I guess if you play Skyrim, or COD, or any other PC game you are considered part of the "geek community" because those are the only people left who care about the desktop platform.

Forget Photoshop, video production, music production, graphic arts, development, writing, etc etc, we're just the geek community and we better get on board with a tablet because the desktop needs to be put "6ft under" according to our friend.

I wonder if he thinks all those marvelous apps on his phone were created on an iPad.

Hold them accountable for the damage the virus does, up to and including loss of human life.

Yes, the board, the shareholders and all C-level management should be held liable, personally.

When you weigh the number of problems that would be solved immediately if the principals in a corporation were held personally liable against the benefits to society to having principals be protected from liability behind a corporate shield, I think it would be pretty clear the personal liability should exist.

There would still be people willing to take the risk, since the rewards are great, but at least they'd have to give half a second to the consequences of their actions.

What the lab did was to sequence the genome and then (oooh evil) expect to get paid for that work

Fine, so pay them for their work.

Find out what the researchers and lab techs were being paid hourly, add up the amount of time they spent, add 10% for a reasonable profit and cut them a check.

They're already amortizing the equipment, so maybe kick in another 1 percent for the cost of electricity and space for the lab. Find out how much of the work was done at publicly-funded institutions and send the Dutch lab a bill for that.

Patents for gene sequences should not exist. They're going to cause problems far in excess of their value to society.

Time to put it 6ft underground.

This was the giveaway.

What do you care if there are still people who would rather use a desktop PC that's not behind a garden wall and actually get work done? Why do you insist that the PC platform has to be killed off? Isn't there room in the world for more than one set of computing needs?

This notion, that only the most popular form of anything should exist pops up strangely often around here. The iPad is phenomenal, so Android tablets should just disappear from the market. The iPhone is popular so no Windows phones can be allowed. That sort of thing.

Friend, I can understand that you'd rather work on a tablet and have someone else make decisions about what you can and cannot have, what you can and cannot do, but why in the world are you so insistent that no one else be able to make their own choice?

I don't get you.

. It only works because Germany's industrial base is a world leader and makes enough to keep the socialist redistribution (barely) afloat.

So, you're saying that Germany's economic, industrial and social success is proof of the failure of democratic socialism?

Uh-huh.

I oat to smack you.

Don't be so bulghur.

Because they're a dumb idea until we have a much better battery technology

Smartphones used to be a "dumb idea" until better battery technology came along. Certainly tablets were a dumb idea.

The Apple Newton was a dumb idea until better battery technology came along but I bet the same people who get whipped into a fury at every mention of an electric car were creaming themselves over the Apple Newton.

Because many of those 'alternative energy' technologies are scams

Did I mention that Texas is getting better than 22% of it's electricity from wind turbines? Do you know how much of Germany's electricity comes from solar? Germany is a lot more cloudy than the US.

Only in the US do you hear the "Alternative Energy is a Scam!!" routine. I wonder why.

They're all self reported, to start with.

Remember back in October when they were saying the same thing about the electoral polls? "They can't be right because they're only talking to some people"? Stuff like that.

The metrics of social measurement and demographics have gotten really really good. The companies that do this stuff have refined their techniques to an amazing extent.

Even NPR, which typically

NPR is a source for conventional wisdom, nothing more. It's no less corporate than the other networks, just more genteel. In parts of the country, NPR is as pro-gun as Fox or the Fox Street Journal.

But if, as you say, the statistics are inconclusive, then at best we're probably looking at pretty flat gun ownership. I believe about 90% of the gun news we hear is marketing for the arms manufacturers who are looking at a somewhat saturated market. Thus the notion that someone who buys a gun for protection really needs several guns (as a gun owner myself, I see the magazines and read the articles/PR-stuff) That's why they're starting to market their products to 5 year-olds in the form of "The Cricket - Your First Gun" which has already cost a few toddlers their lives.

A very ugly business that makes the US the laughing-stock of the world.

Also, they can build biomass digesters near the windfarms to convert all the eagles, condors, and migratory birds being chopped up into even more clean energy.

They don't have to. They can use all the birds, fish and crabs that were killed in the gulf oil spill. Better than just letting them rot on the beaches all across the gulf coast.

and the charging station is probably being powered by a 40 year old coal powered power station which is actually less efficient than an internal combustion engine in the first place,

Funny, I was just reading this a little while ago:

"âoeAt the time of the latest record, wind generation accounted for 22 percent of the power demand of 34,318 MWâ¦Wind farms expanded rapidly in Texas until 2009 when production began to overwhelm the existing transmission capacityâ¦Texas is building more than 2,300 miles (3,700 km) of high-voltage transmission in a $6.5 billion plan to expand the grid by late 2013 to accommodate wind-farm growth of up to 18,500 MW" - Reuters.

Maybe those 40 year-old coal plants won't be needed too much longer. I imagine getting 18,500MW without burning or consuming anything at all is pretty efficient.

with 4 to 10 stalls and the charge time, there's a good chance that people are going to be stuck waiting once they get a lot more of these on the road like I hope they do.

When they get a lot more of them on the road, there will be more charging stations.

That's how this stuff works. When there's a need, somebody will step up.

I am sick and tired about all this "flying car in every garage" public relations dreck.

Can someone tell me why a readership that embraces every speculative technology suddenly gets downright angry about the very thought of an electric car? Or for that matter any mention of energy produced by any alternative means?

Why does it make you so damn mad?

Now we're changing it again. First it's "bludgeoning" then it's knives.

The reason deaths are low is because trauma care is so much better.

A more illuminating statistic is the number of people hit by bullets. That number is up by >30% over the same period that you cite.

Interesting that you cite Politifact. Do you know that today a study was published where Politifact evaluated the statements of Republicans and Democrats and found that Republican elected officials were three times more likely to lie? We're talking about your Politifact here, so it must be true, right?

I know, you don't believe me:

http://www.mediaite.com/online/politifact-says-republicans-lie-three-times-more-often-than-democrats-according-to-new-study/

also there's a distinct possibility that poll respondents lied to the pollers about having guns

Right. That's always the answer: "The statistics are wrong".

If you'd looked a little closer, you'd have found that the research regarding gun ownership was done by a Swiss organization that does work for the gun industry.

First, the argument was, "There can't be a decline because guns are flying off the shelves". But when a gun "flies off the shelves it becomes part of the statistics used to measure gun ownership".

...due to tyrannical fascists

Yep, you're one of the "Statistics are wrong" guys.

Funny how none of the laws being proposed would have stopped the Newtown shooter from stealing guns from someone

If guns are the ultimate form of security, why are they stolen so often? I bet everyone whose guns have been stolen bought those guns for security.

Maybe an alarm would have been a better idea. Better yet, a dog to guard the guns (the ones that don't seem to be so good at security).