>> people DO make it big without luck, i.e. I don't think Steve Jobs / Bill Gates were
>> as lucky as people on American Idol,

You should read the book Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. His thesis is that people make it to extraordinary levels often by virtue of having had extraordinary chances that others haven't had. For example, as a very young man Bill Gates had opportunities to get computer time that were available to very few others at his age. That's a very relevant kind of "luck" - a contributing circumstance provided by others, that he would not have been able to provide for himself.

>> What an idiot. He just says "MySpace falls first, Facebook falls second"
>> without even attempting an analysis into why MySpace fell to Facebook.

Or AOL, for that matter. I just went MySpace.com (owned by News Corp., remember), and was immediately struck by how many ads were being smacked in my face. Then I brought up Facebook: no ads. Kind of reminds me of the difference between Yahoo! search and Google search a few years ago.

Seriously. Almost nobody commenting here even took five seconds to even think about what was actually being discussed. It's all just knee-jerk "jack boots are coming" nonsense.

"Internet ID for Americans" - Article title FAIL. This has nothing to do with a government identity of any sort. Nor is it a singular identity, credential, or technology. It's for use in commerce - you know, like OpenID? - but actually standardized so that companies will actually widely accept it. That's why the first sentence of the linked article, the whole point of the news of it, is that the Commerce department would head the effort, not Homeland Security. (Declan McCullagh, I like you, but you should be ashamed.) From the article: "This is not about a national identity card." From these comments: "It's a national identity card!"

"Single point of failure" - Reading comprehension FAIL. The published strategy talks about setting up an identity trust ecosystem where individuals set up any number of identities and credentials, of their own choosing, possibly using different technologies of use as they see fit. Much like the SSL cert ecosystem today provides a means of merchant identification, without there either being a single point of failure or sinister government control.

"Trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist" - Reality-check FAIL. I just don't know what planet you're from. If you're saying that identity theft on the Internet isn't a major concern, then you're seriously misinformed. It costs our economy millions, if not billions, in lost productivity and fraud. That's a valid government concern - making sure that economic activity can take place safely and thrive.

For frack's sake, the same people who were screaming about how Microsoft Passport was a bad idea (and it was, because it was monopoly-controlled) are now saying the free market should solve the problem. Or, you know, that there's actually no problem at all. No wonder it's so hard to get anything done in this country.

Having a national strategy to push towards building a real trust infrastructure is a GOOD idea. Reduces costs, reduces redundancy and waste, IMPROVES security on the Web. Trust infrastructure GOOD. Psycho spasmodic knee-jerk Fox-News "Govmint bad" reactions with no forethought BAD.

All *federal* credit unions are insured by NCUA's share insurance fund. Not all states required state-chartered credit unions to be insured in the same way, though many are, and most are insured in at least some way. It's pretty easy to tell if it's a federal credit union - it usually has the words "federal credit union" (or initials FCU) in the title.

In metric weeks, that's Tuesday.

Fox News.

From Hodgman's speech (paraphrasing):

"Some of you may take issue with my saying he is a nerd, since at the beginning I mentioned him being a geek.

You will say, 'there is a difference between a geek and a nerd.' To you I say: Shut up, Nerds!"

So life gave you lemons? Use a microplane or grater to collect the zest; then juice them. Put the juice and the zest into a large plastic zip-lock bag, along with a teaspoon of salt and at least a teaspoon of (preferably fresh-ground) black pepper. Add some fresh parsley finely chopped if you have it. Dump in some boneless chicken breasts, seal the bag, shake around, and place in fridge for at least a day. Then take out and grill on low until done. Best... chicken... ever. The zest puts it over the top.

Never say no to lemons.

>> How the hell are you supposed to pronounce that bizarre word, anyway?

I had the same though. It's either DESERT-ih-fih-KAY-shun, which... I dunno, just sounds wrong... Or, it's deh-ZERT-ih-fih-KAH-shun, but I think that would be spelled Dessertification - which is the transformation of food stuffs into dessert. Example:

"Overproduction of high fructose corn syrup by Big Food is responsible for the dessertification of American food, and Americans' resulting embiggenment."

I grew up in Birmingham, Alabama.

I think it's a lot like that.

indeed.

>>The last images of the robots we see on the
>>widescreen TV's perfect demonstrate George
>>Santayana's most famous quote: those who cannot
>>remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

Which is about the only thing I didn't like about the finale - the idea that the colonists would have chosen, consciously, to throw away all history and all the lessons they had learned by deliberately hiding their past from their descendants.

After all they had been through, that seems like the dumbest thing they could possibly have done, and you would think they would know that. They spent the entire series trying to figure out what the hell had happened in their past, and how the cycle was repeating; so the best they can come up with to break the cycle is to forget it all again?! I don't think so.

That said, the characterization in the last episode was great, and there really was a sense of closure. But undercutting the main lesson of the whole series at the very last second was seriously weak.