The brain responds to challenges to closely-held beliefs the same way it does to mortal fear of death. You're not going to make any progress using logic here.

Smitty believes that anyone who isn't a conservative is a Democrat and all Democrats support Obamacare. He believes Obama is a "leftist" and anyone who doesn't believe the way he does is a "leftist" and that the two poles of the political divide are "Left" and "Right". He hasn't figured out yet that the divide is really "Top" and "Bottom".

Even if you could penetrate the quasi-religious certainty in his world-view, I'm not sure it would be safe to do so except in a therapeutic environment.

I know this is a really radical idea, but perhaps instead of a bunch of government regulatory czars making technology decrees that they are hopelessly unable to comprehend, maybe, just maybe, we should let the market sort out the winners and losers rather than mandate them up front as a fait accompli. Just sayin'...

(Oh, and although I firmly hope to never have to drive an electric car, I think the mere existence of the new "Frankenplug" EV connector proves my point...)

You put it in, and it doesn't fit, so you turn it over.
You put it in again, it doesn't fit, so you turn it back over.
Now it fits.

And if it's like the one on my daughter's Kindle, that's because one of those insertions bent the shield enough that the connector can be inserted the wrong way, so that very soon, you'll break the little plastic piece inside the connector, essentially rendering your Kindle trash.

Ironically, this boneheaded government mandate will lead to far *more* e-waste than actually letting companies and their customers decide what works without the divine wisdom of a bunch of socialist lawyer potentates in Brussels....

No thanks, EUroweenies, I'd rather be free to choose a connector that actually works. I certainly would love to never see another microUSB connector again, as it's probably the worst power connector on the planet. (And it took some doing to beat the monstrously clunky UK power plug...) The *only* decent application for micro USB is for devices that are never unplugged, like some small consumer electronics equipment/appliances - it's *completely* unsuitable for anything that needs to be plugged or unplugged frequently.

Valve has to make the same choices regarding price and hardware tradeoffs.

Yes, but remember, the PC gaming market has already shown a willingness to pay more than twice the cost of a next-gen console for a really kick-ass gaming experience.

The key to Valve's success with its Steam Box, IMO, is to keep in mind that PC gamers are a very different market than console gamers. And, they have more money to spend. If they try to position Steam Box as nothing more than a direct competitor to consoles, they will fail.

I'm already putting together a Steam Box that's going to end up costing about 4 times what a next-gen console goes for. A few more bucks for a groundbreaking controller is not a big deal.

Having said all that, I'm not sure a touchscreen in a controller is a good idea. Maybe just a simple touchpad, but a full-blown touch display would make the controller too delicate for me. My controller takes a fair amount of abuse. And I don't want to have to look at the controller at any time.;

How do you think I get my weed?

Sailing is practically free transportation. The adjustment of the sails can be automated so a single human operator can run the whole ship.

And poor people, after the global economic collapse, are going to buy that automated sailing ship how again?

Most people don't see the flaw in thinking that they're going to weather the coming social breakdown because they have a high limit on their Visa card.

If it's 100,000 years from now, I won't lose any sleep over it.

Your 3rd link gives a 403.

That's because you're one of those non-believing secular humanist atheists.

Of course! Magic coconuts! Why didn't we think of this sooner?

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/malaysia-recruits-witch-doctors-find-missing-passenger-jet-article-1.1720770

Wow. That's a load of bullshit.

Actually, that's quote from Moses, mumbling under his breath, as he was coming down from Mt Sinai.

I've never demanded anyone start a real war for Cersei's fictional c***.

That makes one of us.

"Listening to sermons and reading religious works like the Bible may also invoke a cognitive benefit. "You're exercising your higher cortical function, thinking about complex concepts that require some imagination,"

I've got a book by Isaac Newton called, "Optiks" that will give you all of that, without making you want to go out and kill non-believers.

Clearly, religion is the key to happiness:

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-i...

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/i...

http://media.dumpert.nl/foto/4...

It's also great if you have a mother-in-law on the other side of the world. The cost per-minute for calls from phone to phone (she just cannot seem to figure out Skype) is as good as any provider.

My wife talks for an hour and it's just a few cents. Or at least that's how it seems. Plus, we can do all kinds of other tricks with voice to text and other things.

I was about to get really pissed if this story was about Google pulling the Voice service.

I'm not smart enough for some of the XKCD strips...

Hell, I'm not smart enough for Garfield.