Ok, so I know there was a drought in the US for a ridiculous amount of time, but considering modern technology, I'm having a hard time understanding why this has to mean no more bacon. Why can't farmers just heavily irrigate their fields? Isn't pumping water where need it worth it to produce a good crop and, more importantly, still have bacon? It's not like we don't have water in the world. Don't we have the tech to get it where we need it to be? Or if heat is the problem, can't we cover the fields with shade sheets or something?

I live in Phoenix and we have terribly hot summers with extraordinary long droughts, but we still seem to do ok and there's never a panic among the farming community. Can't we avoid these crises with some simple planning?

Anyone who knows anything about farming, feel free to enlighten this ignorant city kid.

A useful hand-held US machine could assist in a variety of ways in the healthcare profession. It would mean that trained doctors without access to other, larger equipment (remote places) could reliably diagnose or rule out appendicitis (among many other disease processes). If paramedics were trained on the machine, they could quickly establish peripheral IV access to administer medication in life or death situations.

I work an emergency department with an emergency physician who uses a "large, clunky US machine" to evaluate for countless disease processes quickly in pt's rooms. He and many other progressively minded physicians would jump at advances in this technology that would make it easier to use them to use.

Do you really think that a significant amount of people in third world countries would get access to hand-held US (and know how to use it!) before they had access to an OB/GYN who could give them a sonogram anyways? The latter would, of course, thus allow them to determine the sex of their child and so have the same result.

Yes, that's already happening every day in China, but I personally, don't think hand-held US aren't going to make it happen any faster. Why would anyone spend $7000 on a hand-held US when they could go get a sonogram for $200? (Source: http://children.costhelper.com/ultrasound.html)

While I've heard that some House episodes are very educational, I can tell you that that House episode was just another medical TV show keeping the public sufficiently ignorant of medicine to ensure that we'll always need health professionals. What the HELL were they doing getting an US!?! I work in an emergency department and anyone with eyes can tell the difference between a foreign body and an air bubble on an X-ray. To my knowledge US is never used to evaluate for foreign body.

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_body_in_alimentary_tract

GI tract example: http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/776566-overview - Is it a nail, or an air bubble???

However, just because US aren't useful for evaluating foreign bodies it doesn't mean that the technology isn't extremely promising for other factors of disease or (in the case of the article) complications with pregnancy. Can you imagine if these were widely available how easy it would be for a soon-to-be mother to learn the basics on what to look for to prevent a serious complication? Think about how many books and media a pregnant mother reads and intakes to educate themselves on pregnancy to ensure they have a healthy 9 months? If a 3-hour class was offered to mothers about how to look for an US complication and a hand-held US machine was loaned to them for their pregnancy, I'm confident that nearly all would jump at the opportunity. It wouldn't be training them to diagnose themselves or their babies with any disease it would be like, "If you see your baby's umbilical cord wrapped around his neck and you feel funny, then you should probably come see the OB/GYN immediately." That's something you could teach in a 3-hour class.

What's enticing about Google isn't so much how big it can get as a corporate company, but how much it can connect the world through open-source methods and ideas. The prospect of connecting the world's largest demographic through social media and other social interactivity to America and the rest of the world who relies heavily on Google fits very nicely into Google's vision. It makes perfect sense why Google would want to expand their market to China. Google isn't going to accept a "comfortable size" - it's always wanted the world.

I'm no fan of one giant conglomeration conquering the world market of anything, but I admit that it's exciting to imagine being able to easily interact with other nations, especially China. The medium doesn't have to be Google, but right now, it's the only one with the vision big enough to do it. I don't see Baidu offering me free music downloads.

I think this is the key point here... if you don't like it, leave it. No reason to be hating those that choose to enjoy the social media. If you don't mind your identity being exposed to the public, then you won't care if people know your real name. Those that post photos of themselves drunk online should know better and you can always tag pictures as inappropriate if you're worried a potential employer is stalking you and your buddy's posting pics of you losing horribly at beer pong.

And anyways, we can always go and and post any comments or pictures that might us in trouble on sites that DO allow anonymity... like Slashdot.

You might as well lock yourself in a jail cell and throw away the keys.

I agree that seeing the actual post would be enlightening, but the fact he likened his hypothetical actions to a concrete event makes me think that this wasn't simply an off-handed comment.

I find this is a pretty key line in the article: "The online post on ESPN said that a shooting would be like the one in Aurora, Colo., where 12 people were killed and 58 were injured in July, authorities said."

That's referring to the post he made that they responded to. He didn't just say, "Ah man, I'd like to shoot kids who get expensive sneakers." It was more like, "Here's how it's going down..."

If you don't think this is grounds to go after someone (fine), then when should we pursue a terrorist(ish) comment online? How descriptive do you have to get?

http://m.yahoo.com/w/legobpengine/news/calif-man-arrested-espn-post-killing-kids-193325522.html

Right in the middle of the article: "The online post on ESPN said that a shooting would be like the one in Aurora, Colo., where 12 people were killed and 58 were injured in July, authorities said."

That's not a comment on business practices - that's a threat.

Really? Have you actually RTFA? "The online post on ESPN said that a shooting would be like the one in Aurora, Colo., where 12 people were killed and 58 were injured in July, authorities said."

That's pretty explicit. There's a line between, "Man I just want to kill someone!" and "Here's how I'm going to do it." We act on these things because they've happened before.

I find that literary works can actually be more rewarding if I have to work to understand and comprehend it. I don't consider myself well-read, but my favorite books were those that required I read and re-read pages to catch the author's meaning. Moreover, most academic concepts that I'm proud to have learned are ones that came with hours of study and concentration.

However, the catchy quote is duly noted. Dead Poet's Society has some equally good ones.

Middle right photo - Pretty sure I've seen that room before. Shortly thereafter I was hitting head crabs with a crowbar.

Yup. We know. http://news.slashdot.org/story/12/09/18/1457243/dice-buys-geeknets-media-business-including-slashdot-in-20m-deal

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaSqH8lhB0M