In the original story, the Grinch has a change of heart and gives Christmas back.

In the current story, The Gingrinch keeps everything he gets his filthy paws on, including the Roast Beast (obviously eating it all himself) then he dumps his wife after she finds out he's been having an affair with little Cindy Lou Who.

Your'e a foul one, Mister Gingrinch... You've got the sunny disposition of a seasick crocodile...

As other posters have said, the not-in-my-backyard effect means any proposal along these lines is dead-on-arrival in the United States for the near-term.

However, in the long-term there is likely going to be a "come to Jesus" moment when Texas turns to desert or California burns to the ground, when even hard-core skeptics will realize something has to give. Then maybe a plan like this would be dusted off and put into practice.

Wasn't it W. Churchill who said "You can trust the Americans to do the right thing after they've exhausted all other possibilities." Maybe we'll pull our heads out but it'll be a long time coming.

Things will have to get desperate, such as the situation in Galena Alaska where remoteness means energy costs are crazy high. As long as the dollar costs of coal extraction are low and there's not an undeniable disaster in progress due to climate change then coal-fired will burn on.

Pre-crime is Philip K Dick as interpreted by Steven Spielberg

Orwell warned about a totalitarian state directing every action and every thought

We are already living in the brave new world Huxley predicted. I'd say we rocketed past Huxley twenty years ago, we are currently Orwellian, and we're one lab-experiment-gone-wrong away from "I Am Legend" (Richard Matheson)

In my perfect libertarian world, whoever gets to the intersection firstest with the mostest guns wins. Stopping or even slowing down would never be mandatory, unless you're one of those bitches driving a Prius.

And shouting "Fire!" in that mythical crowded theatre is okay, but shouting "Firepower!" and following it up with a few rounds into the ceiling is even better.

So Sandeep, since the USA is getting its fear and loathing on, and wouldn't really want you or your talent or your genius or your money because you're a dirty furriner, why don't you fly to Canada and I'll put you and Prakash on a boat headed south off the coast of a country that fears you and mistrusts you?

Just think of all the work you'll get done when you're near America yet completely cut off from distractions like scenery, clubs, fast cars and women and fun. Think of how close you'll be with your shipmates when you're with them day after endless, miserable day. Think of the convenience of getting all of your foods out of a can. Think of those quaint old English nautical customs everyone loves: the rum! and the buggery! and the lash! You do miss the English right? I knew you did!

What's that? You're just going to stay in Canada? Their money's actually worth something? You fucking hate Brits but Canada's not so bad? The Canadians aren't rocketing backwards into totalitarianism and ignorance and incompetence? Well mister, obviously you've never been to Toronto....

The Nook Tablet (unrooted) is slightly more open than the Kindle Fire (unrooted)

Some links:

• side-loading apps to the Nook Tablet
• lightweight comparison
• slightly better comparison

My takeaway is if you have your gold geek card, get the Fire (less money) and root it. If you're less adventuresome, get the Nook for more openness, but get an micro-SD card or you're stuck with only 1GB of free memory.

The only way that makes sense is if you're making assumptions that you aren't enumerating.

If your device failure rate is say 0.5%, then how would that number change based on the number in service?

To answer, perhaps your production facility and/or procedures are known to degrade over time so the failure rate increases. Or perhaps your devices somehow degrade one another, so the more there are in the field the higher the degradation rate. Or perhaps you're speaking of manufacturers and models, so the more manufacturers there are then the more likely it is that incompetent or malicious manufacturers will enter the market.

Whatever your reasoning, it would be nice if you mentioned it, otherwise your statement looks like a noob confusing a quantity with a rate.

Isn't a trillion dollars fairly significant? Therefore the story falls under the "stuff that matters" criteria

If you're so concerned about slashdot, shouldn't you be in their parking lot protesting them? Note that I think that you expressing your outrage somewhat inappropriately is still pretty much okay, which is how I feel about OWS

And finally, there are many successful countries that directly fund higher education, in other words not forcing college grads to become slaves to loans. Just because America does a bad job of funding its own future does not mean that we have a good system, which is I believe the thrust of your "argument"

i agree with the spirit of what you're saying, what we have, loosely, is fascism

however, Romney does not have a good chance, his chances approach zero. if the economy is rebounding around election time, it'll be Obama. if we're in the middle of the double-dip of recession, it'll be President Rick Perry

unless one happens to be LGBT, or a billionaire, life will get worse at approximately the same rate under either option. not sure if it has any legs, but Perry has been blathering about the "injustice" that half of Americans pay no income tax (due to the fact that their income falls below some minimum, roughly 12K i believe). gotta frakking love that

you see, the problem with poor people is they have it too easy. i see all that blubber walking around and i'm thinking "cheap alternative fuels" on the hoof. our soylent crackers may not come from poor people but soon our electricity will. yee hah!

Unfortunately it is more complicated than that. There is a cartel that controls distribution for movies. The cartel takes the largest share of any revenues. Giving money to the cartel perpetuates the cartel.

My personal take is that I am loathe to give money to the cartel. Sony, for example, stands between me and the people who really made the movie. I can't give the actual creators any money, as much as I appreciate their work, I can only give Sony money and then some insignificant sliver of that goes to the creative types who are really just Sony employees. Should I care that Sony pretends to be the creator and pretends to be hurt by my actions? I don't care about Sony's rights, I'm appalled anyone would think Sony has any rights.

Note that I consider first-runs in theaters to be fair game. They can charge what they want, keep it in the theaters for as long as they want, etcetera. Movie sales as it is currently situated is what I find so appalling. If I pay for a disc I should own it. Even better, I should pay for a file download and own that, as we now have for music.

Contrast the current movie situation with books. If a book is new and I want it, I pay for it. I do this because I appreciate an author's work and my money pays them for that work and encourages them to do more. A fair percentage of what I give Amazon will really get to the author, so I feel like my actions matter in this case. I'm also fairly persuaded that money for music is more fairly distributed and the "product" is now no longer crippled with DRM. I'd be thrilled if they ever did that for books, it's really the only sticky point for giving money to Amazon.

If the movie cartel would pretend to care about the current social contract and renegotiate it with me and every other consumer, I'd play along. What's a fair price to own a movie? Let's find out. Let's have a market and see what happens. And if I knew there was percentage of my money going to writers, directors, perhaps even actors, I'd be more willing to part with cash. If I owned the "product" I was paying for I'd be happier. What the cartel is actually doing is what cartels always do: thump chests, hurt random people with lawsuits, pay for governments (especially USA) to strong-arm anyone they consider a threat, etcetera.

Fuck them.

Shouldn't that be "paint African-American roofs white?"

You'd think our first black president would know better

That's a retcon for a saying from the future. This Netflix price increase is so heinous that it will be remembered for a thousand years, so that in the year 3011 when Gilbex says to Nanfred "GlarbCorp just Netflix-raised the price of nanobutter" it'll be make perfect sense when Nanfred replies "GlarbCorp're smegging smegged-up smeggers!"

Meh, not so much. Last time I looked every profession was under attack. Labor in general is under attack. Any task that cannot be performed by a machine, for whatever reason, is being redefined, outsourced, minimalized, etcetera. Even real professions, like doctors, engineers, teachers, lawyers. And I bet you just thought "wait, teaching isn't a profession" which goes to show how much that profession has been destroyed.

Who in management thinks of coders as being in some sort of profession? The coders are overpriced employees who are a constant drain on profit; they must be minimalized or eliminated somehow, that's the mindset. Sure I'm generalizing but not many of us get to work for enlightened management, most of us have a mortgage to pay and when the person who can easily replace us asks us to adopt a particular goal, we do.