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People killed them. Either by direct means or global warming.

Or, I blame God.

There were never enough Paleoindians, or even Pre-Columbian indians in north america to have killed all of these animals.
The indigenous populations of the Americas (north and south) was somewhere well under 112 million prior 1492.
(Yup the Columbus gets the blame for native population collapse, even though far earlier arrivals could certainly have been the vector for deadly diseases).

I never believed the hunted to extinction nonsense. (Not that Native Americans were very good stewards of the land, they had been known to stampede entire herds of buffalo over cliffs just for their tongues, and a few hides, leaving the vast majority to rot.) But their population density simply was never great enough to exhaust the resources.

I don't find the idea that a steadily improving (more benign) climate over the time of these species demise seems likely either. With the retreat of the ice age glaciation opening more and more land the pressure on these species would have been less and less as time went on. We are always quick to blame man kind, (but apparently only western European man-kind) for every tragedy befalling the environment, (or the indians), without considering that disease could have been just as likely.
 

here are the schools in NYC that match CS

http://search.nycenet.edu/search?q=%22computer+science%22&btnG=Search&client=default_frontend&output=xml_no_dtd&proxystylesheet=default_frontend&sort=date%3AD%3AL%3Ad1&entqr=0&oe=UTF-8&ie=UTF-8&ud=1&site=default_collection

Introduction to Computer Science (Section 01) @ The Bronx HS
http://www.bxscience.edu/apps/classes/show_class.jsp?classREC_ID=274057

the math page which includes the CS at Bronx HS
http://www.bxscience.edu/apps/pages/index.jsp?uREC_ID=3719&type=d

and the different match/cs course offered
http://www.bxscience.edu/apps/pages/index.jsp?uREC_ID=3719&type=d&termREC_ID=&pREC_ID=classes

here are the schools in NYC that match CS

http://search.nycenet.edu/search?q=%22computer+science%22&btnG=Search&client=default_frontend&output=xml_no_dtd&proxystylesheet=default_frontend&sort=date%3AD%3AL%3Ad1&entqr=0&oe=UTF-8&ie=UTF-8&ud=1&site=default_collection

Introduction to Computer Science (Section 01) @ The Bronx HS
http://www.bxscience.edu/apps/classes/show_class.jsp?classREC_ID=274057

the math page which includes the CS at Bronx HS
http://www.bxscience.edu/apps/pages/index.jsp?uREC_ID=3719&type=d

and the different match/cs course offered
http://www.bxscience.edu/apps/pages/index.jsp?uREC_ID=3719&type=d&termREC_ID=&pREC_ID=classes

here are the schools in NYC that match CS

http://search.nycenet.edu/search?q=%22computer+science%22&btnG=Search&client=default_frontend&output=xml_no_dtd&proxystylesheet=default_frontend&sort=date%3AD%3AL%3Ad1&entqr=0&oe=UTF-8&ie=UTF-8&ud=1&site=default_collection

Introduction to Computer Science (Section 01) @ The Bronx HS
http://www.bxscience.edu/apps/classes/show_class.jsp?classREC_ID=274057

the math page which includes the CS at Bronx HS
http://www.bxscience.edu/apps/pages/index.jsp?uREC_ID=3719&type=d

and the different match/cs course offered
http://www.bxscience.edu/apps/pages/index.jsp?uREC_ID=3719&type=d&termREC_ID=&pREC_ID=classes

Video games /are/ violent. That's the whole fun :P I agree with Hal Haplin. They keep game ratings, it's illegal to sell, but not illegal to play underage. So what difference does it make?

I wholeheartedly agree. Lots of kids (and especially unruly teens) love to get stuff that friends tell them about, especially violent games. It's tough to keep a kid away from games--and language/sex/violence in general--because (mostly public, but almost all) schools tend to bring good kids and jerks together.

Which is why I left the "prestigious" Bronx High School of Science for a less honored school. The experience was horrendous at best (bullies, near-rampant smoking and the like), and keeping violent games from kids will never change that.

My former high school has a .edu domain: Bronx High School of Science

Curiously, it doesn't seem to work that way. Once you get past a certain level, geeks end up fitting in without any problems.

For some reason, the cliche comic-book-store hygiene-less tech is never actually all that skilled - second- or third-tier at best.

While y'all are arguing about the merits of manned space travel, let me just brag about my and Prof. Weinberg's common alma mater, The Bronx High School of Science. Prof. Weinberg is one of five Nobelists in the school's 65-year history, more than most colleges (and, more importantly, three more than Stuyvesant). In fact, both Weinberg and Sheldon Glashow are members of the class of '50, making that graduating class possibly unique in world history. I wonder if their classmates had any idea they were in the presence of future greatness?

While y'all are arguing about the merits of manned space travel, let me just brag about my and Prof. Weinberg's common alma mater, The Bronx High School of Science. Prof. Weinberg is one of five Nobelists in the school's 65-year history, more than most colleges (and, more importantly, three more than Stuyvesant). In fact, both Weinberg and Sheldon Glashow are members of the class of '50, making that graduating class possibly unique in world history. I wonder if their classmates had any idea they were in the presence of future greatness?

• Awareness. Most of the country outside the New York metro area is barely aware of the Intel contest, although it is unquestionably the closest thing to a Nobel Prize or Rhodes Scholarship for high school students. That includes the most competitive non-New York City public schools around, such as Palo Alto and Gunn High Schools (CA), Princeton HS (NJ), and Thomas Jefferson (VA). (Thanks to affirmative action, Boston Latin (MA) simply isn't as elite as it used to be.) Most of the non-New York metro schools represented this year won't have another entry for years, if ever; for example, the finalist this year from Redwood City CA (where I happen to live, actually), who didn't finish in the top ten, is the first northern California finalist in three years! Science, Stuy, and (again, lately) Ward Melvile make sure they have solid competitors every single year.
  
• Scale. Science and Stuy each have 2500-3000 students. The elite Northeastern and other private schools--whose student bodies are perhaps of the Science/Stuy caliber--are by comparison simply far too small to consistently produce competitive entries; the Nightingale-Bamford (NY) Intel finalist of a few years back won't be repeated anytime soon. Also, many of them are located too far away from the research universities that often provide the necessary facilities and mentorship.
  

• Awareness. Most of the country outside the New York metro area is barely aware of the Intel contest, although it is unquestionably the closest thing to a Nobel Prize or Rhodes Scholarship for high school students. That includes the most competitive non-New York City public schools around, such as Palo Alto and Gunn High Schools (CA), Princeton HS (NJ), and Thomas Jefferson (VA). (Thanks to affirmative action, Boston Latin (MA) simply isn't as elite as it used to be.) Most of the non-New York metro schools represented this year won't have another entry for years, if ever; for example, the finalist this year from Redwood City CA (where I happen to live, actually), who didn't finish in the top ten, is the first northern California finalist in three years! Science, Stuy, and (again, lately) Ward Melvile make sure they have solid competitors every single year.
  
• Scale. Science and Stuy each have 2500-3000 students. The elite Northeastern and other private schools--whose student bodies are perhaps of the Science/Stuy caliber--are by comparison simply far too small to consistently produce competitive entries; the Nightingale-Bamford (NY) Intel finalist of a few years back won't be repeated anytime soon. Also, many of them are located too far away from the research universities that often provide the necessary facilities and mentorship.
  

Not spare time, but those who do it professionally.

Artists like Paul Oakenfold use only vinyl. And this guy is pretty popular. I think it is safe to say that generally people who DJ in their spare time are the ones who DON'T use vinyl. For them CD's are far easier to get their hands on, and few would have that much of a dedication to use an older format.

Just my two pesos

Sunny Dubey

There are no real specialized, technical, PUBLIC schools in America.

Not true. I went to a great one(NCSSM), and there are others:

IMSA

Bronx High

And I am sure there are others. There aren't many, but there are some.

It would be very nice to see .edu domains that aren't only 4-year colleges, too, so I hope that happens.

It would be very nice to see .edu domains that aren't only 4-year colleges, too, so I hope that happens.

I don't know about these restrictions you speak of, but my high school has had a domain name since 1992.

We also probably have the best high school connection to the Internet, with a dedicated 100MBit line, courtesy of Cablevision.

I'd say the lack of 2-year colleges with domain names is just a reflection of their IT departments' interest in the Internet. I don't imagine they'd have any more trouble registering a .edu than would a high school.

As a former grad (class of 2000) who has been involved in the networking setup in stuy, the way we got the .edu is that back when we registered the domain, any school could have a .edu. Since then, things have changed, and only a four-year accredited university can have a .edu. Places like stuy, and Bronx Science where my brother goes, get to keep the .edu because they were grandfathered in. Also, stuy has a full class B block of IP addresses, (149.89.0.0/16) the same way. I always thought stuy should give some of those back, since I know they don't need 4-5 computers per student....

Well, Bronx Science and Brooklyn Tech, the other two specialized high schools in New York city have .edu domains as well. I don't know about any other high schools so I thought it was common for high schools.

These selective public schools, aka "magnate" schools, usually have rigorous entrance examinations. These schools are generally much better than even the most elite private schools.

Bronx Science and Stuyvesant are the two most famous magnate schools in NYC and are consistently better than schools like Philips Academy (And the students have the added advantage of not being stuckup snobby pricks -- this is a personal observation from my experiences with BS, Stuy, and preppie students. Preppies think they are truly elite just because their parents are rich.).