Fair enough... but that's still only after you've gotten where you were going. Yes it has it's other uses. When was the last time you thought, "Ohhh, I'll take the car with me so I have somewhere to sleep" as opposed to "So I can get there." The same can't be said for a wallet. Sometimes you DO just take it with you because it has your ID/license in there. I do think there are is a fundamental difference there. Until they come with a way of authenticating virtual IDs (Yes, that's a government issued ID on your phone, you can go in/rent tool/buy gun...) I think the wallet will still be around. They are getting there though. Card Star is pretty close as long as it doesn't have to represent you so much as a particular account.

Yeah, I get the impression that whoever did this article is just pissed that they don't have a female Master Chief model for the main game. Note: You can play as a female character model in the multiplayer. There are plenty of games that are catering to women (uhhh Gears of all games is putting in female playable characters into the story). Just because women aren't in EVERY game doesn't mean they're being ignored. ESPECIALLY since I'm not sure people want to see women getting shot at, maimed, killed, and whatever else. I'll be honest, it was a very unnerving sensation at first to chainsaw through Anya in Gears 3 and it's something I've done to locust and gears alike many times.

I don't really follow your argument. You compare gambling itself to handing an alcoholic a beer and then you went off on a tangent about the State Lotto. I don't really see the connection between any of these things unless it is that you meant to say that private gambling should be legal/taxable and the government lotteries should disappear since you can get the same income from private gambling. If that's the case then I totally agree. Government Lotteries are wrong. Private gambling should be allowed and possibly be taxed (I'm fine with it but legalizing gambling is a bigger point I think). Same with alcohol and cigarettes. The government shouldn't endorse any of these but should allow them.

Better way of thinking of it: Would you rather have a program that's been deemed "flawless" with no support or a program that may or may not be flawless but has a good support team?

Flawless programs don't exist. By the time a piece of code has reached perfection, it has already become so old that it's security is moot and defeatable by a teenage girl with an iphone.

The problem doesn't just sit with the fact that attention is a limited resource and that giving attention to underachievers detracts from over achievers... You have to consider what all this SAYS to the brilliant. You are telling some kids that you aren't good enough and telling the others you're too good. When you try to normalize one half of the spectrum you are going to normalize the other too. Kids who are smart aren't just being deprived of direction, they're being deprived of the motivation to do something. So far it appears the research on kids show that you need to help motivate them for quite a bit and this doesn't change until they are probably 15 or 16. If properly motivated up until that point, they generally become self-motivating and will actually become hindered if you try to motivate them because their self-efficacy is trivialized.