Oh, please, yes. I really hope this design turns out to work well. I'd love to have a wind energy mechanism that puts an end to the "kills birds" and "strobe light" arguments against wind turbines. I imagine that it's probably quieter, too.

Teach her to embrace her passion. Even if it's not what she does to pay her bills, if there's something she loves, she should pursue that passion proudly and enthusiastically. Encourage her to seize on the opportunity of youth to find that thing. Teach her to seek out the companionship and admiration of others who share her passion and, in turn, to base her admiration of others on things that matter. Encourage her not to shy away from her passion just because any ol' person voices disapproval. Encourage her to find a calling where her passion intersects with others' needs and, again, whether or not that's what she does to pay her bills, to employ her passion to serve that need.

Get the best of both biometric security AND passcode security. Use somebody else's fingerprint to unlock your phone but refuse to divulge the knowledge of whose fingerprint!

You're a monster, Zorg.

Somebody asked a question that I interpreted as "What is the internal logic of your faith?" I fully understand why the broader Slashdot community disagrees with my decision to have a faith at all. My days of arguing on the internet over THAT matter are long past. If the responses to this conversation are any indication, however, this will probably be the last time I respond *ahem* in good faith even to matters of narrower scope.

Love and obedience are components of a relationship. I love and obey my wife. She loves and obeys me. That is not to say that we give capricious, mean-spirited orders and expect each other to obey. That wouldn't be loving. Rather, as a partnership, we each make decisions with the best for both of us in mind and enacting one another's will is an expression of trust, respect, and faithfulness.

Regarding the notion of damnation, it is not an extrinsic, arbitrary punishment. It is an intrinsic punishment. If you choose separation from God, then you shouldn't be disappointed when he honours your choice. You might then say, why couldn't he elect to send you to a paradise-like place where he is not present? To the best of my understanding, that is oxymoronic. The suffering of damnation is not that hell is physically uncomfortable (although it might or might not be). It is the knowledge of eternal separation from God. A paradise-like place without God would nonetheless be hellish.

I've struggled with that dilemma before and after some study, I found a solution that both satisfied the dilemma and was consistent with my understanding of scripture. God desires our love and obedience but it must be sincere. God does not desire robotic servants or prisoners. Consequently, it must be an individual's choice to obey or not and God must not impede that choice. The tree represented a free and unimpeded choice for Adam and Eve: obedience (and relationship) with God or disobedience (and separation) from God.

As a Christian, I perceive a harmonious relationship with God as a valuable incentive to obey. Nonetheless, the temptation to disobey remains present. As we see in human marriages, for instance, it isn't sufficient to make the choice to commit once but then fail to act on that commitment throughout life. Just as marriage does not automatically fortify a pair of lovers always to act on the vows they've taken, nor does the choice to have a relationship with God automatically fortify the human party always to act on the commitment. (It is the Christian belief that God is ever faithful in his commitment to humanity. You may disagree but I wanted to clarify that I did not perceive the divine party in the relationship as requiring any fortification.)

It can't be that way, especially when you consider something like import/export compliance. If you sampled a population of smart laypeople, I don't you'd get a reasonable consensus regarding what import/export law should be, let alone what it is. If ignorance is an excuse, then you create incentive for willful ignorance - deliberate failure to research so one can't be held liable for noncompliance.

Unfortunately for Sparkfun, ignorance of the law is not a valid excuse for breaking it. I work for one of those large companies with deep pockets and lawyers, so I have the good fortune of having been trained somewhat on this stuff. The government takes import and export matters very seriously and considers it the responsibility of the parties involved to conduct due diligence screening to ensure compliance.

I'm pretty sure this happened to Miles O'Brien on an episode of Deep Space Nine. He was subjected to a simulation of a life sentence in prison.

I think the one other feature of paper that they can sell, along with paper's quality as a medium for pictures, is the attractiveness of paper itself. Do good market research, determine what books people have an emotional attachment to, and sell those books in premium-priced, durable, beautiful, hardback editions. Don't try to compete with ebooks on cheap content delivery. People still buy vinyl records, designer clothes, luxury cars, and fancy hand soaps. People will pay a premium for a special version of something that they love.

I'm not sure about book stores, per se, but I think that printed books have a long life ahead of them. I imagine that they're analogous to vinyl records. I've already begun moving the bulk of my paperback collection to ePub but some titles are worthy of better treatment and get upgraded to a hardback. I'll pay a premium for an elegant copy of a book that I love.

My hunch is that the drive to force more kids to learn programming is a facet of a bigger issue. There's a two-faced problem in the state of college education. One, the supply of college educated people is probably too high. Two, the quality of high-school educated students entering college (or the workforce) is too low. Both devalue the end result of a college education. This initiative to teach more computer programming to high school students is, I think, a recognition that we need to expect more of high school graduates. A program that makes high school graduates marginally more employable and which builds a stronger foundation for a meaningful, rather than remedial, college education, is probably a good thing. On the other hand, I think that policy-makers are still trying to plug holes in a leaky dam rather than devoting serious thought and resources to building better dams.

One of the things that I found most delightful about Myst - and continue to marvel at - is that the core of the gameplay had nothing to do with killing things. I find Minecraft increasingly appealing because the emphasis is more on building and exploring. Myst really gave the impression of a bigger world around you and used the literary technique of "show, don't tell" to exhibit it. I guess I can admit to being a little bit jaded. There are quite a few "show, don't tell" elements hidden in a game like Guild Wars 2. On the other hand, they're more like Easter eggs than serious components of the narrative or the gameplay. In Myst, if you weren't paying attention, you weren't proceeding. How many games dare that nowadays? Not that it would matter. Today, if you aren't paying attention, just consult the wiki. In fact, just consult the wiki in advance, so you'll know what to prepare for.

You're already at 5:Insightful, so there's no need to mod you up. Instead, I'd just like to thank you. You raised some points that I hadn't considered before, which I appreciate. Furthermore, I rarely see such thorough, thoughtful writing on Slashdot.