If she couldn't turn the computer on she may not have been able to make backups before hand (I didn't RTFA though). Which is why 'Time Machine' of the Macs is nice since most people wouldn't make regular backups otherwise.
Well, the IQ test regardless of race is controversial. On a recent Colbert Report a guest discussed how the IQ test is targeted for people within a certain environment and are not truely universal tests. He speculated that if someone like Lincoln were to take a modern IQ test he would quite possibly score less than 100 simply because people of his generation faced different problems and wouldn't have the needed experience to do well on the typical IQ test. Another example he gave was to show how a tribe in Africa would also score horribly on the IQ test due to living in a completely different environment and facing different problems on a daily basis. (he went into much greater detail in his interview and his book, but I don't recall them now)
I agree that a study of 'intelligence' comparing races using various metrics probably isn't a good idea though. However, if, for example, one socio-economic group of elementary school students is underperforming it is probably worthwhile to become aware of the problem (through standardized tests) and then attempting to postulate the causes and try to adress them.
Just because it's difficult to come up with a good experiment doesn't mean it's not worth doing. Many famous scientists of the past earned their fame by creating a brilliant experiment that nobody had thought of before. Just because you or I cannot think of a good test doesn't mean that it's not testable.
While people can absolve themselves by citing some scientific report about their behavior, it would just be an excuse like any other. Conversely someone could become more aware of their nascent nature and try to more consciously control it. Like anything else, it's up to the individual to decide what they choose to do with the information at hand. For an easy example, someone could claim he beats his wife since he and his mom were beaten when he was a child. While there is a clear correlation between being beaten as a child and then beating a spouse as an adult, it would still just be an excuse. If the guy had been aware of this relationship at a younger age he may have sought treatment for anger management before letting it get out of control.
There's several branches of science built on almost nothing but human behavior including economics, sociology and criminology. It is notoriously difficult to test economic theories due to the complex human behavior as you describe (and even Greenspan has admitted that the Federal Reserve has a difficult time of predicting when a recession will occur and doesn't do it well), but there really is no alternative than to try to use a scientific approach and build various models, adjusting them to meet reality as time goes on.
Or bring some thin foam large enough to cover your laptop screen. This can greatly help keep it from getting scratched up by placing the foam between the screen and keyboard when you stuff it in your bag. I know from personal experience that a single backpack trip with an unprotected laptop can leave nasty scratch marks that could have easily been prevented.
Besides, as anyone knows, you can't go travelling around without a towel.
What they did was undoutably remarkable, but their words are not sacred, and we should take them off the damn altar and put them back on the bookshelf. They need to be read and analyzed, not idolized.
You're the one throwing out (sarcastically) statements like "the founders always know best" and gave one explicit reference to slavery to which I replied. My original post simply talked about their desire to not have a pure democracy and referred to a real-world example of something approaching a pure democracy (France during and shortly after their revolution). How are you extrapolating that into idolization of the founders?
If someone wants to talk about whether people have free will I'm going to refer to Erasmus and Luther, if someone wants to discuss what 'truth' is I'm going to refer to Socrates, if someone wants to discuss having pure democracy in the US I'm going to refer to the founders. In each case I'm referring to brilliant peers who have already given a lot of thought to these subjects and it only makes sense to try to build your case 'standing on the shoulders of giants' as the saying goes.
Even the rich could not get good health care when the Decleration of Independence was written. George Washington died when he did due to the lousy medical treatment he received and would have certainly been better off with no medical care.
We live in a different time now when most people can benefit greatly by receiving preventative medical care and getting treated for long-term medical problems. While the words stated in the Decleration of Independence were good, even then they were not applied to everyone (namely women and slaves). As our society has progressed since then we have more truely followed the original meaning of those words and we can and will continue to do so.
That's a bit off topic but I'm sure you know that many founders were against the practice of slavery and even one practitioner, T. Jefferson, freed his slaves. They tried hard to form a country without legal slavery but the southern states wouldn't allow it so there would have been two countries rather than a unified one. Even if the founders representing the south had allowed the Constitution to be written with slavery outlawed there's no way it would have been accepted or ratified in the south so you would have had the same effect.
If altruism has no place in healthcare it has no place anywhere. I'm a healthy, young adult male with no risk factors for any disease and have only ever had to go to the hospital once since I was born to fix a broken toe. I don't even drink or smoke. However, I spend thousands in medicaid every year of which I'll probably never see much back. I spend even more on private health insurance indirectly due to the money my employer spends on it which could have otherwise gone to my salary. Others, such as my mom, are disabled and are only able to get health care due to medicaid. That's simply the way insurance works, the minority are the beneficiaries while for the great majority it is a net loss. Without such insurance though all but the richest would be unable to pay for their own health care if something requiring expensive treatment happened to them (such as cancer or even needing an MRI) so people's level of health would gradually decline. This would lower productivity and probably necessitate even more expensive emergency treatment later. Even if this treatment is charged to them it won't get paid and there's no such thing as debtors' prison here so what are you going to do to them to force them to pay?
This is supposed to be the country where "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.". It's kind of hard to do any of those three if you're sick and unable to receive treatment. And it certainly isn't supposed to be "The prosperous have the right to Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
I have a 1990 Saab that often shows a check engine warning light. It has been doing this for at least 8 years and probably longer. I was told by the local Saab repair shop that this is a common problem for this model. False positives can be almost as harmful as unreported problems since, like the boy crying wolf, the warning eventually gets ignored.
The current congress is doing next to nothing and has an extremely low approval rating thanks to their lack of progress. I don't see how Ron Paul could ever get elected on the platform of 'blocking everything'. It just isn't going to happen.
So care to tell me about the 'rigours' of this so called Engineer?
Sure. I was trained in aerospace so can at least tell you about some of the requirements of engineering. In the military there are many 'Mil specs' that must be met for any aircraft design (although less so for autonomous, unmanned vehicles). Within any company there are standard guidelines for the standard tolerances for various design attributes (such as tolerance for flatness, angle accuracies, cylindrical attributes, etc.). For civilian aircraft design there are many similar, but sometimes different from the mil specs, guidelines that engineers must follow and must be certified step by step.
For spacecraft you usually have tight tolerances, although less formal guidelines than in passenger or military aircraft design. On the other hand there are extreme guidelines for tracking the parts used to build a spacecraft, especially for NASA. They require that virtually every component must be tracked all the way to the lot and date on which it was manufactured (and only certain manufacturers are allowed). This is required even for small components like capacitors or resistors. Usually rockets and payloads that are intended for a low altitude (non-space) target have much less strict policies though.
In either case the design process is well documented and any significant change is usually signed off by another engineer. Each step of the design is documented and a reason is given for each change. While there are CVS style comments in software, you usually don't need explicit, signed paper in order to check in each change into your source repository. I don't know if this is the policy at aircraft manufactures but it certainly was at the spacecraft design company I worked at in college.
There are also rigorous, standard tests for aircraft and for spacecraft. Spacecraft must undergo many tests before a launch, including individual component tests, difficult systems-integration tests, and a shaking test that simulates the stresses of the launch vehicle. Any commercial jet must undergo months of tests after the first one is built. This is in addition to the countless simulations and physical tests they do for individual components during the design and prototype construction stages.
While some software companies may implement rigorous software repository and design standards, it isn't required by law as it is for aerospace or for civil engineering for that matter. Software writers aren't required to take a standard, national test in order to start their profession (unlike civil or mechanical engineers). And they certainly aren't held to any national standards for software design (although there may be exceptions for some specific problem domains such as aircraft control software or stock trading software for all I know).
You're right about what Romney did in Massachusetts. However, I would like to point out that it worked. If you disagree, how specifically did raising fees and implementing their healthcare system not work? Note: I agree with previous post about him being most popular guy to punch in the face though. He now doesn't back his own healthcare plan in Massachusetts and has changed his position on many other issues so you really don't know who you're voting for.
As for the liberal media comment about Paul, Fox News isn't doing him any favors either. There was almost no talk about him placing 2nd in Nevada for example and from what I've seen from other conservative posts they haven't been giving him any air time either. He's probably gotten more air time on the 'liberal media' on Meet the Press than any he ever received on Fox News.
"All politicians are evil, because government is the use of force, plain and simple."
You don't believe in judging sin but yet you call all politicians evil. You believe that abortion should be left to states to decide ('by force' as you would say) rather than letting women decide for themselves. You believe that teachers are 'stealing' by getting a higher salary rather than being paid directly by you. If government is the use of force, what difference does it make if the state, federal or local government is exercising this force? It's all evil, right? You say you won't even vote for the lesser evil but vote for 'other' by putting your own name down. So how is choosing between different levels of government for executing a certain power any different than choosing a lesser evil? I really don't understand how you came to these beliefs or believe them to be logically consistent (honestly, I'm not trying to be sardonic or sarcastic).
I agree about McCain being scarier than Paul being elected but only because any other candidate under discussion would be scarier than Paul because they would actually get something done (for better or worse). What are the odds of Paul actually accomplishing anything? He can't do hardly anything without support from the legislature and I'm pretty sure he wouldn't have nearly enough votes to do any of the more radical changes he'd want to do.
While Hillary Clinton has clearly been able to get more of the white-woman vote and, at least in South Carolina, Obama has been getting more of the African-American vote I wouldn't let that be much of a factor. In other contests both have been able to get a respectable portion of most demographics (I think the main weak point for Obama has been getting the Hispanic vote).
While Hillary Clinton isn't going to get any Republican votes in a national election, I'm not sure how many Obama would get either. The main difference would be Republican turnout and who would be more likely to get the independent vote. I think Hillary would motivate Republicans to turn out in droves, even for McCain (despite what they may say now about not liking McCain, I think they would still prefer him by far over Clinton). Every Republican I've talked to hates Hillary whereas they don't have any feelings towards Obama.
On the other hand, I don't think either Clinton has ever lost an election and they have a good network and tons of experience with political contests. One reason Republicans hate the Clintons is because they're 'political whores' willing to do or say whatever to win. I don't agree with them but conceed that they generally will be more willing to 'get dirty' during an election as opposed to other democrats. I think a swift-boat type of attack on Hillary wouldn't work nearly as well as it did against Kerry because they would respond with their own, more effective swift-boat type of attack (rather than ignore it as Kerry did). I'm not saying that's a good thing, but if you're worried about electability that should be a factor.
Personally, I'm rooting for Obama. I won't be too upset if either of them wins though since in policy they are theoretically pretty similar. While Obama has a clean slate, the Clintons have generally been good at admitting their mistakes (I know, with the one glaring exception of Hillary's vote on Iraq). If you don't believe me, read their books. Bill Clinton admitted almost every mistake I'm aware of during his presidency. That's important to me since the only way you can improve is by admitting your prior mistakes and learning from them. Whereas W. has admitted what mistakes? None as far as I know and certainly not as explicitly as Bill Clinton has.
Dude, the founders never desired a pure democracy, even if the techonology were available. Why do you think we use the electoral college system? Why are the senate rules designed so that the minority may prevail? For details one what they considered when forming the Constitution, read the Federalist and Anti-federalist Papers. The last thing they wanted was mob-rule (which is what they considered pure democracy to be). I think the French Revolution gave a good example of why a pure democracy is not desirable.
Ideally people would fill out a paper ballot. It would then be scanned by an optical scanner at the polling station and print out the official ballot (confirming your choices on a screen first I guess). You would then deposit the ballot that was printed out. Touch screens would still be in place for blind people so that they can fill out a ballot without assistance. These would also print out ballots, replacing the step of filling one out with plain old pen and paper with using the computer.
I don't know if it's necessary to print out a copy of your ballot, but it seems that could be a nice fail-safe to ensure that it will always scan correctly since it would essentially be a perfectly filled out ballot. Also, having two copies of each ballot may help prevent any voting fraud (only the computer-generated ballot would be counted in the election of course, keeping the other copy to verify the results with random samples).
If you're basing it off of games then I would pick the Sega Saturn. That game system has some awsome games, including Radiant Silvergun and many, many others. It's a system I didn't grow up with. A roommate of mine in college had a Sega Saturn and probably over 100 games for it (many he downloaded from FTP sites I think) and they were generally very fun to play.
Side note for Radiant Silvergun fans: There's rumors that it will soon be available on Xbox Arcade with high-def visuals. I really hope that's true and I also hope there's a cheat code for infinite lives...
According to his wikipedia article and its references that is an urban legend. A blood transfusion actually would have worsened his problems because he had numerous internal injuries.
What did likely kill him was the lack of sleep he had due to his profession (causing him to fall asleep at the wheel). Unfortunately that's still a problem for doctors and interns to this day. I have a friend who is a doctor and he works over 80 hours every week (at Duke, the hospital they would have ideally had gone to if it wasn't 30 miles away from the crash site).
Not all things are obviously dangerous (like this powerful flashlight). While most warnings are ridiculous, I think one on a seemingly harmless object that is in fact dangerous makes sense. Another example where you would see warnings is on cleaning products because when you combine ammonia ones with bleach chlorine gas will be released. That's not the most obvious thing in the world and that warning has probably saved many lives.
All of the points by others responding to your question are valid. I would also add that the military has had an interest in high-velocity projectiles (including scram jets) so that mobile targets could be hit before the enemy has a chance to evacuate (such as mobile missle launchers).
They already have to carry tons of jet fuel and munitions for the aircraft so I don't think any additional bunker fuel will add much to the risk of fires.
I can't find the exact story I'm looking for, but here's an example of the slashdot effect on BitTorrent back in early 2003. There once was a story that wanted the slashdot community to try to use the slashdot effect by downloading a full Linux distro using BitTorrent. I think that story came out a few months before the story I linked to.
So what happens to all the people who bought the Xbox 360 with dreams of watching HD movies? Download them over Live and watch them like I do? I never bought a HD-DVD addon because I can just download movies anyway and didn't want to pay for a player until the format war was over.
Slashdot Mirror
If she couldn't turn the computer on she may not have been able to make backups before hand (I didn't RTFA though). Which is why 'Time Machine' of the Macs is nice since most people wouldn't make regular backups otherwise.
Well, the IQ test regardless of race is controversial. On a recent Colbert Report a guest discussed how the IQ test is targeted for people within a certain environment and are not truely universal tests. He speculated that if someone like Lincoln were to take a modern IQ test he would quite possibly score less than 100 simply because people of his generation faced different problems and wouldn't have the needed experience to do well on the typical IQ test. Another example he gave was to show how a tribe in Africa would also score horribly on the IQ test due to living in a completely different environment and facing different problems on a daily basis. (he went into much greater detail in his interview and his book, but I don't recall them now)
I agree that a study of 'intelligence' comparing races using various metrics probably isn't a good idea though. However, if, for example, one socio-economic group of elementary school students is underperforming it is probably worthwhile to become aware of the problem (through standardized tests) and then attempting to postulate the causes and try to adress them.
Just because it's difficult to come up with a good experiment doesn't mean it's not worth doing. Many famous scientists of the past earned their fame by creating a brilliant experiment that nobody had thought of before. Just because you or I cannot think of a good test doesn't mean that it's not testable.
While people can absolve themselves by citing some scientific report about their behavior, it would just be an excuse like any other. Conversely someone could become more aware of their nascent nature and try to more consciously control it. Like anything else, it's up to the individual to decide what they choose to do with the information at hand. For an easy example, someone could claim he beats his wife since he and his mom were beaten when he was a child. While there is a clear correlation between being beaten as a child and then beating a spouse as an adult, it would still just be an excuse. If the guy had been aware of this relationship at a younger age he may have sought treatment for anger management before letting it get out of control.
There's several branches of science built on almost nothing but human behavior including economics, sociology and criminology. It is notoriously difficult to test economic theories due to the complex human behavior as you describe (and even Greenspan has admitted that the Federal Reserve has a difficult time of predicting when a recession will occur and doesn't do it well), but there really is no alternative than to try to use a scientific approach and build various models, adjusting them to meet reality as time goes on.
Or bring some thin foam large enough to cover your laptop screen. This can greatly help keep it from getting scratched up by placing the foam between the screen and keyboard when you stuff it in your bag. I know from personal experience that a single backpack trip with an unprotected laptop can leave nasty scratch marks that could have easily been prevented.
Besides, as anyone knows, you can't go travelling around without a towel.
You're the one throwing out (sarcastically) statements like "the founders always know best" and gave one explicit reference to slavery to which I replied. My original post simply talked about their desire to not have a pure democracy and referred to a real-world example of something approaching a pure democracy (France during and shortly after their revolution). How are you extrapolating that into idolization of the founders?
If someone wants to talk about whether people have free will I'm going to refer to Erasmus and Luther, if someone wants to discuss what 'truth' is I'm going to refer to Socrates, if someone wants to discuss having pure democracy in the US I'm going to refer to the founders. In each case I'm referring to brilliant peers who have already given a lot of thought to these subjects and it only makes sense to try to build your case 'standing on the shoulders of giants' as the saying goes.
Even the rich could not get good health care when the Decleration of Independence was written. George Washington died when he did due to the lousy medical treatment he received and would have certainly been better off with no medical care.
We live in a different time now when most people can benefit greatly by receiving preventative medical care and getting treated for long-term medical problems. While the words stated in the Decleration of Independence were good, even then they were not applied to everyone (namely women and slaves). As our society has progressed since then we have more truely followed the original meaning of those words and we can and will continue to do so.
That's a bit off topic but I'm sure you know that many founders were against the practice of slavery and even one practitioner, T. Jefferson, freed his slaves. They tried hard to form a country without legal slavery but the southern states wouldn't allow it so there would have been two countries rather than a unified one. Even if the founders representing the south had allowed the Constitution to be written with slavery outlawed there's no way it would have been accepted or ratified in the south so you would have had the same effect.
If altruism has no place in healthcare it has no place anywhere. I'm a healthy, young adult male with no risk factors for any disease and have only ever had to go to the hospital once since I was born to fix a broken toe. I don't even drink or smoke. However, I spend thousands in medicaid every year of which I'll probably never see much back. I spend even more on private health insurance indirectly due to the money my employer spends on it which could have otherwise gone to my salary. Others, such as my mom, are disabled and are only able to get health care due to medicaid. That's simply the way insurance works, the minority are the beneficiaries while for the great majority it is a net loss. Without such insurance though all but the richest would be unable to pay for their own health care if something requiring expensive treatment happened to them (such as cancer or even needing an MRI) so people's level of health would gradually decline. This would lower productivity and probably necessitate even more expensive emergency treatment later. Even if this treatment is charged to them it won't get paid and there's no such thing as debtors' prison here so what are you going to do to them to force them to pay?
This is supposed to be the country where "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.". It's kind of hard to do any of those three if you're sick and unable to receive treatment. And it certainly isn't supposed to be "The prosperous have the right to Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
I have a 1990 Saab that often shows a check engine warning light. It has been doing this for at least 8 years and probably longer. I was told by the local Saab repair shop that this is a common problem for this model. False positives can be almost as harmful as unreported problems since, like the boy crying wolf, the warning eventually gets ignored.
The current congress is doing next to nothing and has an extremely low approval rating thanks to their lack of progress. I don't see how Ron Paul could ever get elected on the platform of 'blocking everything'. It just isn't going to happen.
Sure. I was trained in aerospace so can at least tell you about some of the requirements of engineering. In the military there are many 'Mil specs' that must be met for any aircraft design (although less so for autonomous, unmanned vehicles). Within any company there are standard guidelines for the standard tolerances for various design attributes (such as tolerance for flatness, angle accuracies, cylindrical attributes, etc.). For civilian aircraft design there are many similar, but sometimes different from the mil specs, guidelines that engineers must follow and must be certified step by step.
For spacecraft you usually have tight tolerances, although less formal guidelines than in passenger or military aircraft design. On the other hand there are extreme guidelines for tracking the parts used to build a spacecraft, especially for NASA. They require that virtually every component must be tracked all the way to the lot and date on which it was manufactured (and only certain manufacturers are allowed). This is required even for small components like capacitors or resistors. Usually rockets and payloads that are intended for a low altitude (non-space) target have much less strict policies though.
In either case the design process is well documented and any significant change is usually signed off by another engineer. Each step of the design is documented and a reason is given for each change. While there are CVS style comments in software, you usually don't need explicit, signed paper in order to check in each change into your source repository. I don't know if this is the policy at aircraft manufactures but it certainly was at the spacecraft design company I worked at in college.
There are also rigorous, standard tests for aircraft and for spacecraft. Spacecraft must undergo many tests before a launch, including individual component tests, difficult systems-integration tests, and a shaking test that simulates the stresses of the launch vehicle. Any commercial jet must undergo months of tests after the first one is built. This is in addition to the countless simulations and physical tests they do for individual components during the design and prototype construction stages.
While some software companies may implement rigorous software repository and design standards, it isn't required by law as it is for aerospace or for civil engineering for that matter. Software writers aren't required to take a standard, national test in order to start their profession (unlike civil or mechanical engineers). And they certainly aren't held to any national standards for software design (although there may be exceptions for some specific problem domains such as aircraft control software or stock trading software for all I know).
You're right about what Romney did in Massachusetts. However, I would like to point out that it worked. If you disagree, how specifically did raising fees and implementing their healthcare system not work? Note: I agree with previous post about him being most popular guy to punch in the face though. He now doesn't back his own healthcare plan in Massachusetts and has changed his position on many other issues so you really don't know who you're voting for.
As for the liberal media comment about Paul, Fox News isn't doing him any favors either. There was almost no talk about him placing 2nd in Nevada for example and from what I've seen from other conservative posts they haven't been giving him any air time either. He's probably gotten more air time on the 'liberal media' on Meet the Press than any he ever received on Fox News.
"All politicians are evil, because government is the use of force, plain and simple."
You don't believe in judging sin but yet you call all politicians evil. You believe that abortion should be left to states to decide ('by force' as you would say) rather than letting women decide for themselves. You believe that teachers are 'stealing' by getting a higher salary rather than being paid directly by you. If government is the use of force, what difference does it make if the state, federal or local government is exercising this force? It's all evil, right? You say you won't even vote for the lesser evil but vote for 'other' by putting your own name down. So how is choosing between different levels of government for executing a certain power any different than choosing a lesser evil? I really don't understand how you came to these beliefs or believe them to be logically consistent (honestly, I'm not trying to be sardonic or sarcastic).
I agree about McCain being scarier than Paul being elected but only because any other candidate under discussion would be scarier than Paul because they would actually get something done (for better or worse). What are the odds of Paul actually accomplishing anything? He can't do hardly anything without support from the legislature and I'm pretty sure he wouldn't have nearly enough votes to do any of the more radical changes he'd want to do.
While Hillary Clinton has clearly been able to get more of the white-woman vote and, at least in South Carolina, Obama has been getting more of the African-American vote I wouldn't let that be much of a factor. In other contests both have been able to get a respectable portion of most demographics (I think the main weak point for Obama has been getting the Hispanic vote).
While Hillary Clinton isn't going to get any Republican votes in a national election, I'm not sure how many Obama would get either. The main difference would be Republican turnout and who would be more likely to get the independent vote. I think Hillary would motivate Republicans to turn out in droves, even for McCain (despite what they may say now about not liking McCain, I think they would still prefer him by far over Clinton). Every Republican I've talked to hates Hillary whereas they don't have any feelings towards Obama.
On the other hand, I don't think either Clinton has ever lost an election and they have a good network and tons of experience with political contests. One reason Republicans hate the Clintons is because they're 'political whores' willing to do or say whatever to win. I don't agree with them but conceed that they generally will be more willing to 'get dirty' during an election as opposed to other democrats. I think a swift-boat type of attack on Hillary wouldn't work nearly as well as it did against Kerry because they would respond with their own, more effective swift-boat type of attack (rather than ignore it as Kerry did). I'm not saying that's a good thing, but if you're worried about electability that should be a factor.
Personally, I'm rooting for Obama. I won't be too upset if either of them wins though since in policy they are theoretically pretty similar. While Obama has a clean slate, the Clintons have generally been good at admitting their mistakes (I know, with the one glaring exception of Hillary's vote on Iraq). If you don't believe me, read their books. Bill Clinton admitted almost every mistake I'm aware of during his presidency. That's important to me since the only way you can improve is by admitting your prior mistakes and learning from them. Whereas W. has admitted what mistakes? None as far as I know and certainly not as explicitly as Bill Clinton has.
Dude, the founders never desired a pure democracy, even if the techonology were available. Why do you think we use the electoral college system? Why are the senate rules designed so that the minority may prevail? For details one what they considered when forming the Constitution, read the Federalist and Anti-federalist Papers. The last thing they wanted was mob-rule (which is what they considered pure democracy to be). I think the French Revolution gave a good example of why a pure democracy is not desirable.
Ideally people would fill out a paper ballot. It would then be scanned by an optical scanner at the polling station and print out the official ballot (confirming your choices on a screen first I guess). You would then deposit the ballot that was printed out. Touch screens would still be in place for blind people so that they can fill out a ballot without assistance. These would also print out ballots, replacing the step of filling one out with plain old pen and paper with using the computer.
I don't know if it's necessary to print out a copy of your ballot, but it seems that could be a nice fail-safe to ensure that it will always scan correctly since it would essentially be a perfectly filled out ballot. Also, having two copies of each ballot may help prevent any voting fraud (only the computer-generated ballot would be counted in the election of course, keeping the other copy to verify the results with random samples).
If you're basing it off of games then I would pick the Sega Saturn. That game system has some awsome games, including Radiant Silvergun and many, many others. It's a system I didn't grow up with. A roommate of mine in college had a Sega Saturn and probably over 100 games for it (many he downloaded from FTP sites I think) and they were generally very fun to play.
Side note for Radiant Silvergun fans: There's rumors that it will soon be available on Xbox Arcade with high-def visuals. I really hope that's true and I also hope there's a cheat code for infinite lives...
According to his wikipedia article and its references that is an urban legend. A blood transfusion actually would have worsened his problems because he had numerous internal injuries.
What did likely kill him was the lack of sleep he had due to his profession (causing him to fall asleep at the wheel). Unfortunately that's still a problem for doctors and interns to this day. I have a friend who is a doctor and he works over 80 hours every week (at Duke, the hospital they would have ideally had gone to if it wasn't 30 miles away from the crash site).
Not all things are obviously dangerous (like this powerful flashlight). While most warnings are ridiculous, I think one on a seemingly harmless object that is in fact dangerous makes sense. Another example where you would see warnings is on cleaning products because when you combine ammonia ones with bleach chlorine gas will be released. That's not the most obvious thing in the world and that warning has probably saved many lives.
All of the points by others responding to your question are valid. I would also add that the military has had an interest in high-velocity projectiles (including scram jets) so that mobile targets could be hit before the enemy has a chance to evacuate (such as mobile missle launchers).
They already have to carry tons of jet fuel and munitions for the aircraft so I don't think any additional bunker fuel will add much to the risk of fires.
I can't find the exact story I'm looking for, but here's an example of the slashdot effect on BitTorrent back in early 2003. There once was a story that wanted the slashdot community to try to use the slashdot effect by downloading a full Linux distro using BitTorrent. I think that story came out a few months before the story I linked to.
Usually my scripts are so simple I just shift the arguments in. For anything complicated I would definately use the Getopt module.