This dude is without a doubt the biggest dick I have met here on io9.

I'm not a writer, actually.

But congratulations on trying to insult me for being thoughtful about what I write and say, you anti-intellectual nitwit. I'm sure you're very proud that your comment doesn't read like you spent very much time thinking about it.

Here's the thing for techies: Without content, your electronic containers are just that—empty boxes. The thing is, you're making jokes about not paying for the stuff—the real value—of what goes in those boxes.

And you have no training or experience in how to convince a mass audience of anything. Or how to analyze not what might be done but what ought be done. You're going to be out-foxed by the people (you know, the writers) who do.

We need musicians and painters too, but until society decides to re-value artists and English majors, their numbers will continue to decline. And that's a shame. We are slowly losing what makes us uniquely human.

The "university is basically a fancy trade school where you need to major in something to make you money" mentality is an onerous one fostered by a country where the Protestant Work Ethic still has a strangle hold on our priorities, and where rampant capitalism has created a perverse norm where students can only…

It's a modern manifestation of the classic Protestant work ethic. Our culture tends to prioritize 'practical' subjects (e.g. subjects that will get you a high-paying job...and maybe also help our country beat those red Chinamen in industry and technology - this is our <a href="http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/12…

You know, I have a Master's in English Lit, and teach English at the high school level. Frequently I have conversations with parents about how their students will let their work in my class slide so that they can focus on their math and science courses. My district even has a special Math/Science/ Technology school…

Exactly. I see a lot of STEM snobbery on here. Which is ridiculous. STEM subjects (at an undergraduate level) involve a lot more memorization and learning discrete facts, humanities subjects a lot more critical thinking and synthesis.

"Totally should of been an English lit major."

A "good" education. One that is broad and deep. One that hones multiple facets of intelligence, instead of focusing on just the one relevant to your major. One that requires you to take classes outside your comfort zone.

The problem is that bananas are not genetically diverse. I believe that all of them are the exact same strain so any disease that one plant is not resistant too, all plants are not resistant to. The same problem was the cause of previous banana blights and was the inspiration for the song "yes we have no bananas." …

This is the danger of a monoculture. Cavendish bananas are probably toast, but if we're proactive we can get a few more of the sweet strains out there and start those growing before the Cavendish bites the big one. A good marketing campaign could help with the adoption of bananas that don't taste quite like you'd…

Yet another article that shows how little we understand of how climate and the water cycles actually work. The next time someone talks about terraforming Earth, we all need to remember we know very little about climate and regularly discover we were wrong about most of what we thought we knew. We need to much more…

Fracking DOES make your tap water flammable, provided it comes from a well contaminated with methane from the process. I watched a buddy set his water on fire at his property in West Virginia shortly after a fracking operation was set up under his land. When you turn on the water you can smell the gas coming out.

Check out Cleve Backster's work on wikipedia. Its pretty crazy stuff. Mythbusters also did a thing on it but IMO it was a really poor test, since, after originally getting plants to react they only tried to isolate the plants as much as possible to keep them from reacting.

The book, "The Secret Life of Plants" was a big deal in my house as a kid (and subsequently, the little-seen film, and the groundbreaking Stevie Wonder soundtrack), and the topic of plant intelligence spawned many debates between my psychologist parents and their colleagues and friends. I've believed since that plant…

If the research says that they can react to threats and interpret intentions, then maybe a change in the way we approach the environment is in order. Maybe not a "happening" level threat, but certainly one we would be unwise to ignore. Or, we could be kinder by not carving our initials into them... by occasionally…

I can beat you by 350 years:

There aren't many ways to escape than great books.I read a lot and though I'm considerably older than this person and escape from very different things I get it 100%.I don't have a particular author but I do love the science fiction genre and about 75% of what I read is within the genre.