Get off the soapbox. We have no moral superiority, and we don't even rank that high in freedom of the press. We're below the UK FFS.

http://en.rsf.org/press-freedo...

Calling anonymous cowards names doesn't help, sadly. They're already willing to put their words under the name "coward", since they already know what they are. You think that you can hurt them more than knowing they constantly live in fear?

That is, in fact, a lie. Granted, it's at the low end of the resolution of gaming mice, but since you can move the ball more than a mouse ball without having to move your hand, you actually end up getting more precision. The sample rate and the DPI are both fine for gaming.

Do you know how not to be a condescending dickass? Wait, no. You don't. I must be new here. Cowards like you never know that.

If you're not moving your arm, then you're moving your wrist. If you are moving your arm, you're moving your arm and your wrist. I don't have to move my wrist to use my trackball. If you don't know you're moving your wrist when you're moving your mouse, then you're not at all in touch with your body. It's the smallest repeated movements that do the most damage. Kind of like when you masturbate.

The "computer graphics" from the original HHGTTG TV series were hand animated cells. It was the only way for them to animate the guide within budget at the time. From memory they used a blue screen to project the animations onto the guide's screen in post production.

Remembering back 25 years or so when I worked as an architectural draftsman, the yellow paper printed to a purple-blue-ish line on white paper - it was quite pale. There were also gloss versions that left a black line but I can't remember if they were also 'yellow' before being exposed. We also used a stock that came out sepia brown.

Generally a print was made from a 'positive' drawing on tracing paper, the image would appear where ink obstructed the UV light from reaching the transfer sheet/copy. Anywhere with no light got exposed and would come out white-ish. Prints would fade with exposure to daylight.

The paper would be stored in black plastic sleeves in light-fast draws before use to ensure it didn't go bad. We used to go through a ton of the stuff. In the practice where I worked, we usually had one person running the print machine full time. The yellow paper version exposed to UV light was way better than the older ammonia machines, which used to leave me feeling light-headed after about 20 minutes of use.

CAD wasn't really common at that point, so we hand drafted everything, if you had to make a significant change to the drawing, it often meant starting again, minor changes were made be scratching the ink off the sheet with a razor blade and making your amendments to the 'original' sheet.

Places with state-paid or state-assisted university programs tend to have a sieve mechanism (like entrance exams) that sort people into programs of different cost (and life outcomes). E.g. a test determines if you enter vocational school or a university program.

In the US, there is still a test-score aspect of things, but if you pay for it, generally, we let you do whatever you like. That's good, in its own way. Some people are tremendously motivated folks who are bad at taking tests. They ought to be free to choose a difficult path and rise to the occasion.

The problem in the US is the state involvement in financial aid. The policy of "college for everyone" may not make Americans smarter so much as it makes college dumber.

If the state has any interest at all in funding college educations (and this is debatable), presumably, that funding should go to people with insufficient means, better than average motivation and/or talent, and only in subjects for which there is a compelling state interest (I'm looking at you, STEM).

Furthermore, such financing needs to be contingent on them NOT taking a job on wallstreet when they are done. The public already funds those bozos enough; there's no reason to use federal scholarship money as a 4 year long interview for some wallstreet firm. Wallstreet can start doing its own talent recruiting. If those guys are as good as they tell their clients, it should be no problem for them to predict the "winners" and only offer private scholarships accordingly..

What also doesn't make sense is that the government allows anyone with a pulse to borrow 30k/year to go to school for 6 years and maybe get a communications degree.

This is simply not in the public interest, nor is it in the interest of the students, nor is it in the interest of the higher-ed system.

I absolutely agree that there is an education bubble. I think certain people should attend university in certain situations. I went to a small state school with an academic scholarship. I make the same amount of money as people who went to much more expensive places -- without scholarships.

I think University was valuable in my case -- but it was much cheaper back then, and my field has much higher salaries than average.

Because they thought they were being clever, but they weren't? They should really be informed that people saw what they did there. It's for their own good. That way they'll understand the sort of responses they're getting. Or did you think nobody should ever be told what they're doing wrong so that they can be confused for the rest of their lives?

If a department is not serving its stated function, and cannot propose a rational plan for doing so, then it should be eliminated because it's a waste of our money, and therefore our time and effort.

If we don't embrace space travel, and we do embrace life extension, that does seem like a real concern. We're not maintaining our environment well with the population we've got now.

In China, they'll murder you just for tax evasion. Falsifying part numbers and getting caught making China look bad almost certainly qualifies even if the part wasn't involved in an international incident. If you're going to go off to break rocks or get broken up for your internal organs anyway, who cares?

For most people you just insert cable A into socket B and push play. They don't give a fuck. If their disc gets scratched up they will throw it away and buy another one or watch something else. If you just buy the overpriced shit in the store then it all works, especially if you buy all the same brand.

There are at least three numbers which are critical to the calculation of whether college is worth it or not. One is what percentage of successful people are college-educated, one is what percentage of college-educated people are successful, and the last one is what percentage of college-educated people actually applied their education to their life. I have none of these numbers, and you'd have to rely on survey responses for a study asking these questions, so it would probably be a jerkoff waste of time. But the question is much more complex than you suggest.

What exactly are the alternatives to food and water?

Hmm. No. The report isn't talking about iPads and BMWs. It's talking about basic necessities. Food, water, shelter. Once a significant portion of a population can no longer get these basic necessities, social order will begin to break down. That, in turn, increases prices which leads to more unrest. Eventually the whole thing collapses.

No it isn't. For a civilization to thrive you need resources. You need the capability and energy to acquire and refine those resources. And you need to do it in a way that can be sustained, or at least have enough resources that you won't run out in a short period of time.

Take away easy and cheap energy and civilization as we know it would collapse. Take away easy access to water and arable land and civilization as we know it would collapse. Both of these are quite likely to happen to some degree over the next century or so.

Civilization is always 3 meals away from collapse.

Jared Diamond was an optimist.

There is no way to avoid the upcoming collapse. There are too many people and organizations working (few knowingly, most ignorantly) to ensure a collapse happens. Humans are terrible at any sort of long term planning, and too many are more than happy to sacrifice long term sustainability for short term profits, consequences be damned.

Our way of life is unsustainable. We know this, but no one is willing to make the sacrifices necessary to change this. Within the next century, we're going to find this out the hard way.