I think this just continues the trend that started with the PS2, which doubled as a DVD player way back when they were fairly new. I own a 360, and use it for DVDs and Netflix streaming video in addition to a gaming machine. Right now I'm considering replacing my Samsung BluRay player with a PS3 Slim.

I've taken to calling my iPhone a "DAD": Do Anything Device. I don't use it for gaming, but the number of things you can use it for grows daily.

There was an old stand up routine by Dana Gould that had a man walking down the street, talking to himself. Ten years ago this would be a crazy person. "You can't tell a Navy man when he's had enough to drink! Only a Navy man knows when he's had enough to drink!"

Now, you have to check his other ear to see if he has a Bluetooth earset.

I feel like we're in the "Slow Take Off" first chapter of Stross's _Accelerando._

Because a sheep-like mentality is limited to the right wing only?

The absolute worst thing anybody can do is dehumanize their opposition by calling them sheep or assume that they're not intelligent.

Your comment makes me thinks of Boss Tweed, the notorious Tammany Hall politician in the 1860s and 70s who ended up taking the fall for the entire system. Even after he was put in prison, the system of corruption perpetuated by the Tammany Hall Machine lasted for another century. There may have been others, but I think the last major figure was Robert Moses in the 60s.

The current system of hedge funds and credit default swaps is almost entirely unregulated, and these financial instruments deal with such huge flows of (imaginary) cash it's staggering. Credit default swaps alone are worth about $55 trillion. And when that system goes--and it will--it'll make this Great Recession feel like good times.

You want them to develop a whole new vehicle in six months? Really? Do you realize that includes factory tooling, creating supply chains, training workers?

A friend of mine works for GM. In 2007 they had re-tooled the factory he worked in at a cost of $2.5 billion. The interest on the loan for that retooling is more per day than every employee in the plant combined.

What is lacking, and what Tesla and other startups (like Aptera) are trying to do, is create electric cars cheap enough and with competitive performance levels (longer ranges, short recharge times) with IC vehicles.

This makes about as much sense as the government taxing automobiles to keep buggy whip manufacturers alive.

When I first saw this I thought: "Great! A bunch of people are getting together to put the kibosh on this insane Big Brother scheme."

How wrong I was.

Instead we have a group of volunteers with dubious accountability and no public access to the video feeds.

This reminds me of the "urban renewal" projects of the 50s and early 60s, when huge sections actually were razed in various major cities. Boston's West End was a victim of this.

It's widely considered to be one of the stupidest projects the government's ever done.

Here I thought we were supposed to encourage people to move back into cities so high population densities would make mass transit more viable. Silly me.

I wish I had more to add than "right on". But you've put how I feel about modern environmentalism in a nutshell.

Believe it or not, Reagan was quoting JFK.

"Rising tide lifts all boats". 10/15/60, 8/17/62 (In Pueblo, Colorado following approval of the Frying Pan-Arkansas Project), 5/18/63 and 6/25/63