Patents, or at least software patents, idiotic patents (rectangle with round corners, really ?). Or maybe the idiotic artificial construct that make corporations people (or is it a person). Or maybe just patent corporations.

There is a difference between speech based in hate, and rational discussion.

I dunno.

Absolutes make lousy edge-cases.

In anything like this, it is about balance. Dealing in absolutes is of no benefit. The basic human right to freedom of expression is not unlimited; it is not absolute. Society must place limits. However, those limits must err on the side of offending the most easily offended, as opposed to not offending anyone.

It is no different than the burden of proof in that we must err on the side of finding "not guilty" a few guilty people in order to ensure we do not find any innocent person guilty.

I cannot and will not support unrestricted freedom of expression, for it is the nature of mankind to abuse that freedom beyond what rational people would consider acceptable to the detriment of our society.

Does that assume that we need to set limits? Yes. Well who decides those limits? Sadly, with democracies, that would mean the majority of voters. But on the positive side, most civilized countries have legal systems to balance the desires of the elected officials to prevent the tyranny of the majority (or the tyranny of popular thought).

NASA is using Twitter for information dissemination ? Uggh.

Carriers have been replaced. Now its Supercarriers and Titans. Carriers and dreadnoughts have had their roles reduced to ship transports and structure shoots.

"the last I checked, they were individuals entitled to pursue happiness in any way that suited them" Indeed they are. My. Nye's warning was against assuming parents know best for their children. Parents do not know best for their child. This has been proven time and time again. If there was a test for becoming a proper parent (other than the practical) their would be a whole lot of folks with some unlearning to do. The greatest danger to the human race are parents. And yes, I am a parent. And I am aware that I am far from a perfect one.

I can see how they determine joint location, my question is whether or not the joint type selection is automatic. I.e. The knees didn't appear to be pure ball joints, but more like pinned joints. the tail and neck were obviously pure ball allowing multi-axis rotation, but the knees looked like single axis joints.

Was there something in that post that pointed to hypocrisy, if so I cannot find it. While he was well know to have his own peculiarities, his position clearly stating that religious beliefs should be between a person and their chosen god(s) and that the religious beliefs of others were not his concern, doesn't appear to be contradicted by his behaviour.

At least Jefferson would have placed no restriction on you voicing both your (apparently) religious opinion and your open disagreement with the poster.

Thankfully, not in the US.

Perhaps 'youth' may have been the incorrect term to use; 'recent graduate' may have been better. Its not often (but not unheard of) that you see a recent graduate that is not a "youth" from my perspective (anyone under 30 is still a 'youth' to me).

Here, we've had a shortage of finding folks with the right education and some experience. We've had terrible experience hiring intermediate or senior folks into the company as it surprising how in our business (engineering consulting) how corporate environment can determine how well folks fit in. Our solution to all our hiring, has been to focus on finding youth with appropriate technical skills, hiring those who additionally had strong communication skills, and providing them continued skill development in both technical and communication while giving them the business skills they weren't given at school. The hiring and interviews are done by the project managers who need the staff themselves. Its long term thinking, not short term. Being employee-owned (and broad based ownership at that) we can afford to take the long term view. We have generally very low staff turnover (less than 5%) in any year, including retirements. Almost half our staff have at least 15 years with us. For us, it seems to be the logical way forward.

The Airborne Series (Airborne, Skybreaker, Starclimber) by Kenneth Opel. Award winning series set in an alternate Edwardian time, where airplanes don't exist, but airships rule the skies. 2nd book is my favorite.

Can you expect to walk to your fridge without incident? generally yes.
But if someone tells your wife that the floor isn't safe and she tells you to go ahead anyway, does this change your argument ?

Can you expect to drive 50 miles without incident? generally yes but quite often (this mornings commute) no.
If the radio news says road conditions are dangerous and you go ahead anyway, does this change your argument ?

Can you expect to achieve orbit, the shuttle must accelerate from zero to a speed of almost 28,968 kilometers per hour (18,000 miles per hour), a speed nine times as fast as the average rifle bullet. without incident ever? no you cannot.

When your technical teams break out of normal behavior to clamor for delay to for technical reasons indicating why failure risk is unusually higher than normal or when points of failure are identified, but not mitigated for whatever bureaucratic reasons then you have failed. Failed. FAILED. People died, not because of known risks taken, but by negligence of their superiors. There is no forgiveness, no release from this kind of failure.

My son takes allergy treatment medications. When we were away from home, some of his medications were damaged (bottle opened and contents got wet) so we had to get an emergency refill. The local pharmacist used a generic version of the drug. My son reacted badly to the generic drug (in fact, is allergic to the generic version of his allergy meds). It was a very long night/day after that. Now we have a constant fight with our regular pharmacy whenever they try to replace the drug with that generic version. Our drug policy does not require generic substitution, nor does the pharmacy officially require it. They have ignored the physician's requirement on the prescription for the name brand on multiple occasions. Obviously, this is not a normal situation, but I have a very difficult time when a pharmacist overrides a specific physician's instructions in order to save somebody some money.