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Marijuana cures nothing, except perhaps intelligence.

Gosh, then reading this patent would become so difficult!

If he raped, stole, did drugs, mugged someone, I bet he would get far less time. There are even whole groups of people that get arrested over 60+ times!!!

Don't hack. To do so might mean maximum prison in solitary confinement. You think I'm joking, but that's how afraid these clueless people are. They view hackers as some magic wizards that can open cell doors with thought alone.

I just sent a message to the terrorist and I got a reply saying the terrorist no longer exists! How awesome is that?!? NSA! NSA! NSA!

Doesn't look like a knockoff at all.

https://docs.google.com/file/d...

But most Americans born here grew up with more honest set of retailers, more honest wholesalers, reasonably effective enforcement, they have not had this cheap imitation knock off problem. The worst you would see is the Walmart brand (Equate?) of nasal spray next to one made by J&J. If you had never gone home and opened a package of Cynthol bar soap and find inside a foul smelling skin abrading cake of caustic alkali with Sinthol stamped on it, you have not been affected by these knock-offs. So all the power to customs agents to spot the cheap knock-offs and take suo moto action to knock the imitations off the planet.

My entire life until I was introduced to Fluke, multi-meters were black. A quick google image search brings up lots of yellow multi-meters that aren't by Fluke, but most of them are quite apparently NOT by Fluke and you can tell at a glance. No grey face plate, different color of yellow. The one this story refers to is a very clear Fluke knock-off attempt.
https://www.google.com/search?...

No, start protecting your privacy.

You do not have to allow then to do it.

http://cvdazzle.com/

And, self promotion (baby steps, but working):

https://play.google.com/store/...

sure. it works now because these computer vision algorithms are crude. I, and most people, would have little problem identifying those people. It's only a matter of time before a system is sophisticated enough to recognize that's a dude with some paint on his face and a silly hairstyle.

Plus, if you wear that mask all the time, it will become part of the recognition as well. And don't think that we can create a unique mask every day, because we humans cannot do that, well except if you're a 14 year old girl with hormones going up the roof.

No, start protecting your privacy.

You do not have to allow then to do it.

http://cvdazzle.com/

And, self promotion (baby steps, but working):

https://play.google.com/store/...

sure. it works now because these computer vision algorithms are crude. I, and most people, would have little problem identifying those people. It's only a matter of time before a system is sophisticated enough to recognize that's a dude with some paint on his face and a silly hairstyle.

No, start protecting your privacy.

You do not have to allow then to do it.

http://cvdazzle.com/

And, self promotion (baby steps, but working):

https://play.google.com/store/...

Oh man! I forgot the freakin link

The U.S. K-12 educational system is ridiculously expensive and sucks mostly because it is a heavily bureaucratized government monopoly

I hate to ruin your little libertarian fantasy narrative, but there are private and charter schools in the United States, so it's not a government monopoly by any stretch. A "government monopoly" would more closely resemble the situation in Taiwan, which is one of the countries discussed favorably in TFA, where the schools are all run by the Chinese Ministry of Education.

One's alma mater is only a barrier in the U.S. if you work for the government.

I have no idea what planet this idea came from.

Social mobility is still greater in the U.S. than in other countries

The United States actually scores very low in indices that measure social mobility. Moreover, this study finds that in the US out of all the sampled countries, one's PISA score in science is more likely than any other country to be influenced by parental background.

I use Simple APK Extractor. Easy to use and no dependencies. I've only had to revert to a previous version of an app once, but I've also been able to use it to copy a couple apps that are no longer available.

> I've never seen a camera on a phone that takes
> anywhere close to to as good pictures as a decent
> point and shoot digital camera.

And I've never seen a DSLR that weighs 4 ounces and fits in my pocket.

> I really don't understand why smartphones
> are so popular.

Really?

That was a modified old messerschmitt. https://www.google.com/#q=mess...

https://plus.google.com/106265...

https://www.google.com/#q=onenote

First impressions: How Microsoft's new OneNote stacks up against Evernote

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onenote

That was easy.

There is also the Chinese made Wildfire WF650-C 3-wheeler. An older couple near me has one of these. Takes a bit to get up to speed but 56MPG beats most four wheeled vehicles.

"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Only_the_Super-Rich_Can_Save_Us!"
http://onlythesuperrich.org/
"Just as Atlas Shrugged portrayed self-interested successful capitalists working to create a "Utopia of Greed" that is free from government, Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us! portrays an altruistic group of super-rich individuals working to "re-make government" and where "the rebellious rich take on the reigning rich."[4] The novel's protagonist is inspired by Warren Buffett. On August 14, 2011, Warren Buffett wrote an influential op-ed entitled, "Stop Coddling the Super-rich",[5] which argues that the super-rich should bear more responsibility and pay their "fair share" of taxes."

Daniel Quinn wrote about such cycles of collapse: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B...

Other ideas: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...

Jane Jacobs suggested alternatives: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D...

On self-renewal: http://books.google.com/books/...

Zinn on "The Coming Revolt of the Guards": http://www.historyisaweapon.co...

To do before collapse (1999 proposal to NASA): http://www.kurtz-fernhout.com/...

The existence of this contingent poisoned the word "feminism". When you list the key tenets of feminism without naming it, the vast majority of undergraduate women in the US support the idea. But name "feminism" and it calls up memories of other women telling them how they ought to be, what they should believe, how to fit into a jigsaw puzzle in which a handful of old, white women redirect feminism to support their own power structures. And on that basis they'll tell you they aren't feminists - and who could blame them?

See also "meritocracy" Here is the Oxford New American English dictionary definition of meritocracy:

meritocracy |meritäkrs|
noun ( pl. meritocracies )
government or the holding of power by people selected on the basis of their ability.
  a society governed by such people or in which such people hold power.
  a ruling or influential class of educated or skilled people.
DERIVATIVES
meritocratic |meritkratik|adjective

Gee, who wouldn't want people to be hired/promoted on the basis of their ability? Yet many otherwise intelligent people seem to think that meritocracy means the people there must be the most qualified bestest people anywhere and not just the most qualified amongst those who actually applied for a job at Github. Since Github is mostly white or jewish dudes, it couldn't possibly a meritocracy because there exist qualified women and colored people who don't have jobs there and never applied for one. *derp*

http://robohub.org/tag/agricul...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A...
http://www.ieee-ras.org/agricu...

Indoors agricultural is also rising, given cheaper energy costs for LED lighting and more consistent results in controlled environments...

Yes, hunting/gatherering in a large home range is easier than pre-modern century farming styles, which seem to have only increased because of increasing population densities and tribes pushes to marginal lands or smaller lands.
http://www.primitivism.com/ori...

Anyway, I applaud the trend in the original article. Of course, living next to a farm can pose health challenges (like from contaminated ground water) depending on what pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, and fertilizers are used (even "organic" ones).

If you look at the "Biosphere II" project, or similar intensive agricultural projects (as in the book "Survival Gardening") it looks like a few people per acre can be supported with intensive methods in favorable climates, especially if you grow a lot of beans and return sterilized human manure to the land..
http://www.permies.com/t/12422...
"It is realistic to suppose that the absolute minimum of arable land to support one person is a mere 0.07 of a hectare -- and this assumes a largely vegetarian diet, no land degradation or water shortages, virtually no post-harvest waste, and farmers who know precisely when and how to plant, fertilize, irrigate, etc. [FAO, 1993] "

Intensive agriculture is knowledge intensive though, even if robots might mean it would not be so labor intensive. But no doubt eventually we will see plug-in (or cold fusion-powered) containers that have seeds and lights and robots in them and just output food given water and some other inputs. But it won't be as picturesque as a diversified semi-hobby organic farm. But it might not be as unsightly as, say, parts of Iowa where much of year the devastated industrialized farmland looks like a moonscape, and the soil is essentially only used to prop up the plants, only ~10% of calories per acre is created compared to intensive practices, and most of the result is fed to animals where ~90% of the calories are wasted relative to human consumption (so, only ~1% efficient overall compared to intensive cultivation of vegetarian foods, in round numbers).

Info on sustainable farming practices:
"Towards holistic agriculture: a scientific approach" by R. W. Widdowson"
http://books.google.com/books/...

And: http://remineralize.org/

And on economics:
http://www.juliansimon.com/wri...
"Of course an increase in consumption imposes costs in the short
run. But in the long run, population pressure reduces costs as
well as improves the food supply in accord with the general theory,
which I'll repeat again: More people, and increased income, cause
problems of increased scarcity of resources in the short run.
Heightened scarcity causes prices to rise. The higher prices
present opportunity, and prompt inventors and entrepreneurs to
search for solutions. Many fail, at cost to themselves. But in a
free society, solutions are eventually found. And in the long run
the new developments leave us better off than if the problems had
not arisen. That is, prices end up lower than before the increased
scarcity occurred, which is the long-run history of food supply.
Some people wonder whether we can be sure that food production
will increase, and whether it would be "safer" to

Neither JSON nor XML is easily writable without special tools.

YAML attempts to be writable, but the grammar and parser are huge and slow.

RSON is a superset of JSON that is eminently readable/writable, and much simpler than YAML, allowing, for example, for human-maintained configuration files.

The reference Python parser operates about as fast as the unaccelerated Python library pure JSON parser.

Less than half of Google's revenue is from search. Youtube is a big part and Hulu. They make money alot of ways - the AOL home page, CBS pay-per-view, many ways. They in fact have dozens of highly successful products and services. See https://investor.google.com/ea...

In all, they are about thirty three billion dollars smarter than me or you. You're pretty good at saying stuff that _sounds_ smart, so clearly you have some real intelligence. The one thing where I see you consistently make yourself sound and act stupid, even though you're not stupid, is your absurd ego where you think you're so much smarter than Eric Schmidt, Mark Zuckerberg, and everyone else who has proven they know what the heck they're doing. Your writing makes it clear that you've got some brains, but your brains are completely wasted when you refuse to learn from others' success.

Sarah Palin did at the last CPAC earlier this month - https://www.google.com/search?...

The price of oranges probably wouldn't change much at all - if they could get a penny more for them they already would be doing so. The guys who own the farm would just make less money.

If you live where labor costs are not a significant portion of food costs and farmers are wealthy, then you do not live on planet Earth.

They're not doing that bad.

This is the gist of the book "Propaganda" (1928, Edward Bernays). A good book to check out.

Rush speaks for his corporate masters in the sense that he must keep ratings up. Rush's audience is older white men - many are in fact college educated - surprised me too.

Rush makes, what $30 million/year? To get that he has to suck that demographic in. To do that, he spouts the shit they want to hear and the shit the pisses them off.

See, the best way to get people to listen or watch is to piss them off and to scare them.

Rush, Hannity, all of Fox News does this - they even bend the truth significantly to do it.

Here's their rhetorical formula:

1. State a fact - ex. a law was passed to force (actually encourage) banks to lend money for homes in poor neighborhoods (Community Reinvestment Act of 1977)

2. State a half truth that makes sense - "Banks HAD to lend to poor people who probably couldn't afford it!"

3. State a lie - "This Democrat law caused the financial collapse of 2008"

4. Skip details that also hurt "their" side - Bush enforced that law while he was POTUS (see previous cite) and the fact that those borrowers had a LESS of a default rate than the general population. (Old white middle class guys don't want to hear that poor black people are better than they are.)

Here's another little secret - Rush and Hannity and all of Fox News popped champagne when Obama was elected and reelected - "There's not much to talk about when your guy is in office." - station manager of a Talk Radio Station.

Posting as AC to make it a little harder to find me.

The Huffington Post requires pairing a verified Facebook account. It displays at least the first name and last initial unless the applies for and is granted the privilege of a pseudonym, which I assume would be granted only in cases comparable to whistleblowing.

Define "far too many". Scumbags like the 21-year-old father of six that maliciously attacked those people at SXSW might qualify as someone the world doesn't need hanging around. On the other hand, countries that have people starving to death are being caused by civil strife, not lack of food resources (cite). So, for now, we can support the global population...just need to figure out the geopolitical and logistics nightmare, brb.

and because volume of a star is both hard to measure from distance and not really well defined, since stars are made of gas and thus don't have a well-defined surface.

Also, this star (at about 2 197 000 000 times the volume of the sun, but only at most ~39 times the mass) must have an extremely low specific density. AFAICT even the average density is very close to what we would call a vacuum here on Earth at 7.87 × 10^-5 kg / m^3, and the mass is not evenly distributed, making it even more sparse for most of its volume.

This surprises me a little, did I make any mistakes?

and because volume of a star is both hard to measure from distance and not really well defined, since stars are made of gas and thus don't have a well-defined surface.

Also, this star (at about 2 197 000 000 times the volume of the sun, but only at most ~39 times the mass) must have an extremely low specific density. AFAICT even the average density is very close to what we would call a vacuum here on Earth at 7.87 × 10^-5 kg / m^3, and the mass is not evenly distributed, making it even more sparse for most of its volume.

This surprises me a little, did I make any mistakes?

But in what patterns does it get redistributed? Does it get diluted down to homeopathic levels thus curing everyone in the Ukraine of cancer, or does it get redistributed in concentrated form, creating pockets of high radiation outside the exclusion zone causing Ukrainians to get superpowers and kick the Russians out of Crimea.

We don't know. It would depend on how the fire proceeds,, winds and rain. That's the reason middle/northern part of Sweden got a lot more than we did here in the southern/southwestern part. Btw, the first place in 'The West' to detect that something was afoot was the Forsmark nuclear plant on Sweden's Baltic Sea coast, when workers arriving for their shift were setting off the monitors meant for detecting any contamination picked up inside the plant, soon followed by their outside monitoring stations/points, while the Oskarshamn plant actually is closer. Apparently the Polish had detected it somewhat earlier in northeastern Poland, but weren't sharing it with the world.

But in what patterns does it get redistributed? Does it get diluted down to homeopathic levels thus curing everyone in the Ukraine of cancer, or does it get redistributed in concentrated form, creating pockets of high radiation outside the exclusion zone causing Ukrainians to get superpowers and kick the Russians out of Crimea.

We don't know. It would depend on how the fire proceeds,, winds and rain. That's the reason middle/northern part of Sweden got a lot more than we did here in the southern/southwestern part. Btw, the first place in 'The West' to detect that something was afoot was the Forsmark nuclear plant on Sweden's Baltic Sea coast, when workers arriving for their shift were setting off the monitors meant for detecting any contamination picked up inside the plant, soon followed by their outside monitoring stations/points, while the Oskarshamn plant actually is closer. Apparently the Polish had detected it somewhat earlier in northeastern Poland, but weren't sharing it with the world.

I know this is a really radical idea, but perhaps instead of a bunch of government regulatory czars making technology decrees that they are hopelessly unable to comprehend, maybe, just maybe, we should let the market sort out the winners and losers rather than mandate them up front as a fait accompli. Just sayin'...

(Oh, and although I firmly hope to never have to drive an electric car, I think the mere existence of the new "Frankenplug" EV connector proves my point...)

Not to mention that there are apps like GrooVe IP which allow you to make free VOIP calls via your Google Voice number. When I was still in college (and therefore somewhat poor), I skipped a few months of paying my month-by-month phone bill and just used VOIP. Since I had Wifi at home, on campus, and at my friends' houses, I pretty much had a usable phone throughout those months when I was broke.

—shvelven (posting anonymously to preserve moderation)

Google's handling of Google Voice is getting an enormous amount of bad public relations. Google often makes changes without adequate explanation. See, for example, this information from Google: An update on Google Voice.

Obviously, no one considered the effect on Google's reputation of the fact that Google employee Nikhyl Singhal communicates in an inadequate fashion. For example: "Ward Mundy, Nov 1, 2013: +Nikhyl Singhal Your suggestion that developers have violated Google's terms of service and posed a security risk is disingenuous to put it charitably."

Some of the complaints in this blog were mentioned in a post by a google employee 4.5 months ago:

https://plus.google.com/u/0/+N...

... rest assured, weâ(TM)re working to support SMS messages for all Google Voice phone numbers ... we are listening and working hard to make this happen, but we need to work with carriers and this can take some time.

It will take some time before Google Voice is fully integrated into Hangouts, and we appreciate your patience along the way.ï

there is also mention of third-party apps which, on android, use various methods to achieve VOIP through Google Voice on the handset, which isnt a feature that Google Voice currently allows (it must route your call via an actual phone call).. these apps have been warned that they will be no longer to do that by May 15th of this year..

im guessing that we will be seeing some changes to Google Voice in the coming few months... maybe even things that make this itworld blog post seem kind of silly.

(disclosure: been using google voice since its first year, wish it could be better... 'breaking up' with it over the stuff in TFA is silly, some of those gripes are silly)

I'm not seeing this. It's a dull period for San Francisco. The first dot-com boom was more fun. Connecting up everybody and everything was important. This boom is all from ad-based companies, and most of what they're doing is rather banal. So are many of the people doing it.

Almost all the artists who need more than a desk and a laptop moved out years ago. SF used to have lots of big empty warehouse and factory spaces that were used for art projects and wild parties. That's what SOMA was. Those are gone, replaced with "live/work lofts" or giant bullpen workspaces.

I do not get why tech people want to live in the Mission. I've had friends there for years, and it's tolerable, but not a place to live in by choice. Wednesday I went to a stand up comedy improv thing in the Mission where people tried to put together presentions from random PowerPoint slides. Heavy bouncer presence outside because it was right next to a service center for homeless people. The comedy sucked, too. That's what the tech crowd is bringing into the area.

Here's a typical Mission location, one which also happens to be a Google bus stop. "Cafe la Boheme" has crappy food, and it's had crappy food for years. The place with the graffiti is an upstairs dance studio which is hanging on. "Chinese Food and Donuts" isn't very good at either. That corner has looked the same for many years. There are some decent restaurants a few blocks over on Valencia, but not at this corner. There are cool places to live in SF, but this isn't one of them.

You seem to have shot yourself in the foot. From a 2004 paper in World Psychology on teen suicide:

rates per 100,000 young persons aged 15-19

country year Total

USA 2000 8

Japan 2000 4

China 1999 4

To be quite blunt, your entire argument seems to be that high standards and expectations are a bad thing. That, of course, flies in the face of the recently validated idea that high expectations lead to high performance

When I was in third grade, we didn't write out the times tables, we wrote out every single number between one and a thousand in numbers and in letters by ones, one and ten thousand by fives, tens, and fifties, and one and one million by hundreds as homework. It took about a week. That is a form of rote memorization and it works.

You talk about Common Core producing "confused, bitter adults.. or the worker drones they really want", yet the current curriculum is based more on memorization and parroting back the "correct" answers and gives partial credit for utilizing the correct method even if the answer is wrong (that, by the way, boils down to "it doesn't matter what you get as long as you do things my way") rather than critical thinking which many say is a hallmark of Common Core

It really sounds like your "bright" kid liked science and school when it was easier and as he has gotten older he has, like so many kids, started to dislike school and you are blaming Common Core instead of actually finding out why your kid doesn't like it. Maybe you should start spending more time with your kid and helping him with his studies, something called "being a parent", instead of making excuses.

half of my schooling was in europe , i totally agree with your opinion , there was one other thing we had to do in regards to arithmatic , that was starting in grade 3 , the teacher would ask the class for example " what is 7 times 9 , the first person to get it correct would go to the front of the class , then another question would be asked , this served 2 purpases , it felt great to be the first one to work out the answer , and it let the teacher know which students needed the most help !

You seem to have shot yourself in the foot. From a 2004 paper in World Psychology on teen suicide:

rates per 100,000 young persons aged 15-19

country year Total

USA 2000 8

Japan 2000 4

China 1999 4

To be quite blunt, your entire argument seems to be that high standards and expectations are a bad thing. That, of course, flies in the face of the recently validated idea that high expectations lead to high performance

When I was in third grade, we didn't write out the times tables, we wrote out every single number between one and a thousand in numbers and in letters by ones, one and ten thousand by fives, tens, and fifties, and one and one million by hundreds as homework. It took about a week. That is a form of rote memorization and it works.

You talk about Common Core producing "confused, bitter adults.. or the worker drones they really want", yet the current curriculum is based more on memorization and parroting back the "correct" answers and gives partial credit for utilizing the correct method even if the answer is wrong (that, by the way, boils down to "it doesn't matter what you get as long as you do things my way") rather than critical thinking which many say is a hallmark of Common Core

It really sounds like your "bright" kid liked science and school when it was easier and as he has gotten older he has, like so many kids, started to dislike school and you are blaming Common Core instead of actually finding out why your kid doesn't like it. Maybe you should start spending more time with your kid and helping him with his studies, something called "being a parent", instead of making excuses.

half of my schooling was in europe , i totally agree with your opinion , there was one other thing we had to do in regards to arithmatic , that was starting in grade 3 , the teacher would ask the class for example " what is 7 times 9 , the first person to get it correct would go to the front of the class , then another question would be asked , this served 2 purpases , it felt great to be the first one to work out the answer , and it let the teacher know which students needed the most help !

perhaps, but with google fiber (the tv+internet plan) a 2tb network drive is provided to store tv shows, pics, music, etc. and according to the tos, the network drive (among other devices) belong to the customer and do not need to be returned to google when/if the customer decides to switch providers.

most people (myself included), would ask: "why would I want to pay for cloud storage when I have a 2tb drive right here?" and keep in mind that google fiber will allow residential customers to run servers for non-commercial purposes so if you wanted to, you could access your drive remotely and hence, no cloud storage needed.

To the best of my knowledge, the only useful thing to come out of Agritopia in Phoenix (Chandler/Gilbert) is Joe's Farm Grill which is a nice place to grab a fresh burger or some BBQ and eat on the patio with the other Mormon families.

If you look at the map, you'll see that there's basically a little bit of citrus, a field growing something alfalfa-esque, and a greenhouse where someone's got some tomatoes.

It's not Pauly Shore Biodome.

It's just a place with fresh tomatoes.

Seriously. This "article" reads more like an ad. $120/year for 1 TB is more than 9 times what I'd pay for 5 years of a 1 TB internal SATA.

There are several problems with the whole "cloud" thing:

- I can buy a few terabytes of local storage for the same or less than paying Google
- Google constantly changes things (features, terms of service, etc) and if you don't like it, tough shit
- Encrypted or not, you have no control over your own data, they do
- ISPs severely throttle upload speeds. Getting a few terabytes into the cloud will take a really long time

Ah, if only...

Unfortunately, the biggest problem with Google Drive is that they don't provide any upload throttling at all.

So...post a folder of pictures to your drive account, then go do something else for a couple of hours, because your internet is useless until Google's done hogging all of your bandwidth...funny, DropBox had this figured out right from the start, yet after over two years of customer complaints, Google still hasn't figured out how to implement this.

Intel DN2820FYK is selling for $140 and comes with an infrared sensor.

I have OpenELEC 4.0 beta (version 3.95.1) running off a 4GB USB stick I had lying around - no need to buy an SSD. Infrared sensor worked out of the box with my Harmony Smart Control remote.

rates per 100,000 young persons aged 15-19
country year Total

USA 2000 8
Japan 2000 4
China 1999 4

To be quite blunt, your entire argument seems to be that high standards and expectations are a bad thing. That, of course, flies in the face of the recently validated idea that high expectations lead to high performance

When I was in third grade, we didn't write out the times tables, we wrote out every single number between one and a thousand in numbers and in letters by ones, one and ten thousand by fives, tens, and fifties, and one and one million by hundreds as homework. It took about a week. That is a form of rote memorization and it works.

You talk about Common Core producing "confused, bitter adults.. or the worker drones they really want", yet the current curriculum is based more on memorization and parroting back the "correct" answers and gives partial credit for utilizing the correct method even if the answer is wrong (that, by the way, boils down to "it doesn't matter what you get as long as you do things my way") rather than critical thinking which many say is a hallmark of Common Core

It really sounds like your "bright" kid liked science and school when it was easier and as he has gotten older he has, like so many kids, started to dislike school and you are blaming Common Core instead of actually finding out why your kid doesn't like it. Maybe you should start spending more time with your kid and helping him with his studies, something called "being a parent", instead of making excuses.

rates per 100,000 young persons aged 15-19
country year Total

USA 2000 8
Japan 2000 4
China 1999 4

To be quite blunt, your entire argument seems to be that high standards and expectations are a bad thing. That, of course, flies in the face of the recently validated idea that high expectations lead to high performance

When I was in third grade, we didn't write out the times tables, we wrote out every single number between one and a thousand in numbers and in letters by ones, one and ten thousand by fives, tens, and fifties, and one and one million by hundreds as homework. It took about a week. That is a form of rote memorization and it works.

You talk about Common Core producing "confused, bitter adults.. or the worker drones they really want", yet the current curriculum is based more on memorization and parroting back the "correct" answers and gives partial credit for utilizing the correct method even if the answer is wrong (that, by the way, boils down to "it doesn't matter what you get as long as you do things my way") rather than critical thinking which many say is a hallmark of Common Core

It really sounds like your "bright" kid liked science and school when it was easier and as he has gotten older he has, like so many kids, started to dislike school and you are blaming Common Core instead of actually finding out why your kid doesn't like it. Maybe you should start spending more time with your kid and helping him with his studies, something called "being a parent", instead of making excuses.

The problem is that there is NO WAY to disable or change the 30 minute window. Using the "require password for all purchases" option does not override the 30 minute window. Google page about how this works. So, I guess the only way to prevent this is to confiscate the phone for 30 minutes.

"But your child should be trained to not buy things! You're a bad parent!"

Children are not animals, whipped into learning behaviors. They do not learn as fast as some of you obviously non-parents seem to think. Not to mention that even angelic children can sometimes be "mischievous".
Oh, and make sure you don't hand your device to your adult friends after you purchase something either. Adults can be even more greedy and stupid than kids.

Most of the comments in here seem to be pretty negative concerning the potential future of cryptocurrencies. "PCs can't be trusted to store money" "I have no faith in the system" and so on.

Yes, this is all new tech and it'll take a while for mass adoption, but bitcoin isn't going anywhere. This is the kind of futuristic technology that has been envisioned since the early days of the computer. It'll happen. Credit card systems are significantly more vulnerable than the bitcoin protocol could ever be.

Unregulated by a single government does not mean anonymous. You can trace the block chains.

Even with government regulated currency, banks fund terrorism, politicians have their super pacs, and the dollar just isn't what it used to be: https://www.google.com/search?...

We can't say for sure, of course; lacking mind-reading prowess we'll have to judge the regulatory powers-that-be by what they do and say.

But currently the government is trying to clamp down even harder on the distribution of the painkillers that some of us actually require (in my case, only occasionally, thank God). Their stated reason is that when patients are prescribed narcotic painkillers, and the government makes it harder to get narcotics, many of these patients then turn to heroin, because it is more readily and cheaply obtained. Then, many of these sufferers become heroin addicts, which in turn causes harm to their families, their communities, and themselves.

The government regulators bluntly state that this process means there should be more restrictions on prescription painkillers. Try, for example, this google search.

So, they know that as they restrict access to painkillers, and make use of heavy doses of painkillers more dangerous and harmful, they are actively driving pain sufferers towards illegal heroin use. They know this, and they say so. So the response is to increase restrictions on painkillers? Judging them by their actions, these people have a strong desire to do harm, specifically by pushing people suffering extreme pain into the heroin trade.

Either that, or they are incredibly, dangerously stupid.

Wait, were you talking about the American government again?

Thousands of other people will make backup copies for you.

Only wimps use tape backup: _real_ men just upload their important stuff on ftp, and let the rest of the world mirror it