Ah! That is a statement with which I agree completely. Although given his audience had he used anything normal to his generation, the target of his remarks would have been completely confused. They don't understand even their 'own' culture, let alone anyone else's. In fact I'm not sure they understand anything except the bizarre notions that pass for 'truth' among them.

Bullshit---that fact that idiots and assholes misquote and miss-characterize a work of literature has nothing to do with the literature. Your assumption that it does is right in there with their misuse. Now if this was meant in jest, your hints as to such use are really hard to see---use darker ink next time...

restraint of trade? Could someone more sec/lawyered up than I explain this to me?

The second is already true as well as obvious. The first is a stretch on the second in that kids who don't really give a damn in the first place may use the existence of such tech as an excuse to skip checking up on the old folks at home. Truth of the matter is that either the kids care or they don't---such additions to the scene won't make much of a difference. Frankly, when the time came I was much more comfortable visiting my mother at home in surroundings that we were both 'comfortable' in; so anything that contributes to that would be a good thing in my experience.

You treat teachers like shit? Given the Union Busting (they don't call it that, still might upset the voters) going on in places like Wisconsin and Idaho (probably more that I don't know about) and the general 'teachers are the ones costing us all the money' attitude root of the current propaganda going out from every mouth, the chances of eventually having more engineers seem very slim indeed. Even in the bad old days of one school house for all grades per section, we respected the ones doing the 'hard' work. Might have begrudged the lack of an additional hand or two, but that wasn't the teachers fault. And at harvest time everyone was on call anyway. Now? Now we have idiots who complain about 3 month vacations and having easy jobs, and...and... The ignorance of the public would be no problem if it weren't for the ignorance of the politicians (who are not only ignorant, but stupid enough to think what they are doing will somehow make thing better) Think about this (for those old enough) at one point the typical grade school had two people whose job was not full time teaching. The Principle and his secretary. And in most cases the Principle taught a class or two. These days even a grade school has an enormous pyramid of time and money wasting 'Administrators' at the top. Are they at risk? Of course not---they are busy bad-mouthing the teachers and supporting the politicians who are the real problem. More engineers? Pigs will fly bearing ice-water before that happens again in this country.

They listen because his ideas and opinions while contentious as hell have affected the world we all live in for the better. He has made numerous contributions both philosophical as well as material. You on the other hand haven't done a god-damn thing. Gee---tough choice listen to Richard or you...

To damn bad Microsoft didn't pay attention to you when they cloned _________ (fill in the blank on the product of your choice) obviously all of these were failures. Your abysmal ignorance of the history of software evolution over the last 3 decades is rather remarkable----definitely worthy of the +5insightful, oh yes indeedy!

Oh the data is perfectly safe; you aren't though...

In reality we went the way we did because Ted's way was too hard. Not because the way chosen was better. You also sound as though he just arrived on the scene--- he didn't; read the damn article and look the guy up on Google before you demonstrate what a blithering idiot you are. You might also look at your own damn sig line and think of it as a mirror...

I keep telling people with a cough that if they would just stop breathing, the problem would go away--- but they never listen!

Breathing is a crime punishable by death. You breath and at some point you die--- without benefit of judge, jury or trial...

Guys in black gave John Campbell editor of Analog magazine a friendly visit over an editorial he wrote predicting the technology--- were made to go away happy when he showed the existing public information that he had gotten the info from--- just saying...

In order for this to happen, "...Steve Ballmer and crew are a long way from completely erasing their poor reputation in Linux and open source circles." Steve and crew would have to be in the same universe with the open source community--- not going to happen. His philosophy (or what passes for one) and that of the community are completely, COMPLETELY, antithetical to each other. Don't know if there is a 'law', but a compromise between assholes and good people can only result in the good people becoming less good...

Citation please--- show me where Northrup has done anything that can be construed as an attack on freedom of speech.

Will when the time comes--- there by gaining the time to scrape together some funds as I am likewise broke. Hit both the age ceiling and the experience ceiling so have been unemployed for some time now. At the moment words are all I have...