Now, they just need to replace the car batteries with one's made from coconuts.

Funny.

Notice you'll get modded down for your logical yet moderate/right leaning stance. As you stated:

The bulk of the Slashdot populace is against you. Take a quick tally of how many comments are modded 4+ or greater. Any thing left appears to get 4+, while anything logical get's modded down.

Ah, there it is.
Everyone is complaining about all this "fake money" and about NOT trusting the government, yet right out the other side of their mouth scream for MORE free stuff from the government.

Yeah, that's gonna work.

So let me get this straight. Jesus was riding a feathered Dinosaur.

I do agree that the "War on drugs" is an exercise in futility; I'm not sure if I completely agree that the only people who will lose in this deal a criminal's and gangs.
We will all lose. It will create an even bigger burden on those of us that fuel the economy.

Everyone on here so far is talking dollar signs. Sure, stopping the war on drugs and taxing the manufacture and sale will lead to huge profits. But I really believe there is a much larger downside that everyone overlooks here.

I probably just sound like a bitter old man, but too many people these days just seem complacent, self entitled and just down right lazy. What happens when we do legalize certain drugs, and just by the mere fact that it's legal, increases drug use?
We'll create an even more self entitled, self centered, and self indulgent society.

Proponents will reply to this saying that it will not increase drug use. Yes, it will. You have people that already use drugs and, legal or not, will continue. You have the people on-the-fence who don't use drugs because it's illegal, but by making legal gives them the green light to try (and perhaps risk addiction and other side effects) because the sheer fact that it's legal says it's "O.K". Then, you have children, who are going to grow up even more complacent, and desensitized to the ill effects of it.

I agree there has to be a better way than wasting money and lives fighting something that isn't going to go away, but I'm damn sure I wouldn't put such a responsibility in the hands of the general populous (that is no where near capable of handing it) at the risk of tearing down the very machine that requires enormous effort from that very same populous to run.

Did anyone else read "Jobs Bill" and just assume that Steve Jobs and Bill Gate's had a love-child?

Cheer up!

In the last decade I've saved thousands on hair cut's and shampoo.

So you're telling me that technology is going to progress? That's news.

I'm still waiting on my flying car btw.

I don't know why people get their f'ing panties in a bunch over crap like this.

If you don't like a company's policies, then don't use the service. It's that simple.

If you don't want HR to find you doing god-knows-what with god-knows-who online, then don't post it online for everyone to see. It's that simple.

I wish I could get paid to just point out the obvious.

Obviously you failed to understand "Think Different".

I think the author is showing their age, and obviously wasn't around during the early 90's when the access we did have was about equal to what he's asking for.

I know this maybe a stretch of the imagination but yes, people managed to "live" without it. Also, in this day and age, I'm sure people can't figure out what to do with a computer once the interweb's are turned off, but we managed to use it as a useful tool back then too.

We still could shop from home, except it was from a much higher bandwidth medium: Mail order catalogs.
We managed to still have "social networks", and actually talked face to face with our friends, or spent time in their presence.
We had streaming media, it was called television. Although back in those days MTV and VH1 actually played music.
We had an instant messenger called the telephone. It was really cool, because when you said "hello" someone actually responded quite promptly.
We shared photo's, music, and ideas. Although via different mediums, such as cd's, tapes, paper and the telephone.

Life is not much different now, for those of use that don't spend endless hours valuing our worth by the size of our f@cebook friend roster or the amount of posts off random ramblings from twitt3r.

My suggestion to you, and anyone feeling overwhelmed by the internet is:
- Ditch the "social networks". If you have friends, call them on the phone, or go hang out with them. I promise it's much more rewarding.
- Unless you actually NEED something, keep your browser closed.
- Get a hobby that doesn't include the computer. Believe it or not, there is a plethora of things to do that don't require the internet, or even a computer. A ton don't even require electricity!

to the "dog ate my homework" line.

Someone uses technological gadget for word processing!

What will they think of next.

As soon as it is no longer profitable to allow such behavior.