It doesn't matter if there's someone manning the switch because that person will have been trained to flip that switch and presumably wouldn't be able to tell if it's a practice or real. Otherwise, what's the point? So it may as well be automated.

Here's my take on this. I had an unusual upbringing. My parents were one of those laissez faire types who essentially let me do whatever I wanted as a kid. I could come and go as I pleased, go to bed whenever I wanted, go wherever I wanted, etc.

And gosh, did I ever go places I shouldn't have, and get into trouble, and found myself in danger all the time, including a run in with a pedophile.

But I learned to think my way out of trouble, to be self-sufficient, to problem-solve and, more importantly, not to rely on anyone but myself.

When I see kids these days I'm not sure they're exposed to enough danger to make them think rather than freak out or panic when it happens. And I see this watch as having the potential to give them a false sense of security. I think it actually helps to know people don't know where you are and can't find you if you're in danger, that you'll be a little more cautious knowing this. Don't depend on momma to get you out of trouble.

Yeah, think of most managers at any corporation. I suspect there's more of these sorts than we like to think.

Someone was just telling me about a documentary they saw where they took a group of kids with ADHD, put them on treadmills and made them raise their heart rates to a certain point for a certain length of time each morning. The result was that the ADHD practically disappeared and the students were much more mentally active and focused on their studies for the rest of the day. I wonder if this is what's behind the heart monitors here.

My interpretation of the Libertarian position is that they value privacy and individualism. Or at least they used to. They don't like the government having anything to do with them. They don't have a "contract" with the government. Similarly, why would they be ok with corporations having their private info without their consent?

I actually think folks who watch TV and movies ARE chumps. I stopped ages ago, you should too. What will it take to get the majority of people to stop? Sometimes I think people will take ANYTHING up the ass and say thank you too.

Commodore 64's, Vic 20's and TRS80's are still functioning...tape drives intact. And what the heck was that gold plated disc they sent up with Vger, wherever it is? Oh, and stone tablets are still going pretty strong too.

I think I know what's going on here.

I used to take a Chinatown streetcar and was always amazed at how the Chinese, at least in this town, had no sense of getting in line or lining up. The streetcar came, they just rushed the thing from all directions. Nobody waited in lines. I thought it was a cultural thing.

Could it simply be that by placing an obstacle near the doorway they forced people to actually line up, thereby proving that lining up actually helps?

The paramilitaries (police) defy the courts, take control of critical infrastructure as part of their "investigation" into vaguely-hinted-at obscure misdeeds, exclude civilian oversight, claiming civilians are part of it. Repeat across the country. Voila, police forces answerable to nobody, able to do whatever they want. Sounds familiar...don't these militaristic types do this all the time?

I really miss the days of true and realistic strategy games like Harpoon and pure turn based strategic games like V for Victory. Perhaps with the exception of Hearts of Iron, I don't think these games have been mimicked since. Real time tactical and FPS games basically dominate everything.

How does she know who the undercover cops are? Seems to me they must be doing a terrible job if she's able to figure this stuff out.

This reminds me of a story I read as a kid, of a teenager in Paris who was arrested and jailed for watching an unmarked Gestapo building from a cafe across the street.

This has nothing to do with gender, I find it's perfectly true for most people who talk about their problems, male or female, regardless of their relationship to you. A lot of people don't seem to be interested in solutions. They seem to get irritated if you solve their problems or suggest solutons. The more solutions you suggest, the more they'll invent some bullshit reason for rejecting your solutions - this thereby extends the conversation to such a point that you're reduced to just nodding and expressing fake sympathy, hoping they'll go away. More, by then you'll have lost your respect for them, since they obviously want to create a problem out of nothing, which can't be solved by anyone, and just want to whine about it for the sake of whining about it.

Now, when someone says this is the "secret" to a happy marriage, namely nodding and pretending to empathize rather than suggesting solutions, I say no, it's not. If you have to come up with a rule such as this, there is no underlying foundation of respect in the marriage. In fact, I think you just obliquely called your wife some kind of idiot...

I've never had to "just talk, not problem solve" with my girlfriend of 20 years.

Does this mean that soon sociopathy or psychopathy will be listed as a handicap? And...and...how do you make something more accessible to psychopaths? I can just see it now...W3C WAI recommendations to accomodate narcissism. A mirror in the top right corner? Nicknames and avatars? Oh wait a minute...

Seriously, though, I think most of the world satisfies the DSM definition of psycho/sociopath. Does that mean most of the world is brain damaged? Something is not right with this finding.

However, it's my belief that ultimately, there is no real choice. We are a product of our biology, genetics, epi-genetics, and experiences.We make choices based on the combination of these factors, and if it were, in fact, possible to account for all the minute variables in these factors, our decisions could be predicted in virtually every case.

The more science news I read, the more firm this conclusion, and this is no exception.

What you might not understand is that much science is based on the assumption that every effect must have a direct cause. In other words, the scientific method, and scientific thought, tends to assume a deterministic world view. That world view seeks to reproduce causes and effects through experiments that are self-validating.

Mind, I think there are branches of science such as physics that deal with random and/or uncaused events or are fully aware of how the experimenter influences the experiment. I'm not sure psychology has advanced to that point yet. Psychology seems pretty much locked on the old-style deterministic and logical positivism thing.

If I encrypt my data, and I like apples, and I can now use this new technique to determine that 20 other people like apples too, don't I have an essential piece of information I can use to decrypt the encrypted data of those 20 other people?