What's the line? "It's assholes all the way down."

Tasks such as listening to the radio ranked as a category “1” level of distraction or a minimal risk.

Are we talking vapid pop music, idiot morning DJ's, or "stimulating" discussions on Public Radio? My gut tells me that these aren't equally distracting. Additionally, what qualifies as "listening" to radio. There are some people who sing along to songs on the radio, or switch stations constantly. Is this what the experiment simulated, or did people just drive while passively listening?

[O]r like the smartphone precursor to SkyNet, the supercomputer from the Terminator movies [...]

Seriously. If that needs to be explained on Slashdot, then for crying out loud we are done for. Bring on Skynet already! It would be a kindness.

The revealed keys were found to have some further weaknesses, as they were made manually (apparently by secretaries told to type randomly on their typewriters).

Had the Soviets been in possession of a million keyboards and an equal number of monkeys, they'd most likely still be in business.

He was not saying that everybody becomes a plumber, but that those who are not as academically adept should.

Perhaps those who aren't adept at, say, reading comprehension should.

I don't know what the law is, whether there is a federal law or if state laws apply, but what's to stop a machinist from making an AK-47 type of gun in his or her shop? That particular style of gun was designed to be simple to manufacture, and that's why you see them all over the world. If making one yourself in a machine shop is currently illegal, how would 3-D printing be legal? If it's not currently illegal, then on what basis do we make 3-D printing illegal?

I'm going to guess manufacturing your own guns are already illegal, and that this is a lot of media attention grabbing.

It is slightly overwhelming in its information density compared to most social networks, and its spare use of color around the edges lends it a feeling of lukewarmness.

The mobile interface on Google+ just seems frenetic to me, in a TMI sort of way. Others may like being visually assaulted, but it's not for me.

some people will still scream and rage because [...] it costs more than $0

I think you have to be some kind of math geek to blithely state $1,549.00 > $0.

Hugs all around! Hugs for everybody!

Going by this reconnaissance photo detailing what Kim Jong-Un has sitting on his desk, I have no doubt you may be onto something.

Which is why I think there should be strict gun control, including for handguns.

I had little doubt you would say this. That's why, we who are ardent supporters of the Second Amendment, don't believe a word of the present assurances that "nobody is coming for your guns." The present gun control proposals are not the end; they're intended as the beginning. And as much as the gun control crowd wishes to the contrary, we're all wise to that.

Where do you come up with such things? It is a major talking point of the NRA that we should already be enforcing the laws we have, rather than passing new ones. It's the polticians—like the good governor of my home state, New York—who rush to pass laws for the purpose of getting on television and having something to write home to their constituents about. Rarely is any thought given to how effective any law will be or the on-going costs of enforcing laws. And, meanwhile, just to continue this, we load up our prisons with non-violent offenders because of the drug bogeyman and return unreformed, violent criminals to society while they are still in their prime years. If we want to reduce crime, we'd do some serious thinking about it, and not jump on the bandwagon of what "everybody" knows.

How does this analogy hold up? The gun crimes that occur every year, do you think the majority of them are the result of inexperience, recklessness, and bad judgment, or do you think they're the result of the deliberate intent of criminals?

And they haven't had a rare but spectacularly televisable gun crime in all those years.

FTFY

You do realize that, statistically speaking, hardly any deaths in this country of 300-plus million people occur per year as a result of being on the wrong end of an "assault" rifle, and that most of the gun deaths occur from handguns, right?