I seem to recall reading an article for "curb stomp" in the English Wikipedia, which had a link to "American History X." In the American History X article it looks like "curb-stomp" was linked, de-linked in Feb. 2012, and the term was replaced with a description in subsequent edits.

"Freedom of speech does not mean free from consequences" - I'm sorry but this is a bullshit statement. Speech is free exactly when it is free from consequences. If someone makes a statement against a despotic government and goes to jail for it or if someone makes a statement against popular sentiment and will have to live like a hunted animal after that, the net result is the same, the person is persecuted for it. This is not to say that a society can ever have truly free speech - shouting "fire" in a crowded theater being the canonical example of proscribed speech, but in a civil society the limits to speech should be as narrow as possible, otherwise the society risks sliding towards despotism.

I'm positively sure in parts of NYC the red lights are staggered so that you will have to stop at every single one of them, unless you are going 20 MPH or so above the posted speed limit.

Krushchev was born in Kalinovka, which was and still is in Russia to Russian parents. Brezhnev was born in what was part of the Russian Empire to Russian parents. Try again.

It would be awkward, but the cynic in me says that the US and Russia would then find common ground for a mutual extradition.

It got tagged troll because STEM education in Russia is about just as bad as in the USA, but the poster was making the claim that Russian high school students had the equivalent of advanced undergraduate students in STEM subjects. This is not borne out in various education indices, such as PISA.

Yes, 34th in mathematics, 37th in science, and 41st in reading, according to the latest PISA results http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PISA_2012_Tests. Sounds like the Russian education system only excels at instilling jingoism.

I voted FF. At work I use FF for all my development needs because I am comfortable with its debugging toolset and Chrome for anything not work related (can have flash disabled, adblock running, etc.). At home I almost never use Chrome because Google's penchant for data mining your personal information. Also, my Linux box (an ancient PC with Fedora) is much more stable with FF - Chrome will cause a kernel panic within a few minutes of browsing.

It's not nearly so cut-and-dried as you suggest: source

If you have family in Cuba, there could be some repercussions.

I voted "Canada" - but on second thought, their government is so much in bed with the US government, that being spied on by the CSE is tantamount to being spied on by the NSA.

There is one other fact of human psychology that will get in the way of having robot driven cars sharing roads with human drivers: assertion of dominance. Aggressive drivers will carry out various risky moves to get in front of a more timid driver (or if the 2nd driver is not so timid, he may attempt another maneuver to prevent 1st car from getting ahead). Whoever is the most recklessly aggressive come out the winner. As pointed out in Pinker's _How the Mind Works_, if two drivers are going to play chicken with one another, if one had his steering wheel removed before the contest, he would win. If there are risk avoiding computers driving cars, aggressive human drivers will exploit this greatly.

There is a lot of variability in the USA in cost, convenience, travel time, and availability. Even just commuting isn't the whole picture, as I doubt taking a bus or train is convenient for grocery shopping. In much of the country there is large expanses where public transportation isn't available and wouldn't even make sense to provide it. In NYC, if you live in Brooklyn or Queens and commute to Manhattan, taking a car would take more time than public transit and be prohibitively expensive (mainly for parking); in contrast, taking subways and/or buses is about $120/month.

I find myself unable to multitask. Either I am listening to music (mostly classical) and all my mental resources are allocated to hearing what is going on (melodies, harmonies, motives, structure, etc.), or I am involved in work-related activities (coding, coming up with solutions to software engineering problems, reading specs, keeping abreast with subject matter, etc.) that require full concentration. For situations that don't require full concentration, such as testing, the music is distracting.

I really don't see where the articulated cars save will save loading/emptying times. Train cars during rush hour are so packed that most of the time to empty is spent on passengers having to push their way through the crowd to the nearest door. If they are in the space between trains, there are that many more bodies to get past. Also, you would need much more than an 8-10% increase in capacity to see much of an improvement. Train cars still will be sardine cans.