Yeah I'm just talking about the aspect ratio and resolution. Another good example would be the 'retina' Macbook Pros - they are also 16:10 though not quite such a high number of pixels (the 15" has 3/4 as many pixels on both axes as the T221). But since you mention it, I wouldn't agree that a slow refresh rate or poor colour gamut rules out 99% of uses. Probably only about 5% of users require colour accuracy; the T221 is no worse than most monitors, photos look pretty good on it. (I use a wide-gamut monitor too but for day-to-day use it makes no difference.) Even a 24Hz refresh rate is enough for text-based work such as programming, office apps or web browsing. So don't knock it till you have tried it!

4:3 is not coming back. Its old and appears odd today in the 21 century.

I suspect millions of Ipad users would disagree.

Not 4x3 but there is the 16x10 IBM T221, 3840x2400... I have three of them and I'd certainly buy a new monitor like this one if they'd made it with a sensible aspect ratio.

All hail our liberal overlords, who know far better than us lowly knuckledraggers what's best for us. Ah, the essence of the liberal paradise, where the entire populace is treated as too stupid to know what it needs and must be told -- or regulated -- into doing what the elite decree.

If it saves the life of one person but endangers a random number of others, it's no longer worth it. The same argument was used to ban things like DDT. Sure, DDT caused large numbers of people to get cancer, and banning DDT stopped that in its tracks. However, a much *larger* number of people were dying -- and still are dying -- every year from malaria carried by mosquitoes. Yet people like you used the similar "if it saves a single life, it's worth it" argument, completely ignoring the larger consequences.

Nope. The loudest sound is hearing "bang" when you expect to hear "click." Either of these two situations will radically escalate your pucker factor, oddly enough.

A poor analogy that does nothing to prove your point. Firearms, as currently built, work mechanically. Short of a metallurgical failure or an ammunition fault, they're going to work when you pull the trigger. Introducing complex electronic scanners, software code, and batteries into the mix greatly increases the chance of failure. Sure, it may only fail to recognize your hand 0.1%, but if that happens to be the one time you really, really needed it to work, you're likely going to pay for the failure with your life.

Phones already had GPS installed for other reasons that were deemed valuable by phone buyers, namely that of navigation. There is no similar "shared functionality" benefit in smart weapons. Further, cell phones are complex, expensive devices to begin with, and never has anyone's life been completely dependent upon whether or not their phone's GPS worked. Nobody dies if their phone suddenly glitches, or navigates you to the wrong location by mistake.

And your shortsightedness prevents you from ever thinking that someone in the future just might. Perhaps someone who doesn't have your best interests in mind. Try thinking ahead instead of just what's six inches in front of your face.

You clearly don't know much about firearms. Cleaning a firearm is not something regularly done for a stored firearm; there's no real need. Even firearms that see regular use don't *have* to be cleaned all the time: an AK-47 can be buried in mud, run over by a truck, doused in sand, rinsed in a muddy river, and chances are very good it will still fire when you pull the trigger. Right now I can take a revolver, load it, store it for five years, and draw it at a moments notice without ever wondering if it will fire. Throw a battery into the mix and that near-infallible reliability is compromised significantly. If there were anything other than my life on the line I might be willing to make that compromise. My life is quite dear to me, though, so I think I'll pass on your non-panacea panacea.

You're missing the point. The Constitution says one thing, but the wording is sufficiently vague that it can be -- and has been -- open to interpretation. The Supreme Court is responsible for interpreting how it applies to common situations (yes, that's an oversimplification, but I'm not going to be bothered to explain it in greater detail; you should know already). The issue of "does the 2nd Amendment apply to groups or individuals" has percolated in Constitutional law circles for probably half a century. Quite recently, a case came before the Supreme Court where this question had to be settled, and settled it was: the Court ruled the 2nd Amendment does indeed apply to individuals, not just a "well regulated militia." It is now settled case law, known as "precedent" and will shape future court decisions unless overturned by some other case (very rare) or by a Constitutional Amendment (even rarer). Here's the first article I could find about the court decision: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/28/AR2010062802134.html

I submit that you can take any person -- biomarker or no -- and put them in intensely depraved conditions surrounded by pain, death, manipulation, and terror, and after prolonged exposure you will find them reverted to nearly feral state. We keep thinking we're somehow above the rest of the animal kingdom because we've got these highly developed brains and opposable thumbs. We forget we're not all that different from our tree-dwelling relatives, and we all have the ability to be completely animalistic if put in the "right" circumstances.

What I find interesting is you see these school shootings not being done by the school jocks, or the "popular" kids, or even disgruntled staff. It's being done by the quiet, shunned ones who didn't "fit in" and were usually bullied. Make someone a powerless outcast, nurture them with taunts, and remove any possibility of hope, and you will get someone who will lash out. It's not genetic; it's behavioral.

Could've been a leak of the drinking water supply, unless they no longer have those in the suits.

There's a wonderful saying we have in the Marines: if my enemy ever kills me with my own weapon, he better have had to beat me to death with it because it was out of ammo.

Scumbag comes at me with a knife. I draw my pistol and demand he withdraw or be killed. He withdraws.

1. Had he attacked and I was unarmed, I might be dead. Therefore, the pistol saved my life.
2. He withdrew without being killed based on the threat of being killed. Therefore, merely *brandishing* the pistol saved *his* life.

Perhaps you're unaware it is perfectly legal to carry in the *public* areas of airports. Go back and re-read his post and you'll see he pointed this out. Sure, you get stares. That's part of the problem: people assume that you're some kind of crazy person just because you're openly carrying a firearm because they've been *conditioned* to think that way.

Unless you somehow live *in* the airport, you must walk from the airport to the parking area to get your car and go home. Predators in the Atlanta area know that people coming from the airport are almost certainly *unarmed* because it's extremely difficult to carry a firearm with you on a trip. Many people are robbed, beaten, and raped in these areas because of this. Criminals aren't uniformly stupid; they look for prey in areas where resistance is unlikely.

And if I thought for one moment the government would be responsible and exercise restraint in the area of personal ownership of firearms and respect for the *individual* right to bear arms in the 2nd Amendment, I wouldn't mind it either. The government, however, has not demonstrated itself worthy of said trust. A sufficiently-liberal judicial branch could quickly nullify the 2nd Amendment; it's not like they haven't tried before, and liberals show no signs of abatement in this area. Without 2nd Amendment protections and armed with a list of gun owners everywhere, the government would have all it needs to strip law-abiding citizens of their firearms or jail them if they don't comply. Meanwhile, unregistered firearms in the hands of criminals would remain in the hands of criminals, giving them the upper hand in any altercation with law-abiding citizens.

I'm with you on the safety training, but be careful when defining "competence". It wouldn't be hard for an anti-gun lawmaker to define "competence" in such a way that it's impractical for anyone to qualify, thus effectively ending private firearm ownership. And if you think they wouldn't try, just look at what anti-gun lawmakers have done in states and cities where their anti-gun laws have been shot down (pun intended) by the Supreme Court: crazy taxes on ammunition, onerous procedures and lengthy wait times to obtain licenses to deter all but the most determined from obtaining their firearm, zoning laws that make shooting ranges and gun stores impractical to locate, and so forth. Background checks are already in place.

In many ways it comes down to trust. Firearms owners like myself simply don't trust the government to respect our rights in this area due to a lengthy history of assaults on said rights.

There are millions and millions of gun owners out there who carry every day and *don't* shoot up schools, theaters, and so forth. Would you tread on the rights of 99.9% to try and stop the 0.1%? I'll remind you that, if you follow that logic, you'll need to outlaw driving, as it kills more people every year than any number of crazed gunmen. More people drown in public pools, or die eating fatty foods, than have ever been killed by a nutjob with a gun.

For some, yes. But for most it would mean you're showing a strange and nearly-unknown concept these days: respect for your fellow human being. You'd be nice to people because they were nice to you, because being nice would be the most effective way to get along with your fellow man. Intimidation and violence would carry the potential for serious negative consequences that most rational people would deem not worth the potential cost.

Improbable? Yes. Difficult? Yes. But not impossible. Assuming the initial four were sufficiently procreative -- say, 10-12 children each -- you have enough genetic diversity for a viable start. Inbreeding doesn't mean definite inviable birth defects, stillborns, and so forth. Two or three generations removed from this -- again, assuming sufficient procreativity -- and you have a pretty diverse base to build on due to natural genetic variances and random mutations.