There are some atheists who don't care whether bible-style gods exist or not, because they consider such gods contemptible and unworthy of worship or even consideration.

Why in the world do you expect that lawmakers will be beholden to the laws they make?

It's a reasonable expectation in an unreasonable world.

Sorry, it's more important that we kill each other than understand our place in the universe. Have a good day.

Understanding our place in the universe doesn't cost billions of dollars. Just open the bible!

/satire
(not serious)

Either 0 or 1, depending on what I'm doing. Usually 0 but occasionally 1.

Protip: Always write to a singular audience. If you want to pluralize the audience, use first-person ("How many of us...?").

Please stop feeding Apple's "we invented everything!" hubris. This is just a computer attached to a monitor, which is an obvious combination that has been around since there have been computers small enough to attach to monitors.

If it costs us a mere 1-2% of our GDP each year to prevent that change, over the course of 100 years that adds up: Current World GDP (About 64 Trillion USD) * 1.02 ^ 100 = $ 460 Trillion Dollars

wat

That does not add up.

Try 0.01 * $64T * 100 = $64T. Or $128T for 2%.

Last time I flew international (trans-Pacific) the luggage allowance was something like 50 kg per person. If you don't have a lot of other crap you could easily take a boxed monitor as your second "bag" and be well under the allowance. I saw lots of people with big boxes at check-in.

Holy crap, you just dumped a few million more people into the pool of unemployed, while reducing unemployment benefits. The economy will not adjust gracefully to that kind of drastic, sudden change. Can you say, "Great Depression II"?

Damn, beat me to it. Because when someone says, "beautiful and magical and immersed you in fantastical, peaceful and enjoyable landscape," Pong is definitely the first image that pops into my mind.

Never heard of Usenet, eh? Newb.

You're referring to whom, exactly? The office furniture? The potted plants? The alien crystaline entities?

The future ain't what it used to be ... But then again, it never was.

A felony conviction amongst other things would invalidate them from public service ever again.

[citation needed]

Here's a counter-citation for you:

"As a result, according to the Congressional Research Service, committing a crime cannot constitutionally disqualify someone from serving in Congress. And the state has no say in determining whether or not someone is qualified to serve in the House or Senate:

"... Once a person meets the three constitutional qualifications of age, citizenship and inhabitancy in the State when elected, that person, if duly elected, is constitutionally âoequalifiedâ to serve in Congress, even if a convicted felon."

Or are you proposing a Constitutional amendment to prohibit felons from public service?

The NY ACLU is only suing them over the database. Not the practice.

And all the public angst and hand-wringing seems to be about the "racial profiling" aspect, as if this crap would be A-OK if only they did it to white people too.

A true WTF.

The more paranoid among you are probably preparing a rant about how this is $BIG_EVIL_CONGLOMERATE's wet dream, and something something 1984 something something DRM something from my cold dead hands. But that's not the case. Even *if* you posit a dystopian future where the $BEC controls everything, there will *still* be PCs, because *someone* will still have to produce data. They may become much less common, but a PC, or a PC-functional device, *will* be necessary.

In the post-PC dystopia, content will be produced only by $BEC and its licensees, on expensive workstations taxed and regulated by sprawling government agencies. Naturally developers and their equipment must be registered and tracked, with frequent inspections and audits -- these people and tools are capable of creating VIRUSES!!! and doing PIRACY!!! TERRORISM!!!