Not all privatization is bad. The government is having issues performing its duties, and a private company comes and says it can launch better satellites for less than it would take for the government to put them up there. They would like the government to, instead of spending hundreds of millions launching their own, spend tens of millions buying their product.

To me, this seems very analogous to SpaceX, which most of us here on Slashdot are fans of. NASA was having problems--both financially and in planning--a next-generation vehicle to transport goods into orbit. Now a whole host of companies are competing for NASA contracts to do just that, and for cheaper than NASA was capable of doing in-house. The lower-cost private alternatives allow NASA to allocate funds elsewhere.

Not all privatization is bad. It's working fairly well for certain parts of our space program. Launching satellites is something private companies have been doing for decades, now, so it doesn't seem unreasonable to assume that they could take the reigns here, too. In fact, much of our current scientific data is collected by private companies on contract from big science consortiums. For example, if I want a geomagnetic survey done of an area, I pay a company to fly an instrumented airplane around and collect the data for me.

Couldn't a high powered laser be used as a defensive device? If someone tries to rob you, you could blind them, perhaps irreparably. Though a bit macabre, in many cases that might be a better option than simply killing them with a gun (let it be known, though, that if someone broke into my house and I had a laser and a gun... I'd grab the gun).

So have a little comment section for the medical records. Those comments are for that office only. Those comments do not get transferred to another doctor. Only the official diagnoses and medical records get transferred to other offices. If a doctor wants to write down details for himself and suspects that you have mental instability, that's fine. That's for their eyes only. But if they want to communicate that to other doctors, they should use proper terminology, they should explain why they think that the patient has mental issues, and all of that should be in the medical records in a proper form.

If we're making the argument that doctors want privacy because they write stuff that they don't want the patient to know which may be offensive to the patient, then I will make the argument that professionals should not be in the business of gossiping about their patients to other professionals. A doctor should have confidence in their own diagnosis, thus there should not be any embarrassment on the part of the doctor about what they diagnose. If they need to communicate that diagnosis to another office, it should be done professionally. "Patient probably fucked up from drugs" is not a professional diagnosis that should be transferred to another professional.

This is simply not at all the reality I see. The kids that are happy enough with Temple Run are the same kids that'd be happy enough to play Ball in the yard with friends.

I still see a huge number of kids playing with their Nintendo DS and Nintendo 3DS's in stores and restaurants. They're usually not play Nintendogs, either.

IRAN can certainly make coffee makers.... but it can barely make a company that can be profitable by designing and manufacturing coffee makers.

IRAN is capable of a great deal. It is home to some of the best civil engineers in the world (though fortunately for us, most of them immigrate to the US, given the opportunity). It is no less capable than any other second-tier developed country. Consider that its Human Development Index is similar to that Eastern Europe or Turkey. It's certainly not an OECD advaned economy, but it's not The Congo, either.

Iran's government is overly oppressive, but authoritarianism doesn't preclude economy success (see: China). Iran's economy is mainly held back by an incompetent and inefficient government that cares more about how women dress and face than it does its economic prosperity. The biggest mistake anyone could do, though, is to underestimate them. Never underestimate your adversaries. That's Sun Tzu 101. Some highly-advanced machinery is out of their reach, and certainly they have no environment for world-class companies to form, but the technology and sophistication that their best scientists and engineers can achieve in a well-funded laboratory is a different story.

I honestly can't imagine, right now, how the next Xbox is going to be that substantially different from the PS4. And frankly, the Xbox 360 and PS3 aren't all that different, either. They've become different over time, but from the get-go they were both similarly-powered, championed online-play, and were basically both competing for exclusive contracts with the Big Studios for the Big Games. Nintendo decided to stay out of this rivalry of the giants and go in a different direction. It worked for them.

This coming generation, Nintendo was forced to release the Wii U early because the Wii died an early death. Also, early release worked for Microsoft, so who knows, it might work for Nintendo, too. The PS4 looks to be focused on 1) power, 2) social interaction, and 3) downloading games. Frankly, this is the same direction that Microsoft has been going for the past several years, and I would be shocked if the next Xbox didn't focus on the exact same thing. Of course both systems will be different, and of course the implementation of social interaction and downloadable games will be different--and there's a lot of room for innovation in those implementations--but at the end of the day, the PS4 vs. Xbox 720 battle is going to be much like the PS3 vs. Xbox 360 battle. Microsoft and Sony are going to throw all the money they can at it, they're going to battle with everything they have, and we're going to keep going down the path we're on now--bigger blockbusters, bigger studios, and the death of smaller studios and innovative games that can't compete. The gaming industry seems to be following a similar path as Hollywood in recent years, in this regard.

Nintendo has chosen, once again, to side-step this battle and go for something different. Being different is always a gamble, but when it pays, it pays big. Nintendo has been stating for a couple years that they're worried about the developer. They stated that with the Wii vs. the other consoles, with the DS vs. PSP, and now with the Wii U vs. the other next-gen consoles. They're worried about how many development studios have gone bankrupt (big and small), they're worried about how even the big studios are just one failed blockbuster away from catastrophe, and they're worried about casual games on mobile devices dumbing down the gaming experience and forcing companies that used to make fun, enthralling, and deep games to make simple $2 games--disposable games where you buy them, play them, uninstall them, and move on.

It is for this reason that Nintendo has focused on indie developers for the Wii U. Virtually every indie developer that's working with Nintendo to develop and release their games on the Wii U is ecstatic about the experience. They have total control over their game, the cost of their game, sales, and everything. Nintendo is even actively seeking out indie devs who have made cool PC games and inviting them to develop on the Wii U.

As systems become more powerful and the big companies and blockbuster games in the gaming industry converge, we will begin to see explosive growth in cheap, downloadable indie games. Prior to this generation, we've seen a massive shift in small studios and innovate games to the portable consoles. This is because the portable consoles are cheaper to develop for. In this coming generation, I strongly believe that we're going to see the the industry go through enormous change. Most studios will die off except for those big development studios that make big blockbusters and can afford massive development costs, massive publishing costs, and massive advertising costs. Think like how we only have a few major studios in Hollywood publishing most of the movies. On the flip side, we're going to see a huge rise in independent game developers. Though their only choices until now have been Nintendo DS (cheap), Xbox Live (cheaper), or PC (free), they will have even more choices this next-gen as downloading indie games in the Nintendo eShop or XBox Live Marketplace will become the norm. Sony concerns me in this area, though, as their press conference completely ignored indie gaming. They focused on big budget titles and explosions and downloading those titles. Microsoft, with their PC roots, knows about developers, and I don't think we're going to see the same from them come E3. I think you're going to see Microsoft come out and embrace the indie development community at E3 and encourage it. Microsoft is still exercising more control over their marketplace, though, whereas Nintendo is going all-in. I suppose if you think about it, we're going to have three systems next-generation: 1) Wii U which completely encourages indie development and uses it as a big selling point, 2) PS4 which is the system of blockbuster hits and power, and 3) the Xbox 720 which lies somewhere in between.

Anyways, I guess I don't know where I'm going with this rant, but this is how I see the next-generation playing out, to answer your question.

You're not looking at the right demographics. People play games on consoles because they want a deep experience. Mobile platforms do not have deep games. Period. And they never will so long as touch is the only input to be used.

ALL consoles suck their first year or year and a half. If you're lucky, a console will launch with a fantastic game or two, and then games for the system will stagnate for a year or year and a half. ALL consoles follow this trend. The Nintendo DS did this. The Nintendo Wii did this. The Xbox 360 did this. The Playstation 3's games problem lasted for years. Going back as far as I remember, to the NES, we had this problem. The latest system to do this was the Nintendo 3DS. Now the 3DS is taking off like a rocket, and we all see that reports of the system's death were greatly exaggerated.

The Nintendo Wii U did not have a stellar launch lineup. This is not exceptional. Most systems have crappy launch lineups, and all systems suffer from a year or a year and a half of game drought. I do no claim to predict the future success of the Wii U, but I can tell you that tales of a console's death prior to its 2nd year birthday are almost always uncalled for.

Since the United States started the TSA and warrantless searches and wiretapping, there hasn't been a major terrorist attack on US soil.

Look, the reality is that mass murders are a different breed of people. Gun control isn't going to stop them. Nothing is going to stop them. It's like serial killers; they're determined sociopaths who will spend the time to prepare and carry out their deviant wishes.

The only thing we can hope to do with increased gun control in the US is decrease petty gun crimes: domestic violence-related murders, armed robberies, armed assaults. Virtually all of these crimes are committed by people who own handguns, and more often than not they own them illegally.

How often do you see on the news, "so and so has been arrested and charged with murder, illegal possession of a firearm"? I see them all the time. These kind of people are already possessing them illegally. Believe it or not, there are laws to prevent criminals from purchasing firearms. But there are tons of guns for sale on the black market that have been stolen from owners or shops.

Perhaps the best way to stem gun violence in America is to enact strict laws on how you store your guns--prevent guns from being stolen in the first place, and have a large gun buy-back program to get them off the streets.

I'm going to speculate that better welfare in Europe helps, too. Most criminals don't exist because they were born evil (though a lot of them do have psychological problems). Most criminals exist because crime offers them a way out of their otherwise crappy life. If someone in a ghetto doesn't have any money, but drugs offer them the possibility of fortune with a little risk, many will choose the risk and fortune over safety and poverty.

People will choose the path of least resistance. If committing crimes is an easier way to live comfortably, they'll do it. If working at a convenience store is an easier way to live comfortably, they'll do that, instead. Unfortunately, crime presents a better way of life than working at minimum wage in America. I will hypothesize that the best way to eliminate crime would be to set the minimum wage such that 40 hours/week of minimum wage would bring you to at or above the poverty line.

You see a similar system at work with software and entertainment piracy. There is a balance between the cost and availability of software/entertainment for legal purchase vs. the time, effort, and quality of pirated material. If the games cost too much, are too difficult to acquire, and piracy is easy, people will pirate. Systems like Steam which have numerous sales and allow the freedom to play on any machine have been wildly successful against piracy.

In other words... other countries have happier, healthier, more comfortable citizens with less stress and less desperation--thus less state-of-mind to kill each other?

No, SURELY you must be wrong. ALL of our gun problems are because of violence in video games, movies, and the availability of scary-looking assault rifle (because assault rifles kill more people every year than 9mm pistols, you know!). Progressive cities like NYC, Chicago, and Washingon DC have extremely strict gun laws; they are bastions of peace and prosperity!

I can accept the idea that Manning's actions were crass, irresponsible, stupid, and cowardly. Instead of seeing some injustice and leaking information of that injustice to the outside world, he chose to just grab everything he could and dump it. In retrospect, the information that he leaked was probably not dangerous to anyone, and it did, indeed, expose deep tentacles of corruption in the US government. However, there is no way that he read everything that he leaked, and he did, as you say, just send massive amounts of classified information -- most of which he had no idea of the content (because there was too much to read) -- to a foreign third party with a sometimes unclear agenda.

HOWEVER, none of this warrants torture, and as an American I hope that Manning's lawyers win their trial. It is an unprecedented chilling effect and incomprehensibly unjust that, in the United States of America, a foolish whistleblower would be tortured to set an example for future whistleblowers. Torture of any kind, mental or physical, is clearly unconstitutional and is unquestionably both anti-American (as in, it betrays the values that we base our country's existence on) and evil.

If you want a very fine-tip pen, you need to start looking into Japanese imports. In the US, you spend about $5 on a several pens. In Japan, you spend that much on one. As such, Japan has a thriving pen/pencil market--very high quality pens and pencils, the latest technology, great materials, and fairly cheap prices. I've seen pens in Japan with writing sizes as small as 0.18mm. As some people have mentioned above, JetPens is a great site to purchase them for cheap.

A's prediction was pseudo-science. A's prediction was based on observations of radon gas emissions. He was an amateur seismologist, i.e., his science credentials are of the same integrity as that of ghost hunters or doctors who practice homeopathy. His crock "prediction" was bad for tourism, and though I believe that he should have the freedom to say whatever he believes, his statement was pseudo-science bollocks.

And for the record, the scientists who were charged for manslaughter were charged for a very specific statement. There had been many tremors leading up to the mainshock. The Civil Protection department stated, "minor shocks did not raise the risk of a major one. ...The scientific community tells me there is no danger because there is an ongoing discharge of energy."

The first sentence is not technically correct: "...minor shocks did not raise the risk of a major one." The simple answer is seismologists don't know when, if, or where a mainshock will occur. We can only guess. And the notion of anomalies in the background seismicity--anomalously low or high--has been tried for over a century. It doesn't work. Hindsight is 20/20, and some large events are preceeded by either more or less minor earthquakes, but we simply do not know of a reliable way to predict major earthquakes based on minor earthquakes. Some major earthquakes happen with no precursors. Some happen after minor earthquake swarms. Some happen after a period of low seismicity--i.e., the fault is "stuck" and building pressure. In other words, we cannot rule out that the increase in minor earthquakes is a precursor to a larger event, but we also cannot say with any certainty that it does foreshadow a major event. We can say very little based on earthquake swarms, and we certainly don't have time to study them in the six months that they occurred before the mainshock.

The second sentence is not correct: "The scientific community tells me there is no danger because there is an ongoing discharge of energy." Of course, the occurrence of an earthquake means that stress fault was released as energy. However, we cannot conclusively say anything about whether or not that expenditure of energy increases or decreases danger. Those minor quakes could load some section of a fault, they could indicate that a fault that was previously "stuck" is now moving, they could indicate that a dormant fault has been reactivated... they could indicate any number of things. If we are talking purely in terms of energy, though--which is what I assume that the Italian Civil Protection department was saying when he was talking about a discharge of energy--his statement is pretty silly. The moment magnitude scale is logarithmic. Every one step in magnitude is approximately 32 times the energy. Two steps is exactly 1000 times the energy. The earthquake that struck Italy was a magnitude 6.3. It would take 1000 magnitude 4.3 earthquakes to expend the energy of the magnitude 6.3. Of course, one could make the argument that the fault was right on the point of slip and just a little bit of stress release could relax it enough to not slip, but there is simply no evidence that I am aware of, anywhere, that minor earthquakes and reduce the load on a fault enough to prevent a major earthquake. In fact, Japanese scientists in the past looked into manufacturing small earthquakes by drilling holes into faults and lubricating them in the hope to release the built-up stress as many minor quakes instead of one larger one. They abandoned that idea.

Considering the linked article about the woman whose Kindle was remotely wiped and her ability to purchase new books forever disabled, I think the classification of Kindle e-books as "services" and not "goods" is accurate.