I think Blu-Ray will get passed by. Sony's crybaby bitchy attitude killed the last HD optical possibility. Their format war postponed the inception of HD optical media too long, and prices have been steadily too high for movies ever since because they are trying to make up the costs of this war (you don't think it really costs that much more to make a Blu-Ray vs DVD?). Now, hopefully we will move to solid state media storage, such as Secure digital ROM or some variant, where the physical media size is much smaller and more robust. I still think people want to own physical media, just not in $25-$30 optical formats.

While I can see the merits of ethics training in employment (especially with matters of personal privacy), I don't believe it has any impact of whether a person will become a terrorist or not. It is only useful for people who already have morally sound foundations and are willing to absorb a little more info to improve their abilities (or cover their ass). "If only Osama had taken that ethics course!"

It's called parenting, it's supposed to make kids not turn into total screw-ups. It's not the responsibility of a university to teach people morals; people don't pay for that.

I'd wager that those with political science and law degrees have caused more deaths than all of the engineering varieties. Also, Hitler was an artist/writer. Now which field of study is responsible for the worst terror the world has ever seen?

You mean a business doesn't want itself legislated out of existence?

Head west, and start circling Washington, D.C.

you'd be an idiot not to use anything but a real-time operating system (RTOS). If they use a windows, mac, or linux box for this, then they're idiots and should be held liable. Chances are it's a PLC though, especially for industrial work.

It's ok to oppose gov't regulation of the internet, unless a republican opposes it too, then it must be bad?

Yes, the best we could come up with is Ben Affleck playing a super-computer-genius by connecting a ribbon cable to a microchip (paycheck). Do that, and you get to sleep with Uma Thurman. Ooo, big prize.

...building a great wall of space junk...

... the lawyers always win.

I think it would hurt at 30 mph. Also, umbrellas would be unsafe at those speeds. Let's just skip the sidewalks and go right to the Futurama sucking tubes.

Excellent points. I also want to add that the proposed legislation will likely cripple innovation and economic health that would eventually lead to all of these green solutions that people harp about. Hey, who doesn't want fusion power?

... especially satellite data. The whole field of satellite data inversion is a joke (that goes for any kind of data you can think of). I wouldn't trust of these guys to properly place a land-based temperature sensor either. ... "Whoops, I left it in front of the AC radiator."

They'll just spend any savings on some other bologna project. So what's the difference...