Similarly, when I was in my high school physics class, there were some things we did our "Physics Olympics" competition that wouldn't fly today. This was only 15 years ago, but in a small, rural, midwestern town.

Just offhand, I remember building a Rube-Goldberg machine comprising (among other things) a very sharp hatchet, a butane torch, and a large mercury thermometer.

Another project had a goal of flinging a tennis ball the farthest; my partner's father worked in a metal shop / foundry and we built a compressed air cannon involving 1/4" steel pipe and some rather impressive pressures.

While we were talking about gears, pulleys, etc, I assembled a rudimentary cranked Gatling gun - about 12 inches tall, out of Technic lego, copper tubing, spring steel, etc -- that could fling BBs a distance of around 30 feet.

However, even then we could see the changes coming. While I was in school, the new school board decided that students who took both wood and metal shop were no longer allowed to make crossbows. It was a tradition going back at least 40 years; some of the kids with good artistic skills carved beautiful stocks. Of course, there aren't even wood or metal shop classes now.

All of my teachers have since retired and there's a completely new administration now. Last year a student was suspended for having a kitchen knife - in her car - which she had brought to cut a birthday cake. The school board backed down from an outright expulsion. Sad, stupid times.

True, it's a proper name, not a common word, but I've always liked this:

In Sparkill buried lies that man of mark
Who brought the Obelisk to Central Park,
Redoubtable Commander H.H. Gorringe,
Whose name supplies the long-sought rhyme for “orange.”

-- Arthur Guiterman

I wish I could find the reference, but an article I read not too long ago noted that a single fully-deployed modern nuclear-powered supercarrier (including logistcal support like AWACS, etc) stationed in the middle of the US eastern seaboard had an effective zone of control that stretched from Halifax to Havana. That's just impressive, and a good reason the navies would like to keep them around as a symbol of power.

Battleships became obsolete because they were designed only for surface-to-surface combat and bombardment, and were vulnerable from above (and below). I suspect aircraft carriers are more adaptable; among other things, nascent computer-guided railguns (large and small) will probably help against future incoming ballistic dangers.

Am I the only one whose first knee-jerk thought was, "Wow, that's great! And from now on, I use nothing but cash!"

What's wrong with a simple asymmetric encryption system keyed to a particular cellphone, to be activated at checkout?

GPS-revealing apps already weird me out -- along with peoples' obliviousness to personal safety and/or security -- but automatically promulgating your name and photo to the store you enter quite exceeds creepy. At least this service is optional...for now.

Merriam-Webster:
First known use of PREDOMINATELY: 1594

Even if its used predominantly in America, it's a good bet predominately didn't originate here.
"To predominate" is a verb, "predominant" is an adjective. At some point in time, someone built an adjective off of the verb.

My favorite bit of vestigial English preserved in the colonies -- especially in the midwest -- is "gotten."
And it's not a colloquialism; it's used in formal American English.
"What have you gotten?" (obtained) vs. "What have you got?" (possession)

(There's actually another Americanism in a sentence above. We typically say "off of" while the British say simply "off.")

I have a peculiar temperament when it comes to sleep. I can't nap, for example - and I mean ever. My mother has told me that from the time she brought me home from the hospital, I slept completely though the night and never, ever took a nap during the day. (I also think that's why she never tried for another child -- she'd had it too good with me!)

I've tried (and failed) to nap occasionally over my 30 odd years; even once when I was up for 57 hours and dead-on-my-feet tired, I couldn't fall asleep until it was after dark.

On the other hand, I don't seem to experience jet-lag. I've changed -3 to +7 timezones on numerous occasions and my body slides lock-step into the new schedule within one day. Interesting tradeoff. Extended travel can be gruesome if you can't even doze, but the schedule-adaptability is nice.

My sleep patterns seem to fly in the face of those recent biphasic sleep articles floating around. I theorize that I just have a particularly light-sensitive pituitary / circadian rhythm -- I certainly need full-on darkness to rest well and bright light is as energizing as coffee -- but that's just guesswork.

I kind of love those days I start early - say, 5am - for some project, and by the time 9am or so rolls around, I realize I've accomplished more than twice as much as I typically do in a whole day.

My favorite part of the day is the stillness in the hour before dawn. I'm an early-morning person stuck in a morning-hater's world; I'd do my own thing, but it places me entirely out of synch with friends and family. (What really ends up happening is that I burn the candle at both ends. Blech.)

Heck, "On the Beach" was required reading for my junior English class back in high school.

>>Dial-up internet? 20 years ago? 1992?

I can speak for the Cleveland Free-net having free, public, dial-up internet access as of 1989. (I used it occasionally in 1991-92.) Several local BBSes also had internet gateways, which might be a dedicated ISDN line to a university computer center or even just a periodic uplink.

Are you inadvertently blending the Internet with the World Wide Web? The two terms have basically merged in common parlance, if not for the tech community. Prior to Mosaic's release at the end of '92 / beginning of '93, the hypertext web wasn't particularly popular yet, and was dwarfed by protocols like gopher and ftp. (Boy did that quickly change!)

Man that brings back memories. I remember my waiting for my favorite BBS's weekly uplink to FidoNet, when "electronic mail" was exchanged. And being jealous when my neighbor got World Wide Web access, which Prodigy started offering around 1994, iirc.

I think Terry Pratchett noted that shifting a single letter changes this sentence, but does not terribly change the meaning:

Straight as an arrow
Straight as a narrow

Fun.

Just yesterday I actually had someone tell me to enter my "personal PIN number ID" for a university copying machine. That's enough to make one's head explode.

And I once had a wedding invitation that said "Please respond to RSVP promptly."

Who's more pro-science - republicans or democrats?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7Q8UvJ1wvk

That's the parties, mind you. You can still have the ridiculous fringe pundits; Santorum is most certainly one of those and it scares me the type of people who openly maneuver within the republican party these days.

Personally, I find the democrats disgusting and/or out of their minds...yet end up voting for them sometimes because the republican party is lost and floundering. Where the hell has the party gone? Surely not where I'd care to follow. I'm conservative* and spiritual, but not one iota religious; separation of church and state is what I hold sacrosanct.

*I'd prefer "progressive" in the Teddy Roosevelt sense, but that's yet another term that has been corrupted and co-opted to mean "bad."

The bulbs I have are 5000K, sitting in the nice "daylight" slot in terms of color temperature, and also have a CRI of 90, which is pretty good for fluorescent. They're probably not full-spectrum, granted, but they suffice.

  Halogens are nice, but as you mentioned, they tend to get really, really hot. My work space (upstairs) has seven-foot ceilings and can get pretty stuff as it is :-)

>>You only need the Visa if you plan on working there. The passport's enough for a visit.

Not quite. You do need some kind of Visa to enter a country of which you're not a citizen. There are many different types of Visas. Some countries -- most of Western Europe, for example -- have entered into a treaty with the USA that allows for a Visa waiver (up to 90 days, typically) for recreational travelers. Conversely, a non-treaty foreigner or someone wishing to stay longer would apply for a US B-1 visa for business, or a B-2 visa for recreation, valid for 6 months. When you fill out and sign that little landing card on your airplane before touch down, you've just filled out the paperwork for your Visa waiver (assuming you don't have another sort of Visa.)

My funniest experience was landing in central Mexico to study for the summer, back in college. Before I could say anything, the immigration official endorsed my passport for 30 days. I told him, Oh no!, I was going to be here for 75 days. So he scratched his head, shrugged, and wrote another zero down, giving me 300 days. Not sure that would work, but hey...