I wonder, how long until spam joins communism, terrorism and drugs as The Enemy that must be stopped no matter the cost. I've got nothing against stopping spam per se, but if somebody starts putting together anti-privacy laws on the basis that "only spammers have something to hide", it's really going to suck on so many fronts. Think about it; how many perfectly reasonable anti-terrorism measures are dismissed as superfluous and ridiculous by association with such measures as confiscating of water bottles, knitting needles, and T-shirts with the word "Terrorist" on them?

Except that now most of the people downloading it will hopefully save the file on their computer, so they won't be coming back tomorrow to download the 1.8 megabytes again if they decide to have another look at the doc.

My sentiments exactly. Imagine if they were throwing out everyone paying attention to the odds in poker.

For that matter, if the outcome is deterministic and unfavorable, why have the game in the casino in the first place?

On the other hand, the watch is said to send an alert signal if forcibly removed. I'm guessing that the system will be swamped with false alarms by bedtime. That, or the child-abducting pedophiles prowling the streets will get a hold of the manual to figure out the correct way to remove it without sending an alarm.

And they'll find these kids by cracking the tracking system. /alarmism

The real killer, however, is that it probably isn't quite trivial to install the circumvention software on the actual TV set. So, even when it is cracked, as well as in the meanwhile, the majority of HD TV owners are going to have to shell out for new hardware.

But... That Gandalf guy is a bad Dumbledore ripoff, the beginning (after the cliche prologue battle between good and evil) was ripped straight out of Willow, and I bet whoever wrote the novelization didn't even see the movies!

That's pretty much what I'm wondering about. If the fatigue is caused by having to move slower for the sensors to catch up, and it's the exoskeleton carrying the weight, does that mean you would get about as tired walking a hundred meters holding your arms up as if you walked a hundred meters holding 300 pounds overhead?

The question, in regard to unschooling, isn't whether or not it's an effective technique when done right. The real issue is can or will parents do it right. It's like homeschooling in this regard; when a competent parent takes the time to teach his/her/it's child, s/h/it can progress at just the rate that's good for the kid. It really boils down to whether or not the parents can be bothered to study the subject matter in sufficient detail to actually teach their kids, not to mention learn the methodologies of unschooling.

Hear, hear. It's entirely possible that it'd be cheaper and more technologically feasible to send a two-way expedition than to send the amount of people and equipment needed to found a viable colony. It's quite a bit greater challenge of engineering to colonize a planet with an unbreathable atmosphere than to colonize a new continent.

The intriguing thing about this is that if I'm wrong and it's cheaper to establish a long-term colony, it would most likely be populated by people with above average IQ's. Unless the terrestrial laws of genetics don't apply on Mars for some hinky reason, we could end up with a race of ubermensch whose only weakness is inability to function in terrestrial gravity in a few generations. It would be seriously bad if they got bitter about the original world being left to a bunch of idiots, and decided to do something about it. Que "I for one" jokes.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't it use to be the same for driver's licences? It might be that when "flying cars" or whatever you want to call them start working their way into the mainstream, so will flight schools.

I'm sure that if you had asked someone in the late 19th century, they'd have told you that a car going as fast as 60 miles per hour would be so hazardous a contraption as to require a skilled racer to drive.