless network (Oh, but at least you will have a degree to be qualified to setup that linksys router!!)

OR

you can fix the washer or dryer for mom and dad with the mechanical engineering degree!
(Maybe even fix the neighbors in return for maybe a subway sandwich!!!)

LOL!!

I have to stop myself now, otherwise I am going to laugh myself into a coma anyone is serious about going to any American University.

Case in point, Mark Zuckerberg dropped out of college, and I don't think anybody would say he made a mistake.

True, but for every Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates, there are probably hundreds of others who drop out of college and never make anything of it.

Just because a small few did well out of it, doesn't automatically mean that everyone will.

1) A system of education designed to produce a graduate with a broad yet substantive grasp of human knowledge in art, literature, humanities and basic sciences?

2) A system of education designed to promote a commanding, in-depth knowledge of a specific discipline like engineering, law, medicine or physical science?

3) A vocational system designed to produce employment-ready workers with a sound working knowledge of a specific area of business or government?

4) A finishing system where young people learn the social skills and cultural knowledge necessary to aspire to the elite class of society? While it sounds free from anything like education, these things may require things we do consider education, like learning foreign languages to demonstrate worldliness, and where political history is personally embodied in the elites themselves (aristocracy and nobility), and where proper social manners may be barely distinguishable from what passes for politics and diplomacy.

I think it's mostly grown to be 3 and 4. You go to college to study an occupational field so you can get a job. It's different than 2 because you're not studying as nearly in depth. Accounting isn't mathematics. Before the 1960s you belonged to a fraternal organization to learn to participate in formal society as an adult. After the 1960s its where you go to experiment, find yourself and in practical terms learn to live on your own (pay rent, feed yourself, etc). In more expensive schools there is still a strong emphasis on the social component both from tradition and from aspirational goals of joining some of your fellow students' elite socioeconomic class.

I think for most of the past few hundred years its mainly been 1 & 4, with a strong emphasis on four. When we began indulging girls in education, college was a fine place to find a suitor of suitable class and ambition. But for all, a solid grounding in the liberal arts was socially useful, eliminated provincialism and promoted useful skills in basic mathematics and literacy.

The in-depth education of 2 probably started out ecclesiastically as the means to produce priests and preserve religious knowledge and church canon. Not until the enlightenment and the industrial revolution were most of these subjects studied with any rigor. Until mathematics was applied, engineering was just skilled trades like carpentry, stonemasons and blacksmiths.

Of course, the response whenever somebody complains that yet another feature has been removed from Firefox is, "well, you can just get an add-on that does what you want."

As I said in my previous post, if it did exist both Apple and the carrier would tie any such functionality to an iPhone cellphone number.

For Apple, this would guarantee you would have to own an iPhone to get the functionality and prevent you from using an iPad/iPod as a phone without buying an iPhone.

The advantage to Apple would actually be more of an enticement to buy other iDevices since you would gain phone functionality on them you wouldn't get from other vendor products, plus they wouldn't need to offer a phablet since they could basically claim iPads were phablets for people that bought into the extended phone service.

And union protection.

B O O H O O

I've just not found that to be the case since the M days. And that's with usually 3-4 windows with lots of tabs open. I actually like and use both Chrome and Firefox. I think to say one is oh so much better than the other just doesn't fly from what I've seen and what my users have said. They both work very well.

A minor edit of Obama's 2008 campaign, isn't it?

I don't think that's the point. I believe the point is that a dictatorship or single party rule is more efficient than a democracy or group run system.

Or it could be that the US is more in bed with the interests of businesses and is more likely to agree with them.

In any event, your reading of that isn't necessarily the correct one.

Show us on the doll where the priest touched you.

People who are 'not stamp collectors' generally don't form clubs around their 'not stamp collecting'. Or discussion groups about 'not stamp collecting'. They generally do not try to convince stamp collectors that they should not collect stamps. Etc...

Did you stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night as well?

Looks like it could be something called "Code Name: Barracuda or Johnny Nero"