BP took shortcuts. It is their fault.

And while I agree that our dependence on oil is a contributing factor, everyone saying it's all our fault needs to stop driving, stop taking the bus or anything that uses petrol and live up to your claims. Yes, alternative fuels will be nice someday, but get off your soapbox and start practicing what you're preaching. It's not so easy, is it?

We need more R&D into alternative fuels but right now much of that is being done by the oil companies, and our shoddy education system based on standardized tests doesn't exactly turn out the best and the brightest to contribute to more R&D. I see that as a bigger problem that will fail to sustain America.

Like "All My Circuits: the Movie"?

• Movie:If you want Calculon to race to the laser gun battle in his hover-Ferarri, press 1. If you want Calculon to double-check his paperwork, press 2. Enter now.
• (Fry presses 1)
• Movie: You have pressed 2.
• Fry: No I didn't!
• Movie: I'm almost positive you did.

How would that help? Yeah, they screwed up by making shortcuts and not properly inspecting equipment and they should be fined. Fixing this disaster would cost them big. But to get rid of BP - one of the largest oil companies in the world? Consider the economic impact of that - many jobs lost, decreased tax revenue, and certainly OPEC will raise oil prices from a drop in competition (they do that).

...I'm a doctor, not a patient! - Dr. McCoy when asked to wave the tricorder medical scanner for 24 hours waiting for a diagnosis.

Silverlight supports Accessibility APIs natively. It also works on Mac and Linux (through Moonlight). It can also be easily scaled if, for example, hosted in a DIV with relative size (and, optionally, positioning).

Hear that sound coming closer? Watch out for the Langoliers!

Drag the Windows task bar to the top of the screen where you claim your mouse usually is. So now what't the point? The GP post asks the right question: how does this boost productivity if I can't place Windows side by side (and in Windows 7 this is even easier by dragging one window to one edge of the screen, and another to the other edge of the screen)?

Actually, Silverlight 3 supports browser navigation with very little work on the Silverlight developer's part. Without refreshing the page, it adds to the history by using bookmarks and clicking back does work. Also with very little work is a way to represent the same data in the web page via server output using SEO extensions, so content is still searchable. Sure you have to code a minimal UI with the same data, but with shared business objects and a thinweight UI layer you can achieve this pretty simply.

Mod parent up. Although it seems most so far get what UAC does/doesn't, for the rest of you: UAC helps prevent privileged execution by running everything in a filtered token for administrators (very close to normal user). If a virus doesn't require elevated privileges then UAC won't help.

... much ...

But not all, and they have no way QA to validate their claims.

Besides, how can you trust that anyone knows then end date? Why would Mayan's have such knowledge, and that a culture that is long lost even has an understanding of the heavens? Even with all today's telescopes, probes, and such we still can't explain much / most of it.

It seems foolish to believe, and a waste to discuss. And if I'm wrong...well, you can point and laugh at me after the apocolypse.

As someone with a child recently...I have to agree. Children aren't for everyone - whatever the reason. My only grip is that too many people that can't afford children are having too many (and are a strain on our economy), and that people that can give children rich, full lives (like with all that travel!) aren't having any/enough.

ViM only needs 7 versions to get it right. Emacs is at 23?

I remember sometime back on /. when WSJ was reporting rumors and the statement was basically the same: WTF WSJ? I thought they were supposed to be more tactful than that, or are they just trying to cope in a world where print is quickly dying (and the economic situation doesn't help either)?

I hardly see how that's comparable. Slaves are still people and limited compared to robots of iRobot (yeah, still a long way off but certainly doable). And times were harder in some ways back the, requiring much more work than today. More people - slaves or free - were required to even push information around (even back when there was actually tubes).

In this event, yes, socialism or something like it will be required - assuming the robots realize they don't need us and kill us off like in Terminator and so many others that show what happens when you break any of the Three Rules of Robotics. But that's also a long way off. Most people fear the very words "socialism" and "communism" because of history or just not understanding them. Even recent talks in the U.S. about nationalizing banks scares most people who start spouting "Yeah, like Japan!" and all sorts of stuff not thinking rationally through all the scenarios.

But we are living in the "now". Problems are happening now. Now is not the time to worry only for investors (frankly, I don't think that time is ever right). As people are laid off the economy is affected adversely. People without jobs means more burden on social programs which may require higher taxes and less spending by people and companies to cope (especially those now without jobs). And that leads to fewer jobs. Further down the downward spiral we go.

Progress is definitely important, but laying off hundreds or thousands of workers degrades the overall economic conditions. There's only so much money for educational grants and loans that a lot of people (or even by their sheer laziness) will have to live off of social programs like wellfare. And that's a burden on society to have to pay. Maybe if someone were to do all the math society as a whole might fare slightly better, but nowhere near what a lot of poeple are probably thinking. (I don't agree lazy people deserve such privileges, but should we just let them die of starvation?)

Educating people costs money, and as we automate (or replace like in this topic's manner) more and more, fewer and fewer people are required. Some additional jobs might created on building on that technology or making it better, but not enough to cover all the displaced workers. And do we really need more people behind the counters of even more McDonald's?