nearly reduces me to tears every time I hear someone (usually in management) use it as if it were this incredibly smart, promising strategic solution God Particle in the Cloud, accessed via Ultrabook so as to avoid Advanced Persistent Threats and to enhance synergy.

Social media? As opposed to what-- Antisocial media? Animal Media? Oh, of course, Plant Media.

The problem with your suggestions (e.g. transaction taxes) is that financial markets are not limited to America. If there's an American tax on HFT, that will only cause ibanks to move their HFT operations to friendlier countries. If they can't do it profitably in Chicago, they'll go do it in Tokyo, London, or Shanghai, etc.

Bottom line, without highly enforceable legislation on a *global* scale, you will be hard pressed to end HFT. It's eerily similar to the nuclear proliferation issue, actually. We have the technology to blow humanity to dust, and despite its evils, the tech is too powerful to be forgotten/thrown away unless there's enforceable global legislation.

Or that they might think that field X is where the money's at, but upon graduating, the job market in field X has become insanely competitive because everyone else 2-4 years before them also had the idea to pursue work in field X.

Case in point: finance. Back when I started college ('06), finance was the way to be. Sure, banking wasn't what it was in the 80's, but the industry had recovered significantly since the early 00's and there appeared to be no end in sight to growth. I remember reading statistics that over 50% of people in my business school majored in finance. How could 50% of kids in a top-25 ugrad business school be wrong? As an 18 year old, how was I supposed to predict that the demise of the financial services industry would occur during my 4 years in college? But that's what happened.

I've heard that the same thing is now happening in nursing. I imagine the same will soon happen to accounting, medicine, and law, if it has not already begun. You may claim to be an "open-minded" "smart" liberal arts student, but if you're like most people, when it comes down to getting serious about a career path, you are incredibly close-minded, and you probably only consider going into 5-6 professions, while ignoring all other possibilities.

...you can sure as hell vote, die for your country, get tried as an adult, and make a huge decision (i.e. where to attend college + what to study in college) that will affect you for the rest of your life!

I delved deep into the heart of reddit and slashdot, amazon and best buy reviews, various PC manufacturers' help forums, complaint forums, tech review websites, and even youtube. I slithered past reviews citing unexplainable ear-splitting whiny noises, dick-melting fan heat, and horrendous customer support. I viewed so much marketing bullcrap from the likes of Dell and HP that my eyes nearly fell out of my skull.

I did this in search of The One: the laptop I knew I would grow to depend on for constant usage 12-15 hours per day for the next 3-5 years, the laptop that would meet all of my insane expectations like good customer support, a manufacturer that employs engineers who have their heads on straight, and steep technical requirements that I thought would be impossible to find. I needed a laptop with a 250+GB hard drive, a 2.0+ghz processor, 2+GB RAM, plus no-bull-crap, honest, actual, reportedly GOOD battery life, a 13"+ screen, AND here's the kicker. It had to weigh less than 4 pounds AND be under $800.

Netbooks and tablets were too small, too weak. All the well-known laptops like Dells and HP's were cheap but too heavy, their battery life ephemeral at best, and their small hard drives loaded with bloatware.

You can all thank God that I did not give up then and there.

I now hold in my hands The One. The best bang-for-your-buck laptop on the market today. I'll be god damned if you can find a better deal.

I chose to buy a Toshiba Portege R705-P35 for $700 flat.

It has a 13.3" screen, which is kind of small, but still big enough to do some serious reading on it. It's a very small price to pay for:

• - 7.5 honest hours of reading mode (i.e. minimum screen brightness, no wifi, optical drive turned off-- yes you can easily do that on this laptop) and 5.5 honest hours of work mode (i.e. watching videos, screen on decent brightness, saving spreadsheets and docs, web surfing)
• - 2.4ghz i3 processor, a 500GB hard drive, and 4GB of RAM, capable of handling all but the most ridiculously intensive office tasks
• - a laptop that my withering, weakened body can easily hold and walk around with, using just ONE hand. It weighs in at just 3.2 lbs, which is only 0.3 lbs more than a 13" Macbook Air (and it is only 0.25" thicker than a 13" Macbook Air)

Even better, in 2009, Toshiba was ranked #2 by Squaretrade in terms of lowest laptop malfunction rates after 3 years. My R705 looks and feels solid. I'll admit it doesn't feel as nice as a Macbook Air, but considering that I saved over $500 vs a less well-equipped Macbook Air and didn't bend to Steve Jobs' will, it's good enough. Also, the R705 comes with an optical drive (take THAT, Macbook Air).

TLDR: I love my Toshiba Portege R705-P35 and would kill anyone who comes near it with bad intentions.