I'm not sure what you are proposing exactly, but it doesn't come across as very convincing.

Are you suggesting that medical insurance should cover its cost? What about people who are convinced by homeopathy 'doctors' to go for their treatment instead of traditional medicine, don't get better and then come back to regular medicine when they are feeling worse and cost everyone else extra premiums?

Or worse, what about all the people who die because they relied on homeopathy instead of traditional medicine which you know have chemicals and stuff which actual cause useful reactions in your body?

[I know someone here will be tempted to quote Darwinian selection just about now, to them I'd like to suggest performing an honest appraisal of their ancestry and come to terms with the fact that many of them have believed far dumber things and the fact that they are alive right now to read this response is just luck. Also there is no guarantee that your kid won't be one of those homeopathy loons, would you want her to rely on something this mindbogglingly dumb as her treatment of choice?

There is enough stupidity in the world already, let us not add more to it. I for one welcome this unusual outbreak of intelligence from governments.

Well said.

There's an underlying completionist fetish to this whole failure argument.

After all, it is perfectly normal for professors to suggest certain chapters in a text book for reading and traditional students are not considered failures just because they didn't read the entire book. The same thing now happens with MOOCs. You watch what is of interest to you and skip the rest and more importantly, you do it all at your own time!

And yes, this medium is not suited for all of us, some prefer a more structured environment and some more immersion, but that still leaves a substantial percentage of people for whom this method works.

Like the parent poster above, I have benefited immensely from these courses, even though I haven't finished a single one. I'm grateful this method of teaching exist and for people who don't like this way of teaching, all I have to say is that no one's forcing you to study this way, do what's best for you, just don't assume that everyone's like you and has the kind of resources available in money and time to go the traditional route.

Not really. The idea of six degrees of separation is based on acquaintance and not on genetic relations. E.g. think of China under the one child policy, if it continues, then each passing generation will lose a subsequent degree of cousins. The first cousins would disappear first, then second, third, fourth and so on, but six degrees of separation will still apply to them.

Yup. Also, in case you are seriously ill or dead, it is unlikely that you are taking this poll leading to a bias of its own. It is like asking people if they are enjoying life, most people would say yes, because the ones who really don't have probably already committed suicide.

Yup. Also, in case you are seriously ill or dead, it is unlikely that you are taking this poll leading to a bias of its own. It is like asking people if they are enjoying life, most people would say yes, because the ones who REALLY were not have probably already committed suicide.

I think the right approach is to set XP to run at maximum performance when on battery. That'll ensure you get better battery life on Linux than Win XP.