I see no reason why a political system buried in a rigid partisan structure (and profiting immensely from it) will EVER help the country embrace non-partisanship. That means no set of laws and no Constitutional amendment. The QUICKEST way to break the bonds of two-party partisanship is to create more political parties! I used to look down on multi-party political systems as chaotic and weak. I'm sure some are. Even so, if you have three large-ish parties, two medium-sized parties and three or four splinters, NOW you have to go hunting for votes from whoever to pass a bill. Your friends on the last bill could be your enemies on the next. THIS encourages dynamic thinking and the willingness to try new ways to solve old problems. If you can dilute and thus defang the two American political parties, suddenly every proposal must be able to "stand on" its own without partisan enforcers.

I suppose you have to give Facebook credit for being honest about slanting the "news". Spoon-feeding people news from sources they are comfortable with is exactly the WRONG thing to do if your goal is informed, enlightened subscribers. Facebook's goal SHOULD be to provide the best balance it's algorithms can generate of opposing, or at least differently slanted, versions of the same news story or topic. That way if you're a lefty you can read the news versions you like but you might elect to read how the right is reporting the same story (and vice versa of course). Facebook can still do some version of the "trust" thing to cull relatively unreliable news sources across the political spectrum. Making it easier for people to consider points of view other than their own is a much more worthy goal than just automatically parroting any one version of "truth".

The last three Amazon purchases I've had scheduled for delivery to a home in the Sarasota FL area were sent via "AMZL_US". NONE of them were delivered on time. The tracking information was, compared to what I've come to expect from FedEx and UPS, vague and useless. For the last of the three packages I paid extra for expedited delivery, which didn't seem to matter as it didn't come when promised. I cancelled my order and did the unthinkable -- I drove two miles to Home Deport and bought it there! I am generally a total Amazonaholic for shopping but if they remain unreliable I'll have to find alternatives, and I will. That's how markets work, right?

I've set up Android tablets for a number of family members and friends who had limited technological prowess, had very limited goals for what they wanted to be able to do and/or were intimidated by the interface and operation of a tablet. In each case the first thing I do is to replace the stock launcher with something that's more easily customizable. For tablets running Android 4,x I use Nova Launcher. For tablets running 2.x (which won't run Nova) I use Holo Launcher. I use these launchers because you can vary icon size, font size and other visual elements. Then I delete every home screen except one blank one. I disable the "dock" too, just for the sake of simplicity. I set up ONE home screen with a grid of maybe 3 columns by 5 rows, and I make my icons and fonts as large as I can that will still display clearly within that grid size (it's easy to see when you've made things too big). For anyone who finds the interface hard to read I'll go into Settings/Accessibility and make text larger (this setting changes ALL text, including on the display screens and in most apps). I custom build the home screen to fit the needs of my user but a generic example would probably have Dolphin Browser (basic operations like bookmarks are very intuitive), Gmail, theScore or ESPN for sports fans, Google Play Store, maybe YouTube. If they have certain web sites that they want to be sure they can get to I'll put an icon on the home screen that goes directly to those sites. Maybe they'd want the Kindle app, or Facebook, or Google Maps, maybe Calendar or Contacts, but I try to err on the side of simplicity for novice users. I'll drop on a Google Search widget and a Clock/Weather widget that looks colorful and I'll set a nice background photo that looks good but doesn't make things harder to read. In a lower corner I'll add an icon for Apps (having eliminated the Dock) and an icon for Settings. We're talking about tablets but if I was setting up a smartphone I'd have the essential call/text/camera icons on that lowest row as well. I'll spend some time with my novice user going over the layout and functions, make changes as needed and then "lock" the home screen so they can't accidentally delete something. What I deliver to my user is a device that has easy access to ONLY what he/she says is needed (the Apps icon will always get you everything else). I want the user to feel as though they can master the functions they have and become comfortable with the interface (novice smartphone/tablet users often have never used a touch screen or swiped to navigate). As they become more familiar and more confident they, or I if needed, can effortlessly expand the displays and uses. A new user who feels comfortable and confident will use the device and, in time, likely want to learn more. A new user who feels intimidated and lost will get frustrated quickly and stuff the thing in a drawer.

Actually, if you nose around a little the site details the fate of all four previous attempts. In text it says that 1 and 2 were quickly lost due to mechanical problems or miscalculations. For 3 and 4 it actually shows on a map how far they had progressed before last contact. A different shot of the same map shows TAM 5 reaching its destination. All in all, a very cool project -- a substantial goal accomplished through ingenuity and persistence. Thanks /. for tipping us to the TAM project.