Elon is also giving away his fortune... except he's not doing it via charities, but via Twitter.

... (looking at VMS), now that's a manual.

Good old VMS with the wall of orange manuals, or grey for the later versions.

She's been able to use a computer in class with some special font that is made to have the characters more easily to read and write.

The don't provide most of her work electronically, so the computer doesn't help as much as it could.

This article is like the ones that bring up autism, selectively looking at the one in a billion that are like rain man, and not the other billion -1 that struggle with everyday life.

My daughter has dyslexia and dyscalculia. She goes to a school for children with special needs. She will not be able to complete normal (academic) high-school, but will follow an alternative program.

She struggles with every subject that requires reading, which is about everything. There is so much that will remain closed to her. She will never be able to share my love of reading. Anything with complex instructions is beyond her, unless it is explained verbally. No, this is not an advantage.

Dyslexia is different for each person. Maybe there exists a few people that have over come it and are able to have some advantage. This is not typical. No-one in my daughters class will work in architecture or engineering. Maybe the arts, with creating something with their hands. - not writing the great American novel.

Depending on the security classification of the area of a base, no phones or any electronic device that has not been cleared are allowed. Phones and devices provided for work are allowed some areas. In the higher security areas, strictly no electronic devices are allowed.

In public areas (shopping, bowling, cinemas), devices are allowed. For bigger bases with schools on site, and with a lot of non-staff civilians, it would be impossible to control electronic devices anyway.

I really don't understand why so many companies do use Oracle. I can say that going back even 30 year ago, there were companies that really should not have been using Oracle.

These companies were paying a fortune for features that they would never use. They also did not have the skill level needed to be able to correctly maintain these Oracle systems, they would rely on Oracle support to get most of their basic tasks completed. Open source products would have been fine for most of the tasks these companies had.

This is probably not so much the issue today, as it is impossible to rely on Oracle support for anything, not even the basics.

Obviously, there were exceptions, if you implemented a 3rd party application, like Peoplesoft, then Oracle comes along and buys it, then you're stuck. Major CRP/ERP application migrations are difficult and cost a lot of money.

Do you really believe there is any significant number of marxists, or anyone subscribing to any communist philosophy in the US?

Or are you confusing that with socialism? I find that most people in the US seem to mix up those concepts.

If you would like socialists to leave, then would you include into that group anyone who gets given taxpayer money from the government? So, who would that be?

Big business, that get subsidies?
Old people that get medicare?
Veterans that get VA medical care?
Parents that get child subsidies?
In fact, it would be almost every person and every company.

The unfortunate fact is, the USA, like all western economies are mixed economies, that has capitalist and socialist elements. A pure capitalist economy won't work, just like a pure command driven economy won't work.

If you'd like to see how a almost pure capitalist economy works, then look at places like Somalia, that doesn't have any effective central government, and the ultimate expression of freedom of rules is exercised by warlords with automatic weapons from the back of a Toyota pickup.

Well, let's hope that's the case.

Now, does anyone have any ideas on how to kill Facebook?

You realise right now there are floods in Australia? The area flooding is roughly the size of Texas. Flooding has alway happened there, but due to the stronger El Nino / La Nina cycles, the larger floods are getting more frequent.

Sure, build a fucking dyke the size of Texas, that will solve it.

The modern military has progressed a lot over the years. Things have got more high-tech and complex. They no longer have any need for canon fodder. There are higher expectations for even the average ground pounding grunt.

I've never been in the military, but I've worked along side them over a number of years. I never encountered anyone that was anything like below average intelligence. I doubt that anyone like that would last very long.

A modern ABS system with traction control out performs all but the expert professional driver.

I owned a number of Lotus Elise/Exige cars. The first one had no electronics at all - no ABS, no power steering. The breaks and accelerator pedal were directly connected, no modern 'by wire' as it is with all cars these days. I once came over a hill to find the traffic stopped in my lane, I hit the brakes and locked up, and when it was obvious I wouldn't stop in time, I had to release the brakes to stop skidding and switch lanes to avoid a crash. This was difficult. My next Elise had ABS and in a similar situation, it was much easier to control.

The only person I know who could out perform ABS is an ex-German rally champion. He gave me driver training at testing facilities and at the Nurburgring and Spa racing tracks. He held the wet lap racing record at the Nurburgring (with a 911 GT3 RS, so whatever that category was). I could practice for ever and I'd never be close to his ability. At Spa in my 120HP Elise, he was passing 911s having a couple of hundred HP more. I've driven with Sabine Schmitz at Spa, and he was a more 'exciting' driver than she was. For him ABS slowed him down. For everyone else in the world, ABS would not slow them down.

So, effectively, noone is going to outperform ABS. When the Telsa technology improves, then noone will be able to outperform that in crash avoidance, either.

That's not to say that a Telsa will stop all crashes, but it will stop a crash that normal drivers wouldn't. Take my wife ( - please), she doesn't look ahead past the car in front, so when the traffic slows down a few cars in front and the car in front of here doesn't react, all of a sudden they are all slamming on their brakes as had as possible. He car has auto-braking collision detection, and it has activated a number of times.

Holy crap. I better pass on that NATO gig, instead of looking after servers in a bunker, I might end up having to be a special adviser in Ukraine?

When I worked for a large car manufacturer, I did visit one of the production lines, but they were never going to pull someone off the line and put me there for a day. That just wouldn't make sense. When I worked in the head office of a car rental company, I did the same introductory training as people working in the rental offices, but I didn't have to go and work in a rental office since it wouldn't give much additional understanding of their job to help me do my job any better.

You do understand that you can gain knowledge of how a company works by reading about it, and maybe visiting and watching, without having to do anything hands on?

I think back when you and I started visiting Slashdot (before accounts existed for me), the draw was reasoned discussion, which was quite often insightful and most of the time the comments were better than the article - why is why we never bothered to read the articles.

It's a shame what it's turned into these days. It's fallen far from what it was, just like Usenet news groups after the eternal September.

Right, so you think calling 911, saying I have a gun and I want to kill myself is a good idea?

I think that Julian guy also has the same feelings.