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Paint your wall with magnetic paint, wallpaper over it.

http://www.amazon.com/Rustoleum-223081-Rust-Oleum-Magnetic-Primer/dp/B000PU1D3I

Paint your walls with two coats of this primer, and paint into the electrical boxes to where you can ground it. I used under wallpaper speaker wire that is just a stick thin copper foil, I ran a 3" strip out the electrical box connected to the ground, painted over it.

Wifi and cellular coverage in that room is completely lost when the door is closed (which is also painted) and I have aluminum storm windows and aluminum screens on the windows.

Made a huge difference to RF interference to my ham shack. the number of "birdies" from crap in the home went down to nothing so I could pull in signals that were closer to the noise floor a lot easier.

If you haven't read Taleb's book, The Black Swan, you might consider doing so. Aside from the much hyped theory of improbable events he talks about how he has dealt with the insane diarrheal flow of information that this world tends to create. Mostly by ignoring the little things (ie. what passes for news these days).

Don't read the blogs (oops), the news sites, the advertisements. Don't watch TV. Mostly read real stuff / think and just glance at headlines now and again.

The headlines will of course indicate the international situation was desperate, as usual. Take a walk outside.

Cheaper and better than any printer you can buy.

Probably cheaper, but I disagree with "better". Try a dye-sublimation like this one:
http://www.amazon.com/Canon-SELPHY-Compact-Printer-4350B001/dp/B003YL412A/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1336553811&sr=8-1

Now I can't personally vouch for the $70 Canon, I have a $200 Sony Dpp that's traditionally hard to find, but dyesub in general is 100x better than inkjet and the quality is on par with whatever you get printed in stores.

Upside is when I only need 1 picture, it's there.

And obviously it's all-but-impossible to replicate the 3D experience with a pirate copy

You need better cables.

A very good read about this is Good Germs, Bad Germs

So, something like this?

As I remain polite, I have either refuted your assertion that my post was trollish or the assertion that trolls don't get polite. If you need a longer explanation try reading this book: http://www.amazon.com/The-Big-Bang-Never-Happened/dp/067974049X
It is heavily referenced, and much more evidence disproving the Big Bang has appeared since it was written. I don't feel strongly enough to fight about it, but I'm always up for some reasoned discourse. It doesn't have to be polite, so long as it does not confuse a good insult with a good argument. I made a good argument and it has not been addressed.

Many of the design patterns documented by the gang of four came from the smalltalk community.

I don't think I've ever run across a shop using Smalltalk in production code. Also Lisp has been pretty scarce outside of academia for the past 10-15 years or so.

I just channeled a message for F69631, you have spiritually grown past all this now and need to go get your own Tarrot Deck $15, quit hassling the spiritual women and grow up, they are not your personal shrink, and they hate it when you smoke their shit up.

http://www.amazon.com/Giant-Rider-Waite-Tarot-Arthur-Edward/dp/tags-on-product/0880794747

Candles are available at your supermarket
Check weedmaps for your smoke
One extra Item.... A mirror.

Next time you want a tarrot session, you can look in the mirror and reflect on just how fucked up your own life has become. When you finally cry. Then you can layout your Tarrot deck to ask your own questions cast your own deck. Trust me when I say it's for your betterment.

If you feel this message has spiritually awaken you, and you want one final spiritual awaken, the great juju. just sell your house, and donate liberally to Sakawa Boyz in Ghana.

(sark all the way)

For kitchen use with dirty, germy, sticky hands, get a stylus for the touchscreen. These are cheap and work just as well as the more expensive ones. http://www.amazon.com/Capacitive-Cellphone-Motorola-BlackBerry-AMM0101US/dp/B0053NBLFW/ref=pd_cp_pc_0

With a little luck, somebody will eventually come up with a way to interface one of Sony's old control sticks to an Android phone & configure it for both Android & App control. They rocked, because once you learned how it worked, you could literally control almost everything with one hand by feel alone.

That's the #1 Ultimate Universal Suck of touchscreens - you have to actively look at them and focus most of your attention on using them. There's a lot to be said for controls that you can grab & manipulate 'blind' :-)

For those who've never seen the control I'm talking about: http://www.amazon.com/RM-X5S-Mobile-ROTARY-COMMANDER-Control/dp/B000WWNIDM/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1336265895&sr=8-1-fkmr0

that the result will be similar to those in the user images for this product:

http://www.amazon.com/Wheelmate-Laptop-Steering-Wheel-Desk/dp/B000IZGIA8

It seems to be #7 on Amazon best sellers.

http://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Cell-Phones-Accessories-Service-Plans/zgbs/wireless/2407747011/ref=zg_bs_nav_cps_1_cps

#7 isn't bad for a phone which nobody wants.

The magnets are also great to scavenge as they'll put a magnetic charge on your screwdrivers you wouldn't believe. But it is nice to see someone get what I'm talking about because once your data is backed up those drives are "free" so any uses you find for them are just gravy.

One of the things I like to do with mine is after giving them a good testing slap them in a cheap external case and make portadrives out of them. External drive enclosures can be had for around $5 and paired with something you may not have heard of called an Nbox or Nbox HD which paired with those free drives and cheap enclosures make kick ass media tanks for your less skilled friends or relatives. Like for example I loaded one up for dad with his favorite genres of movies, or if you have a relative with kids give them one loaded with kid shows and watch how you are looked upon as a god among men.

In the end as long as your data is backed up spending hundreds on drives when you have a "free" source is frankly stupid. Better to find good uses in them like a home made NAS, media tanks, portadrives, just use your imagination.

The magnets are also great to scavenge as they'll put a magnetic charge on your screwdrivers you wouldn't believe. But it is nice to see someone get what I'm talking about because once your data is backed up those drives are "free" so any uses you find for them are just gravy.

One of the things I like to do with mine is after giving them a good testing slap them in a cheap external case and make portadrives out of them. External drive enclosures can be had for around $5 and paired with something you may not have heard of called an Nbox or Nbox HD which paired with those free drives and cheap enclosures make kick ass media tanks for your less skilled friends or relatives. Like for example I loaded one up for dad with his favorite genres of movies, or if you have a relative with kids give them one loaded with kid shows and watch how you are looked upon as a god among men.

In the end as long as your data is backed up spending hundreds on drives when you have a "free" source is frankly stupid. Better to find good uses in them like a home made NAS, media tanks, portadrives, just use your imagination.

What trouble in sourcing a screwdriver? You can buy one here for $5. And there are others that are easily found with 5 seconds of Amazon searching.

Shit, better hide this from unauthorized repair facilities!

Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland is fun. Maybe when he gets a bit older, Nausicaa is one of the best "comics" of all time.

http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Little-Nemo-Slumberland-Vol/dp/0930193636/
http://www.amazon.com/Nausicaa-Valley-Wind-Vol-1/dp/1591164087/

Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland is fun. Maybe when he gets a bit older, Nausicaa is one of the best "comics" of all time.

http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Little-Nemo-Slumberland-Vol/dp/0930193636/
http://www.amazon.com/Nausicaa-Valley-Wind-Vol-1/dp/1591164087/

Mainstream comics have been geared to an older audiance for quite a while now (there are some, but few), but If you walk into a Book store there's a bunch of "my first books" involoving various heros, such as "My First Superman Book" and a personal favorite of mine is "The Complete Calvin and Hobbes" .

Mainstream comics have been geared to an older audiance for quite a while now (there are some, but few), but If you walk into a Book store there's a bunch of "my first books" involoving various heros, such as "My First Superman Book" and a personal favorite of mine is "The Complete Calvin and Hobbes" .

Owly is a comic targeted at that age group. Wonderful stories about nature and friendship, and no words.

OK, your kid(s) might still be a bit too young, but in not too many years they should be ready for the Cartoon Guide to (the History of the Universe | Genetics | Chemistry | etc. etc.)
http://www.amazon.com/Cartoon-History-Universe-Vol-Pt-1/dp/0385265204

Hell, I learned more history from that trilogy than I did most of High School. Probably because they skip through most of the sexy parts.

My other favorite as a kid were The Way Things Work by David Macaulay.
http://www.amazon.com/The-New-Way-Things-Work/dp/0395938473

And yeah, I second someone else's suggestion of TinTin, since it's nearly universal, and the hero is mostly an ordinary young guy with no real special powers, which I young impressionable mind could strive to become.

OK, your kid(s) might still be a bit too young, but in not too many years they should be ready for the Cartoon Guide to (the History of the Universe | Genetics | Chemistry | etc. etc.)
http://www.amazon.com/Cartoon-History-Universe-Vol-Pt-1/dp/0385265204

Hell, I learned more history from that trilogy than I did most of High School. Probably because they skip through most of the sexy parts.

My other favorite as a kid were The Way Things Work by David Macaulay.
http://www.amazon.com/The-New-Way-Things-Work/dp/0395938473

And yeah, I second someone else's suggestion of TinTin, since it's nearly universal, and the hero is mostly an ordinary young guy with no real special powers, which I young impressionable mind could strive to become.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0785117393/ref=redir_mdp_mobile/192-8007827-5027916 This is Marvel adventures spiderman. All of these stories are all ages appropriate remakes of classic spidey stories.

Marvel adventures: spiderman. All ages comic book featuring spiderman. I am planning to purchase this for my girlfriends nephew who is scared of spiderman. Similar age to the ops son. Cheap on amazon http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0785117393/ref=redir_mdp_mobile/192-8007827-5027916

As some people have said (amidst all the trolls deliberately recommending age-inappropriate comics), modern comics are aimed at either teens, or adults who used to read comics when they were a kid. There's just about no comic book that's actually intended for children.

Since he likes Spider-Man anyway, Marvel has been reprinting Spider-Man starting at the beginning, and those were suitable for 1960's kids.

Essential Spider-Man #1 ($20 for over 500 pages, but in black and white)

Paperback Spider-Man Masterworks #1 (272 pages, in color): should be $20, for some reason it is overpriced on Amazon--try a book store)

As some people have said (amidst all the trolls deliberately recommending age-inappropriate comics), modern comics are aimed at either teens, or adults who used to read comics when they were a kid. There's just about no comic book that's actually intended for children.

Since he likes Spider-Man anyway, Marvel has been reprinting Spider-Man starting at the beginning, and those were suitable for 1960's kids.

Essential Spider-Man #1 ($20 for over 500 pages, but in black and white)

Paperback Spider-Man Masterworks #1 (272 pages, in color): should be $20, for some reason it is overpriced on Amazon--try a book store)

I work with people every day that have no job to do. I'm not talking about the typical "I'm the backbone of the company and without me they'd sink" attitude that so many people have. I mean they literally sit and play solitaire all day. They aren't doing bad work, because they don't have any to do.

I have no idea where you work. I too work with people who literally play solitaire all day and once in a while get up to see how it's going. They're managers and I''ve learned to shuffle my feet on the way to their cube b/c they really hate being caught out with that little card game on their screen...

But I have a different experience than you. The way it works at my company, you're golden if you have allies at the top and otherwise you're expendable. They've fired the BEST developers we had b/c those developers looked crosseyed to Mr Well Connected and believe me when I say the firing was just a matter of crossing the Ts and dotting the Is - a mere formality, based on a falsifiexd evaluation of not even their work product but their "communication ability" or some such shit.

So that's my data point. If you want a view with more gravitas and a wider range of experience from someone in HR who did the firing , then I heartily recommend the now classic book Corporate Confidential http://www.amazon.com/Corporate-Confidential-Secrets-Company-Know/dp/0312337361 where the author buttresses everything I just said.

Firing is no problem in the US even if you're a minority and even if you're over 40. They're not the least bit intimidated by the law, nor are they going to allow themselves to become dependent on a performer so don't even think of trying to obtain job security through excelling - they just see that as you trying to top them from the bottom, and it pisses them off.

. Learn how to be liked by people who no one would describe as other than cretinous, or be fired. Really.

I suggest you dig up reprint volumes of classic Silver Age comics. The original Spiderman stories, the original Iron Man stories, etc.

In those days, the comics were striving to not violate the "comics code" and they contained very little death, no actual swear words, and generally had a lighter tone than modern comics.

These days, comics are marketed toward teen males; horrible things happen as the comics strive for edginess, and language can be coarse.

So, I would read classic comics to a 3-year-old, but with modern comics I would carefully vet each issue before reading it. This could be a problem if he gets interested in a storyline and then the next comic comes out and it's horrific! The classic Stan Lee scripts from the 60's are all pretty suitable for a 3-year-old.

As someone noted, even in classic Spiderman, Peter Parker's uncle is killed... but that's really it for the death. Spiderman fights the Sandman, Doctor Octopus, the Vulture, the Green Goblin, etc. etc. without anyone being seriously hurt.

Try him on classic Doctor Strange! The original Stan Lee comics of course.

Hmm, I just checked Amazon and it seems that the search phrase to use is "Marvel Masterworks". Here's a link to the first volume of classic Spiderman:

http://www.amazon.com/Amazing-Spider-Man-Vol-Marvel-Masterworks/dp/0785136932

P.S. Bless you for this project. I know this isn't a superhero comic like you asked, but may I suggest that you read this book to your son? This was the first science fiction book I ever read, and it still has an important place in my heart. It's out of print, but trust me, it's worth finding a used copy and buying it. It's probably worth it to buy a hardcover; the mass-market paperback was printed on very cheap paper that is turning brown these days. The story: a family has been living on Ganymede, but will now move to Earth. But shipping is expensive, so they plan to sell their robot and leave the robot behind. Hating to leave the robot, the boy runs away; the boy and the robot have adventures as they try to get to Earth together. It's a tale of adventure and loyalty and love, absolutely a good story for a 3-year-old. The title: The Runaway Robot by Lester Del Rey.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Runaway-Robot-Lester-Del/dp/B000DZDQD0

steveha

I suggest you dig up reprint volumes of classic Silver Age comics. The original Spiderman stories, the original Iron Man stories, etc.

In those days, the comics were striving to not violate the "comics code" and they contained very little death, no actual swear words, and generally had a lighter tone than modern comics.

These days, comics are marketed toward teen males; horrible things happen as the comics strive for edginess, and language can be coarse.

So, I would read classic comics to a 3-year-old, but with modern comics I would carefully vet each issue before reading it. This could be a problem if he gets interested in a storyline and then the next comic comes out and it's horrific! The classic Stan Lee scripts from the 60's are all pretty suitable for a 3-year-old.

As someone noted, even in classic Spiderman, Peter Parker's uncle is killed... but that's really it for the death. Spiderman fights the Sandman, Doctor Octopus, the Vulture, the Green Goblin, etc. etc. without anyone being seriously hurt.

Try him on classic Doctor Strange! The original Stan Lee comics of course.

Hmm, I just checked Amazon and it seems that the search phrase to use is "Marvel Masterworks". Here's a link to the first volume of classic Spiderman:

http://www.amazon.com/Amazing-Spider-Man-Vol-Marvel-Masterworks/dp/0785136932

P.S. Bless you for this project. I know this isn't a superhero comic like you asked, but may I suggest that you read this book to your son? This was the first science fiction book I ever read, and it still has an important place in my heart. It's out of print, but trust me, it's worth finding a used copy and buying it. It's probably worth it to buy a hardcover; the mass-market paperback was printed on very cheap paper that is turning brown these days. The story: a family has been living on Ganymede, but will now move to Earth. But shipping is expensive, so they plan to sell their robot and leave the robot behind. Hating to leave the robot, the boy runs away; the boy and the robot have adventures as they try to get to Earth together. It's a tale of adventure and loyalty and love, absolutely a good story for a 3-year-old. The title: The Runaway Robot by Lester Del Rey.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Runaway-Robot-Lester-Del/dp/B000DZDQD0

steveha

Shazam! The Monster Society of Evil. http://www.amazon.com/Shazam-The-Monster-Society-Evil/dp/1401209742/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1336001988&sr=8-1/ For kids of all ages.

Paging override can be done simply enough at the output end with amplifiers that have an input override. This is not limited to particularly expensive amplifiers -- the one I use every day has this ability and cost less than $100. Certainly they're going to want more than 50W/channel (except perhaps where the speakers are more or less right next to the people), but the point is that this provision exists in a lot of off-the-shelf equipment and its primary purpose is to provide a paging override in commercial installations.

The one glitch is that it requires a certain level to activate the relay to switch inputs, meaning that it can clip a fraction of a second. The easy fix is to have the paging system send a slight DC bias (or a short tone, which you know will be dropped at the output due to the relay lag) whenever the Talk button is pressed. That way the relays on the amplifiers will switch inputs BEFORE the person doing the paging starts talking. The same glitch means that the paging system does have to have low noise levels when NOT active, or the relays will stick on the Paging side, or (worse yet) bounce frequently between the two states.

Scan reveal Ötzi asshole who no respected bro?

Funny, but based on a "Flintstones" understanding of neolithic humans. Recent research suggests hunter-gatherers generally have and had little concept of monogamy as we know it. Check out Sex at Dawn: http://www.amazon.com/Sex-Dawn-Stray-Modern-Relationships/dp/0061707813/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1335976553&sr=8-1

You're looking for this book: Merchants of Doubt by Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway. It was not so much the PR companies as the scientists themselves.

http://www.amazon.com/Merchants-Doubt-Handful-Scientists-Obscured/dp/1596916109

Never made it out of my intend to read pile...but hey, I only need 30-35 more years out of this rock and then I don't care what happens to it...

yes go and read http://www.amazon.com/Team-Rivals-Political-Abraham-Lincoln/dp/0684824906 its sad to see how far the GOP has fallen taken over by the "Nutters" to use a Scottish political term.

And not when you're competing with $29.99 and that gets you the physical DVDs...

http://www.amazon.com/Breaking-Bad-Complete-Fourth-Season/dp/B0058YPG1G

Jeff Bezos has figured out how to get people to do this for free.

Here here on avoiding the wall mount rack. I didn't run quite as many cables as this poster but I did run 2xCAT6, 2xCAT3 and 2xCOAX to each location.

In the basement I hung a piece of 2'x4' x 3/4" plywood on the wall with some cement screws and then got a surface mount CAT6 12 port punch block. A 8 way coax splitter with terminator caps. A signal amplifier and a small unmanaged gigabit switch. I haven't actually terminated the phone lines as I don't have "land line" phones anyway. I just ran the CAT3 since I was already in the walls. To hold up a "server" (purpose built PC) I bought (from a big box home improvement store) a set of "heavy duty" adjustable shelf brackets and 2x9" deep shelf.

My motivation for going all "PC" grade stuff was that I did not want the power consumption of enterprise/datacenter class equipment. My "server" has a 300W PSU in it which is enough to drive the CPU, Mobo, drives and a few other accessories but it should be operating at about 80% capacity which is where most PSUs run most efficient. As for the switch I just bought a little 8port d-link gigabit switch which uses a 5v 1.0A wall wart. My next endevor is to plug each device in to a Kill-A-Watt to how much power each actually uses.

"Server" specs:
Mobo: Gigabyte GA-Z68X-UD3H-B3
CPU: i5-2500k (No OC)
RAM: 16G DDR3
HDD: 4x (1x Samsung 7200.12, 3x Samsung 7200.11) (Had to RMA one of my 7200.11s and got a 7200.12 as replacement.)

Links (for references, not endorsements)
Cat6 12 port punch block: http://www.amazon.com/Tripp-Lite-N250-012-Mount-Feedthrough/dp/B000HZES42
8 Way Splitter: http://www.amazon.com/Philips-PH61046-8-WAY-Cable-Splitter/dp/B0009A3IXW
Terminator Caps http://www.computercablestore.com/Coaxial_Termination_Cap_catID3984.aspx

My 2c.
-Alan

Here here on avoiding the wall mount rack. I didn't run quite as many cables as this poster but I did run 2xCAT6, 2xCAT3 and 2xCOAX to each location.

In the basement I hung a piece of 2'x4' x 3/4" plywood on the wall with some cement screws and then got a surface mount CAT6 12 port punch block. A 8 way coax splitter with terminator caps. A signal amplifier and a small unmanaged gigabit switch. I haven't actually terminated the phone lines as I don't have "land line" phones anyway. I just ran the CAT3 since I was already in the walls. To hold up a "server" (purpose built PC) I bought (from a big box home improvement store) a set of "heavy duty" adjustable shelf brackets and 2x9" deep shelf.

My motivation for going all "PC" grade stuff was that I did not want the power consumption of enterprise/datacenter class equipment. My "server" has a 300W PSU in it which is enough to drive the CPU, Mobo, drives and a few other accessories but it should be operating at about 80% capacity which is where most PSUs run most efficient. As for the switch I just bought a little 8port d-link gigabit switch which uses a 5v 1.0A wall wart. My next endevor is to plug each device in to a Kill-A-Watt to how much power each actually uses.

"Server" specs:
Mobo: Gigabyte GA-Z68X-UD3H-B3
CPU: i5-2500k (No OC)
RAM: 16G DDR3
HDD: 4x (1x Samsung 7200.12, 3x Samsung 7200.11) (Had to RMA one of my 7200.11s and got a 7200.12 as replacement.)

Links (for references, not endorsements)
Cat6 12 port punch block: http://www.amazon.com/Tripp-Lite-N250-012-Mount-Feedthrough/dp/B000HZES42
8 Way Splitter: http://www.amazon.com/Philips-PH61046-8-WAY-Cable-Splitter/dp/B0009A3IXW
Terminator Caps http://www.computercablestore.com/Coaxial_Termination_Cap_catID3984.aspx

My 2c.
-Alan

At home I have a full 42U server rack, why? Because I bought it from a company that was shutting down for super cheap. If I was in your place, I'd but a half-ish height rolling rack. StarTech (among others) sells them for less than a thousand dollars.

I'd take whatever space you need and at least double it. Give yourself extra space for cable mgmt (because you can), assume you might want an extra server in there someday and don't forget the other gear you might add. Even if it's not rack mount - some UPS will probably be a very wise investment and take up at least a couple U of space (more if you put em on a shelf).

CPUs that by themselves notably cost at least $250 right now?

To get to the Raspberry pi functionality, looking at $350 investment.

You can buy a 3.06GHz i3 for $100 from Amazon right now.

Plus from reading the article, it sounds like the $100 price point is what Intel is planning on targetting with some sort of Core-i series CPU included.

Gates and the entire MS senior staff completely missed it (except for Rob Glaser, who jumped ship and started Real Networks). They thought of networking as LAN Manager running NetBIOS, with email transported point to point with remote sites. Oh, and there were walled garden communities/content providers like AOL, CompuServe, and (in development) MSN.

I remember Gates at the time was giving speeches about the wonders of CD-ROMs with their hundreds of megabytes of information, including rich text (RTF and PostScript), animation and audio/video.

The history is described fairly well in Jim Clark's book, including Clark's unintentional head fake that prompted Gates to commit 500 MS engineers to an abortive interactive TV project (his old employer SGI was sucked in too).

Of course Babbage could have started off on a completely different tack, and succeeded.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B006QMT7FA

The first sentence of this book confuses the Difference Engine with the Analytical Engine - not a great start.

I started my US account in the US, and get apps from the app store as an American (I still have a US credit card and US billing address). That was worth the trouble for the "free app of the day" alone. But I can't get http://www.amazon.com/Playtex-Spill-Proof-Cup-Replacement-Valves/dp/B00005BSAC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1335725470&sr=8-1 shipped out of the US. I have no idea why. They don't sell it here, so I can only assume I'm stuck with one of many things I've found. There exists a franchisee/importer with rights to it who chooses to not sell it, so there's nothing I can do. The US Amazon also refuses to sell me any books electronics or games. I have a US Wii, but can't buy games from Amazon. Books are cheaper from US than UK, but haven't had any of those work, either. In fact, I've never managed to buy a single thing from the US Amazon since moving, but I have bought from the UK Amazon. I think the US Amazon just has tighter controls. They claim they ship internationally, but the 10 times I've tried, they've never accepted the order or shipped me anything.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B006QMT7FA

I'm with you brother! Can you spare dime? If you can I'll see if I can raise another 40 cents so I can call someone how might be able to explain the Unequal Protection afforded artificially incorporated business entities who now hold far greater sway over the U.S. so-called democratic republic than any feudal lord ever held over serfdom.

Since we don't teach European history very well, we may be doomed to reiterate it. Few people seem to remember that the Bill of Rights were the 1st 10 amendments to the Constitution which were the expressed limitations placed on the federal governmental power and authority or that they came out of legitimate concerns about the history of governmental abuse of power. Even fewer stop to realize that at the time, women, slaves and those that did not own 'property' weren't really considered citizen stakeholders.

Actually reading through the BBC story, I feel it's yet another example of the BBC's declining grasp of anything technical. Long term capital management called into question Black-Scholes and demonstrated extreme events in markets, sure. But the elements of the recent crash were also to do with greed, arrogance, mis-selling [of mortgages that were then securitised in un-auditable and therefore un-priceable mixtures] bad-fatih [banks selling both complex derivatives AND insurance for the failure of these complex derivatives] and a general credit-bubble that distorted asset pricing. Michael Lewis' the Big Short: http://www.amazon.com/The-Big-Short-Doomsday-Machine/dp/0393072231 is very good on the detail of this.

Then, because the firewalls between speculation and retail banking had been removed, there was a great deal of general contagion and bank to bank movements froze.

However, one can't conclude that all mathematical pricing is wrong from these two separate events. One can reach conclusions regulation, capital adequacy, firewalls etc/ Above all, if the public is well protected and genuine industry is well protected, these idiots [of which I was one once] can do what they like and then suffer the consequences.

Fannie and Freddie purchased mortgages, but this had nothing to do with the financial collapse because these agencies were backstopped by the US Treasury which was capable of withstanding the losses.

It is the purchase of mortgages by private banks who then went insolvent and thus froze up the lending system that led to the financial collapse.

In addition the quality of loans purchased by Freddie and Fannie were considerably better than those bought by private banks with much higher FICO credit scores.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/01/17/wall-street-not-fannie-and-freddie-led-mortgage-meltdown.html

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0805090460/thedaibea-20/