You are correct. The idea is simply that if you ask for things you typically get them, they are not necessarily given without prompting. Visiting a store that sells the Surface might reveal this information rather quickly.

We might as well open up the doors to our houses so passersby can help themselves to a cold glass of water while we're at it.

In my high school we had to make powerpoint presentations in a shop class about ______ subject, which was completely worthless. If you give a class a few raspberry pis, some breadboards, a manual, and minimal instruction, you can bet you'll see creativity at its best. Show an example of how its used, and some practical tools and by the end of a course some kid will have programmed lights for the theater class' play. It could be a failure, but it could be a lot of fun. Kids like to have some creative time and so do I, even at nearly 30 years of age. Which would you rather have: a) read this article over and over until our 40 minutes have expired; b) find out how to install program x, and give me a 'hello world' program?

The government could waste that money on inefficiencies and heat as a result of spinning its wheels. At least the Raspberry Pi Organization has created something people want.

Do you mean inversely proportional? I think that would complete this comment.

Should McDonald's tell you exactly what is in their burgers when we buy them or should we have the foresight to look up nutrition facts before buying?

Department of redundancy department.

They are also similar in the fact that they live in buildings and both have heads but nobody is complaining about that.

India is allowed a space program because they are not belligerent, starving millions of their own citizens for the perpetuation of their regime. If you show yourself to have good intentions and play by international rules then things generally go well. If you prove to be untrustworthy, how can any request be taken seriously? No one really believes they have peaceful intentions by perfecting their rockets. They never say what they mean.

USA should probably read US government. The rest, however, I could not agree with you more.

It is likely going to be powered by the blood of unknowingly consenting minors and 50 somethings.

I know this might sound absurd, but if we care about the environment and want to make a statement to the world, how about we offer some sort of assistance (not necessarily financial) to Beijing to put them on the right track? All of our complaining and pointing fingers and we don't even care about the lives at stake. They have a problem, we should help them make it better however we can. It's lives as stake here!

Well, they are about as useless off-campus as my thrown away bank documents that anyone with a decent brain could turn into money. People have been concerned about this same issue for years with passports--it just takes one terrorist to find out there's an 'american' in the room by scanning... and, well, you know the end of the story.

Without a doubt Spanish and Portuguese (Brazilian) will get you a lot of options. Learning Spanish will make Portuguese a breeze and I have found a wealth of documentation in Portuguese for the development that I do. Spanish is also very useful so it will be a good investment--you can go anywhere and hear it and have the opportunity to speak it. Even if you do not get very far it will still improve your quality of life in the states and your vacations in the Americas. It's so very practical. I'm learning Korean after learning Spanish and am still so very glad to have learned Spanish. Korean will consume the rest of my life and is only useful for a small percentage of the world's population... however, my wife speaks it. Anyone that says you can learn Spanish overnight if you have to has obviously never learned to speak well, nor learned the intricacies of the Subjunctive or Preterite. I worked at a law firm as an interpreter and an interviewee came in and said that he would 'brush up' on his Spanish to help him get the job and I laughed to myself... How are you going to 'brush up' on what takes years to learn to speak competently in a Spanish speaking country? I will brush up on being a surgeon but might remove the wrong body part. People! Have fun with it... and don't make it all about grammar.

I wonder if they would protest the deaths of their own people? For example, as a result of their repeated insults to innocent people one of them suffered from a 'heart attack'... do you suppose they would say it was God's wrath?