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Except you typical American Freeway does not have a speed limit of 70 mph, and four tons is heavier than every single non-commercial vehicle in the world.

"Typical" is a loaded word, as so much depends on one's local geographic context. 70 mph is common in Washington state outside of urban areas, for instance.

Four tons might sound like hyperbole; however, some larger SUVs do come close, or even exceed that mark. For example, the Hummer H2 has a curb weight of 6,400-6,600 pounds, depending on engine configuration -- essentially 3.25 tons US. The gross vehicular weight tips the scales at 8,600 pounds, over 4.25 tons. And it sounds like some Hummer models (probably the almost-milspec H1) could be as heavy as 11,000 pounds, or 5.5 tons.

I see a few Hummers daily on my regular commuting route. The posted speed limit never goes above 60, but it's common when traffic is light for folks to be barreling along at 70+ mph.

Cheers,

I don't need to, but since you clearly do I will look it up for you. Here it is!

There are no "dynamic languages" and "static languages". C can be interpreted and Python, Java and Perl can be compiled directly to an executable (i.e. no bytecode / no VM). There are statically typed languages and dynamically typed languages as well a run time (late) bound and compile time (early) bound languages. There are no static and dynamic languages. Therefore it is impossible to show you what you ask for. Your question is based on a complete lack of understanding of programming languages. HANL.

A 400G impact will turn a human being into goo.

Whilst the factors responsible for the concussion are complex, it is generally accepted that the human brain can withstand crash impact forces of 300-400 G without either concussion or skull fracture, provided that there is no local deformation of the skull to inflict direct injury.

I honestly didn't expect that when I did the search.

Sports? No car metaphor? You must be new here.

Also, steroids aren't proteins.

Yet he's touted as the likely heir for CEO when Ballmer retires.

It reminds me of the resume of Gil Amelio, who had a similar record of failures yet people managed to convince themselves that he was some sort of CEO genius. He took Apple to the lowest point, when in desperation tried to buy BeOS. He fscked up that deal and then, to his incredible luck, bought NeXT instead. Jobs forced the board to fire Amelio and the recovery of Apple began then.

Are you suggesting Elop is the rebound CEO? He's not supposed to be the one? Wait 'till Microsoft brings him home to meet the parents. Microsoft's reproductive-marketing clock is ticking... and the shareholders want to see some grandkids.

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_Egyptian_gods_were_the_ten_plagues_by_God_attacking

Menzies is an idiot, and Chinese ceramics in Timbuktu are much more easily explained by down-the-line trading than actual voyaging. not to downplay what the Chinese accomplished; Zheng Hei's fleet was certainly technically capable of making transoceanic voyages, but there is absolutely no evidence that they ever did.

Regardless, the Norse were probably the first Europeans to discover America. They are thought to have landed around 985, which is over 500 years before Columbus.

During their "holy" month this year they killed over a thousand of "their own": blew them up, hanged them publicly, shot them, cut their throats, the usual muslim behaviour. During the same period of time across the whole world there were two similarly violent incidents not related to islam although one was a reaction to islam (many buddhists are fed up with islam in Sri Lanka, Burma, and Thailand). The figures speak volumes.

Ramadan Bombathon 2013

Jihad Attacks: 310
Countries: 19
Religions targeted: 5
Dead Bodies: 1651
Critically Injured: 3048

For comparison, the Ku Klux Klan has killed about 2,000 people in its entire 150-year history.. Islamic extremists killed close to that number in one month. If Islamic extremism is not a threat and nothing to worry about, then the KKK and white supremacy are certainly not a threat and nothing to worry about.

I was wondering so I looked it up

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_fast_do_bedbugs_reproduce

"So it will take 3 weeks after the eggs hatch before the nymphs become adult bedbugs and you are unlikely to realise a bedbug infestation has started in your bed during this period as they only come out at night when you are likely to be fast asleep and when it is dark.

So once they have become adult bedbugs from then on the bedbugs will be able to reproduce and female bedbugs lay up to a dozen eggs per day! So in its first week one female adult bedbug may lay 70 or more bedbug eggs in or near your bed,"

On the other hand, we can look at published academic studies which show that note-taking can be highly effective.

http://www.answers.com/topic/cornell-notes#Studies_on_effectiveness
http://wac.colostate.edu/journal/vol16/boch.pdf

BTW, by taking good notes in college, I learned that one must not rely on anecdotal evidence.

So the joke's on me: I was going to tell you to read up on Andrew Jackson's interactions with the Supreme court. But apparently his remark was far more measured than mine.

Yes, let's just wake up the whole country for what is usually custodial interference, because if there's one thing people are good at, it's spotting license plates when they're home sleeping in bed. Hope you like getting an average of one alert every two minutes. (203,900+58,200)/365 = about 700 per day, and that's not even counting the runaways. Let's say the bulk of the country lives in one of ten major metropolitan areas... you'd still get them 70 times per day. Even if only 1 in 10 gets an alert, that's 7 per day... 50 per week, 2500 per year.

But we don't get that many, do we? No matter which way you look at it, someone is deciding which cases are worth waking everyone up for and which aren't. You can let the government decide, or you can decide for yourself.

As cool as this would be *now*, given enough generations these mutations will disburse (ever wonder why so many people have blue eyes?)

Well not till you mentioned it, so I checked out of idle curiosity. Using carefully selected words for the search:
how many people have blue eyes

Blue eyes are indeed becoming less common in the world. One study showed that about 100 years ago,
half of U.S. residents had blue eyes. Nowadays only 1 in 6 does. http://genetics.thetech.org/ask/ask355

2% of the population has green eyes. It's the rarest eye color. 8% has blue, or a variation of blue like violet or grey.I guess the rest has brown or hazel. http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_people_in_the_world_have_blue_eyes

Approximately 8% of the world's population has blue eyes http://www.funtrivia.com/askft/Question79523.html
which references http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_color#Blue that makes no such claim.

8% is the answer most often given.

As for the mutation for blue eyes.
According to a team of researchers from Copenhagen University, a single mutation which arose as recently
as 6-10,000 years ago was responsible for all the blue-eyed people alive on Earth today.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-511473/All-blue-eyed-people-traced-ancestor-lived-10-000-years-ago-near-Black-Sea.html

Wars are won by being smart enough to avoid them in the first place.

So the winners of Word War II actually were the unnamed, uncombined alliance of:

        Switzerland
        Sweden
        Spain
        Portugal
        Iceland
        Ireland
        Afghanistan
        North Yemen
        Oman
        Nepal
        Tibet and the above mentioned Spanish and Portuguese colonies in Africa.

*according to this anyway.

The 2nd amendment is because we didn't have a standing military at the time,

That is false two respect. First, the US Army as a force in being predates the Constitution, which is where the 2nd Amendment is found.

The U.S. Army as a permanent institution began on 3 June 1784, when the Confederation Congress approved a resolution to establish a regiment of 700 officers and men. Intended as a force to assert federal authority in the Ohio River Valley, the regiment deployed at a string of posts along the Ohio where it functioned as a frontier constabulary during the last years of the Articles of Confederation era.

Congress adopted this tiny force after the reorganization of the government under the Constitution in 1789. Responding to the outbreak of Indian war in the Old Northwest—and especially to St. Clair's defeat in 1791, the worst setback at Indian hands in the army's history—the government expanded the military establishment to over 5,000 in 1792. Organized as the “American Legion” and commanded by Maj. Gen. Anthony Wayne, the army defeated the northwestern tribes at Fallen Timbers in 1794. During the same year, in response to European threats, the government launched a program of seacoast fortifications and added a corps of artillerists and engineers to build and man them. -- more

Second, the 2nd Amendment rights were not intended to be time limited.

II. A Permanent Right

Some people suggest the justification clause provides a built-in expiration date for the right. So long as a well-regulated militia is necessary to the security of a free state (or so long as the right to keep and bear arms contributes to a well-regulated militia, or so long as the militia is in fact well-regulated), the argument goes, the people have a right to keep and bear arms; but once the circumstances change and the necessity disappears, so does the right. 12

This reading seems at odds with the text: The Amendment doesn't say "so long as a militia is necessary"; it says "being necessary." Such a locution usually means the speaker is giving a justification for his command, not limiting its duration. 13 If anything, it might require the courts to operate on the assumption that a well-regulated militia is necessary to the security of a free state, since that's what the justification clause asserts. 14

--------

Having those firearms at that time served a legitimate need.

They still do. Besides, whether you recognize it or not, if you are an American man you have almost certainly been a part of the militia.

Sec. 311. Militia: composition and classes

-STATUTE-
(a) The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard.
(b) The classes of the militia are -
(1) the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia; and
(2) the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of the militia who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval Militia.

--------

Nice to see that you're pretty much completely ignorant of the reasons behind the 2nd amendment.

If I have more to learn I don't think you have anything to teach. What you "know" about the matter seems to be wrong.

One consequence of this shift is that soon no one will know what a book's "real" price is. Price will be determined by demand ...

That is the "real" price. Basic economics. Any other price than one set by demand is artificial (as in "price-fixing"). If prices are dropping due to the advent of Amazon, there are a number of possible causes: Decreasing marginal cost of creating each book (especially since the marginal cost of an e-book is probably less than a few millionths of a cent), supply increasing faster than demand, more complete/accurate information traversing the market thus more quickly setting an accurate price than before, or a combination of some or all these factors.

In other words, the price mechanism is working exactly as expected. The poor obsolescent publishers and book stores don't like it because they can't keep up, but this is exactly how a free market is supposed to work. There's no story here, other than to report that yet another group of buggy-whip makers are bemoaning their own demise and trying to contrive a reason it's a bad thing.

Google uses a combination of Tele Atlas and Street View (the Street View generates maps, and where there isn't street view data, they use Tele Atlas.

That tells a tiny part of what goes into Google Maps.

Google has dozens of major mapping sources and partners. Actually hundreds or thousands, when you count all the State and Local government in the US Canada and parts of Europe. Google pays fees to these these governments for the data and in return offers them imagery they might not be able to afford on their own. Zoom in to Trenton New Jersey, or San Francisco, CA. You will actually see LOT LINES in neighborhoods. This is true in many many places, and none of that data comes from Tele Atlas. It comes from public records held by local government.

Zoom in to various parts of the world and you will see the copyright data change on the screen. This is readily apparent in Google earth.

Google buys imagery from a multitude of different satellite companies such as Digital Globe, TerraMetrics, Cnes, Spot Image, Mapabc, and half a dozen others. Google's has banks of computers trained to follow roads on these images, and extract that to street maps.

Google has a fleet of satellites, for their own data transmission and mapping. More than any other mapping company.

Google street-view cars actually seldom reveal unknown streets or roads. They already know the road is there, but the cars can pick up street signs for places where they have no name on file, and also a much more precise GPS track to pin down the exact location of the road. In places where Street View cars have traveled, you never see the map line wandering away from the road in the imagery as you do in remote parts of the world and places where street view hasn't yet traveled.

There is no single mapping company upon which Google is dependent for mapping data. In fact the reverse is true. Most Google data acquisition agreements are a two way street, with Google giving back as much as they get.

You seem to think Google is in this on a shoe string. As of this point in time, there is nobody NOBODY that can come close to what Google has amassed in mapping data. Simply shift your view away from any urban area and you will get an abrupt education at how pathetic Wayz mapping really is.

350 pound flight capacity minus 187 pound vehicle weight seems to indicate a 163 pound (74 kilo) passenger limit. Not great, but that's certainly not "anorexic child-size styrofoam dummy" either. I'm an adult male, I could get there if I cut out the peanutbuttercups and switched to diet soda.

Oh well, I guess that means I'm never going to be able to ride it. Diet soda is vile.
How about they work on inventing that? Soda that tastes like sugar-water without being sugar-water? Chuckle.

-

Or if maybe they removed the large bicycle frame and tires, that would shed some weight? World's lightest bike is 6 lbs but costs $45,000 which is far too much. This aluminum bike is more reasonably priced at $1700 and weighs only 15 lbs. Average bicycle weighs 30+ lbs, so that extra 15 lbs saved could mean the difference between lifting off the ground or not.

Also I'm not sure what those cages around the fan blades are suppose to acheive since the cage gap is huge, anything could be sucked in there, needs to be a cage more like a desktop fan.

At least it's a step in the right direction.

By the fifth century, the Roman Empire had no trace of democracy, it was a brutal dictatorship.

Anon's post did not claim the Roman Empire was a democracy.

Nor did kings have any real restraint in medieval Europe.

That's not true: During medieval times who constrained the political power of the kings and great nobles?

The popes could and did excommunicate kings, and when they did it often gave licence for other people to overthrow those kings, and certainly meant that the kings' supporters were no longer obliged to help or support them.

I think maybe you're thinking of one of a handful of really powerful kings or emperors and ignoring most of the time period and most of the nations. You know Italy by itself had dozens of small kingdoms. There was a king of Naples for instance. You think he was some kind of all-powerful dictator?

I think one of the big differences between Christian kingdoms and Islamic kingdoms was the scope of their goal. Islam has always tried to be universal in both religion and state. There was only ever supposed to be one religion and one state (the caliphate), whereas in Christianity there was supposed to be one religion but having many kingdoms was perfectly fine.

The separation of Church and State in Christian lands made kings less powerful, but it also made religious leaders less powerful. (By separation I don't mean the modern idea, but simply the idea that they were separate authorities.. your regional Bishop or Cardinal didn't impose taxes, and your king didn't tell you how to pray. The Church and the State were otherwise very intertwined, of course.)

There were other constraints on the kings of Europe, of course, but they were non-religious (such as pressure from the nobles, Magna Carta, etc) and probably had some impact on Islamic rulers as well (though not as strong of an impact).

Not did Islam have its origins in the late Roman Empire

Hmm, did you reply to the wrong post? Out of your points, only 1 (constraint on kings) really makes sense as a reply. I don't see where Anon claimed Islam originated IN the Roman Empire. The closest statement is "at the later years of the Roman empire, when both Christianity and islam came to be" but of course that's referring to the time period.

So when she said this:

"The third lesson and tip actually comes from two of my favorite political philosophers: Mao Tse-tung and Mother Theresa -- not often coupled with each other, but the two people I turn to most to basically deliver a simple point which is 'you're going to make choices; you're going to challenge; you're going to say why not; you're going to figure out how to do things that have never been done before."

she wasn't saying that Mao was one of her favorite political philosophers?

She claims she got the quote from a conservative, Lee Atwater, who quoted Mao to make a point but never implied he was a "favorite political philosopher".

According to http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Did_Lee_Atwater_quote_Mao

Atwater jokingly quoted Mao but never called him 'one of my favorite philosophers'. Lee just used a quote from Mao to provide an ironic point, much in the same way others use quotes from historic figures, both egregious & beneficent.

For further analysis of the situation, here is another site
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/p-j-gladnick/2009/10/17/anita-dunn-blames-lee-atwater-quoting-mao

And what about Dunn's description of Mao as one of her "favorite political philosophers?" Not to worry, Dunn comes up with yet another comedy line to explain it away via CNN:

As for Beck's criticism: "The use of the phrase 'favorite political philosophers' was intended as irony, but clearly the effort fell flat -- at least with a certain Fox commentator whose sense of irony may be missing.

So you see. You peons just don't have the mental ability to see that Anita Dunn was merely being ironic despite the fact that was absolutely nothing in her facial expression, vocal tone, nor in what she said that displayed the slightest sense of irony. In fact, she was dead serious as you can plainly see in the video of her speech.

So, taken in context she is saying exactly what it appears she is saying. Letting her later say is was "irony" is just lefties covering up for her.

Sorry, your attempt at saving your political side's image failed.

Dao is an optionally-typed programming language

ARRRRGH! Comeon guys, type casting is so important even answers.com has a bloody writeup on it. Strousoup is right now spinning in his grave so furiously I'm sure it's causing a small earthquake right now on some pacific island...

Do you really know what is optional typing (and type inference)? Otherwise you wouldn't be using the tiny example in that link as an argument against optional typing.

that supports many advanced features with a small runtime.

Runtime? So it's like Java then... it's interpreted. Ooookay, well, I suppose runtime languages have their place amongst the honored...

As others already pointed it out, runtime is not just for interpreted language.

The feature list is probably as long as that of Python

And already we have our first example of why type casting is important: The programmer/submitter here isn't sure what the feature list of the language is, because everything is represented as an abstract object. /snark

I don't see your logic here.

Built-in support for concurrent programming for multicore computers,

I'm not entirely sure what that even means. Does it support threading? Is it stackless? Are you talking about the ability to set processor affinity for a given thread or process? "concurrent programming" to me could even mean using two keyboards.

Seriously, what do you expect? "set processor affinity for a given thread or process"??? Maybe "on" is a better preposition than "for" here, but anyone know about concurrent programming should understand what it really means immediately regardless the preposition.

very friendly C programming interfaces for embedding and extending, a LLVM-based JIT compiler, a Clang-based module for embedding C/C++ codes in Dao, and a Clang-based tool for automatic binding generation from C/C++ header files.

So basically, your language is incomplete so you're giving people the ability to link in stuff to makeup for it. Okay, that's cool... I guess.

So in your opinion, any language that has interface to C or another language is incomplete. Do you also think any language that has external libraries is also incomplete?

It's understandable that people like to bash new languages, but if you do, please make some more solid points.

This language (Dao) has never been mentioned on Slashdot before, but it might be interesting to many people here.

A pretentious name? (ears perk up) Go on...

Dao is an optionally-typed programming language

ARRRRGH! Comeon guys, type casting is so important even answers.com has a bloody writeup on it. Strousoup is right now spinning in his grave so furiously I'm sure it's causing a small earthquake right now on some pacific island...

that supports many advanced features with a small runtime.

Runtime? So it's like Java then... it's interpreted. Ooookay, well, I suppose runtime languages have their place amongst the honored...

The feature list is probably as long as that of Python

And already we have our first example of why type casting is important: The programmer/submitter here isn't sure what the feature list of the language is, because everything is represented as an abstract object. /snark

Built-in support for concurrent programming for multicore computers,

I'm not entirely sure what that even means. Does it support threading? Is it stackless? Are you talking about the ability to set processor affinity for a given thread or process? "concurrent programming" to me could even mean using two keyboards.

very friendly C programming interfaces for embedding and extending, a LLVM-based JIT compiler, a Clang-based module for embedding C/C++ codes in Dao, and a Clang-based tool for automatic binding generation from C/C++ header files.

So basically, your language is incomplete so you're giving people the ability to link in stuff to makeup for it. Okay, that's cool... I guess.

Well kid, I'm sorry your parents named you Dao. Like all parents, I'm sure they expect great things from you. Unfortunately, it seems you're suffering from a rare birth defect where half your brain is missing and you're a midget. You're also cojoined to your twin, who they named 'C'. Now they're going to try surgery soon to separate you from your twin bro, but I'm gonna be honest here: You're probably not going to make it. Sorry kid, tough break.

American Heritage Dictionary:
hover

(hv'r, hv'-) pronunciation
intr.v., -ered, -ering, -ers.

        To remain floating, suspended, or fluttering in the air: gulls hovering over the waves.
        To remain or linger in or near a place: hovering around the speaker's podium.

Total US foreign aid is a little over $70 billion. The US borrows $120 billion from China. Of that $70 billion, China gets $7 million. It only takes a couple minutes for the US to borrow that from China. They aren't equivalent.

Foreign aid source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_foreign_aid#Remittances
Borrowing from China source: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_much_money_does_the_US_borrow_from_china_a_year
Foreign aid to China source: http://foreignassistance.gov/CountryIntro.aspx

No, you dont.

Did you even check, or did you assume? What sort of Americans are you dealing with when they're 'shocked' by 100 km to the next gas station? That's only 60 miles. I've seen signs that say 125 miles to the next, or 200 km. Must be East-coasters who think the mid-west is 'flyover country'.

Let's check your work: You guys average 15530 km per year
Americans average 12k-15k miles per year, this site says 13,476 miles. Which works out to 21,696 km/year. Or 40% more than Aussies, which I'd qualify as 'heck of a lot more'.

Let's verify a bit: Population of Australia: 22.7M. KM driven: 232,453M km. KM per man, woman, and child: 10,240 km.
Population of the USA: 313M. Distance driven: 3M million miles., or 3,000 Billion miles. 9,413 miles per year, or 15,154 km per person. 48% more than Australians.

but if you blow 0.06 an Aussie cop would just tell you to sit down for half an hour and test you again if your BAC reduces he lets you go as long as you pass the personality test).

Personality test? Oh, institutional corruption, got it.

Once again, Australia has already solved this problem. If you cant pay your fines in Australia, a sheriff starts repossessing your property (starting with your car). As for people who drive on a suspended license, they risk years in jail here in Australia.

You mean the totaled car that was wrapped around a tree? Or do you kick people out of their homes in Australia?
Oh, and we do it in the USA as well. Problem being that, especially for multiple DUI offenders they generally drive such crappy cars that it costs more to have the sheriff confiscate it then they get at auction. Oops...

You'd be surprised how many offenders are white collar.

You really think this? The problem is twofold:
1. The poor people can't pay the fines. It costs somewhere around $22k/year to keep them in jail/prison.
2. The rich people can pay the fines, then carry on more or less like nothing happened.
3. Both parties will often obtain a $500-1000 car to drive that they register under somebody else's name so no breathalyzer equipment is installed.

A first time DUI in the USA can run you over $15k. It's not cheap.

You're going to have to face it: There isn't some 'magic bullet' policy difference between the USA and Australia. It's a lot of little ones, and the difference between .05 and .08 for DUI isn't really one of them.

This is why blood tests will reduce the number of people going to court.

With the really sleazy lawyers they'll still go to court, especially the rich types, because all they have to do is convince the jury something is in doubt, that he doesn't deserve the conviction, get some piece of evidence like the blood test tossed out on some technicality, etc... Heck, get some sympathetic drink-drivers on the jury. Lots of options.

Stop locking up pot heads and concentrate on removing actual dangers from society.

Agreed.

In 2011, 31,000 people died firearm-related deaths.

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_gun_deaths_are_in_the_US_every_year

In 2010, there were 10,000 deaths due to drunk driving, and that number is falling.

http://www.centurycouncil.org/drunk-driving/drunk-driving-fatalities-national-statistics

More crap and bullshit from the anti-gun-control crowd.

In 2011, 31,000 people died firearm-related deaths.

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_gun_deaths_are_in_the_US_every_year

In 2010, there were 10,000 deaths due to drunk driving, and that number is falling.

http://www.centurycouncil.org/drunk-driving/drunk-driving-fatalities-national-statistics

More crap and bullshit from the anti-gun-control crowd.

Not taking a side but they said mass shootings, not gun related deaths. You look like a fool citing and spewing without even reading or maybe understanding their comment.

In 2011, 31,000 people died firearm-related deaths.

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_gun_deaths_are_in_the_US_every_year

In 2010, there were 10,000 deaths due to drunk driving, and that number is falling.

http://www.centurycouncil.org/drunk-driving/drunk-driving-fatalities-national-statistics

More crap and bullshit from the anti-gun-control crowd.

In 2011, 31,000 people died firearm-related deaths.

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_gun_deaths_are_in_the_US_every_year

In 2010, there were 10,000 deaths due to drunk driving, and that number is falling.

http://www.centurycouncil.org/drunk-driving/drunk-driving-fatalities-national-statistics

More crap and bullshit from the anti-gun-control crowd.

Not taking a side but they said mass shootings, not gun related deaths. You look like a fool citing and spewing without even reading or maybe understanding their comment.

In 2011, 31,000 people died firearm-related deaths.

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_gun_deaths_are_in_the_US_every_year

In 2010, there were 10,000 deaths due to drunk driving, and that number is falling.

http://www.centurycouncil.org/drunk-driving/drunk-driving-fatalities-national-statistics

More crap and bullshit from the anti-gun-control crowd.

All but 11,000 of those gun related deaths were from suicide, so the number of innocent victims are much closer to drunk driving than it you are presenting.
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/homicide.htm

Many of the remaining deaths were at the hands of repeat offenders, meaning that meaningful prison reforms to lower our recidivism rate would be more effective than gun control. For example, in Illinois, from 1990-2000, 42% of homicides were at the hands of people with at least one felony conviction.
http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=201308

Also, gun related deaths are down 49% since 1993, so I'm no sure why you are using that to exonerate drunk driving, but condemn firearms.
http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2013/05/07/gun-homicide-rate-down-49-since-1993-peak-public-unaware/

This, despite there being more firearms in the country since that time.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/150353/self-reported-gun-ownership-highest-1993.aspx

In 2011, 31,000 people died firearm-related deaths.

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_gun_deaths_are_in_the_US_every_year

In 2010, there were 10,000 deaths due to drunk driving, and that number is falling.

http://www.centurycouncil.org/drunk-driving/drunk-driving-fatalities-national-statistics

More crap and bullshit from the anti-gun-control crowd.

Idiot. 30,000 includes suicides. If somebody wants to kill themselves, they're welcome to do so. I'd appreciate it though if they'd lay a tarp beforehand, however.

In 2011, 31,000 people died firearm-related deaths.

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_gun_deaths_are_in_the_US_every_year

In 2010, there were 10,000 deaths due to drunk driving, and that number is falling.

http://www.centurycouncil.org/drunk-driving/drunk-driving-fatalities-national-statistics

More crap and bullshit from the anti-gun-control crowd.

I guess there is no way she could own a knife also. Or pepper spray, or a taser, or mace. Without a gun the elderly are generally helpless against a knife wielding rapist?

Knife fighting tends to be pretty physical. The mismatch between a 90 year old woman and a 20 year old man is pretty substantial, don't you think? As far as I know, pepper spray and tasers are illegal for private citizens to possess in the UK.

Are stun guns legal in the UK?

It is against the law to import:High voltage electric 'stun guns'.
Pepper sprays, CS gas canisters and other self defence sprays.
High-powered air rifles.
Martial Arts weapons such as death stars and swordsticks.
Knives that have a concealed blade or a sharp point such as belt buckle blades.

Besides that practical problem, there is another:

Self-Defense: An Endangered Right

The withdrawal of a basic right of Englishmen is having dire consequences in Great Britain, and should serve as an object lesson for Americans. Today, in the name of public safety, the British government has practically eliminated the citizens’ right to self-defense. That did not happen all at once. The people were weaned from their fundamental right to protect themselves through a series of policies implemented over some 80 years. Those include the strictest gun regulations of any democracy, legislation that makes it illegal for individuals to carry any article that could be used for personal protection, and restrictive limits on the use of force in self-defense. . . .

Read this bit of madness - and there are far too many cases like it: Five years in prison for acting in self-defence

There are attempts at reform, but there doesn't seem to be enough movement.

A rather different example: Elderly Woman Shoots at Intruder

Hmm...

880 yards in half a mile,
that's 1760 yards in a full mile
a yard is 3 feet long,
so a mile is 5280 feet.

Why do Americans cling to such an awkward measurement system?

Not sure about the USA, but here in NZ an inch is defined as exactly 25.4 mm.
So since a foot is 12 inches, a foot is 304.8 mm
so a mile is exactly 1,609,344 mm, or 1,609.344 metres, or 1.609344 km

Metric is a lot easier to deal with than the American Imperial System!

What do you actually mean by the width of the USA (see below!)?
I think 2,892 miles is the width most appropriate here, as we want the land to be contiguous (ignoring lakes & rivers!).

2,892 * 1,609,344 mm = 4,654,222,848 mm
4,654,222,848 mm / 78000 = 59,669.53 mm
59,669.53 / 304.8 =195.77

So there would be about 200 feet or about 60 metres person.

http://www.worldatlas.com/webimage/countrys/namerica/usstates/uslandst.htm
[...]
Horizontal Width: 2,680 miles
[...]

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_width_of_the_US_from_coast_to_coast
[...]
        The precise distance depends on the exact latitude where you make the measurement but it is approximately 3,000 miles.

        It is roughly 3,400 miles at its widest point

        From Virgina Beach, Va. to San Jose, Ca. it is about 2,990 miles. From Jacksonville, Fl. to Aberdeen, Wa. it is 3,087 miles. From Augusta, Maine to Los Angeles, Ca it is 3,148 miles. This gives you an average of 3,075 miles.
[...]

http://www.bigsiteofamazingfacts.com/how-wide-is-the-united-states-in-miles-from-point-arena-california-to-west-quoddy-head-maine
[...]
The width of the United States depends on whether Alaska or Hawaii is included.

Measured from the farthest points west and east in the conterminous United States, meaning the 48 states that have a common boundary, which are West Quoddy Head, Maine, and Point Arena, California, the United States is 2,892 miles (4,656 km) wide.

Measured between the farthest points between the eastern United States and Alaska, Soldier Key, Florida, and Cape Wrangell, Alaska, the distance is 5,503 miles (8,860 km).

From Soldier Key, Florida, to Kure Island, Hawaii, the distance is 5,859 miles (9,433 km).
[...]

A short definition for all those non-native speakers who wonder - like me - how 6 minutes of flight are more than hours of flight by a Concorde:

Supersonic: Above speed of sound but only up to Mach 5
Hypersonic: Above Mach 5

The fact that both the latin Super and the greek Hyper translate into the same word does not really help the distinction.

Please don't practice pedantry publicly until you've reviewed and corrected your sig. If it was intended to be ironic, you may wish to call it out as such in some way. Have a good day.

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Is_the_saying_'all_intents_and_purposes'_or_'all_intense_purposes'

And since the other distinguishing characteristic is the name (and the soundtrack), ripped directly from a copyrighted Japanese pop song, I think the creator of Nyan Cat owns significantly less than 25% of the thing.

0% of the music, 0% of the word "pop tart", and 100% of the character, to be exact. A registered animation, in fact, and a pending registered trademark. This case happens to be about the image and name of the character used both in a commercial game and in the marketing of that game.

The use of the music in the meme would arguably constitute fair use. I doubt that Torres would claim copyright over it - that would be silly.

And since the other distinguishing characteristic is the name (and the soundtrack), ripped directly from a copyrighted Japanese pop song, I think the creator of Nyan Cat owns significantly less than 25% of the thing.

Although I would never wish legal trouble on anyone, even a copyright troll, it would certainly tickle my sense of poetic justice for Christopher Torres to be served with papers from Kellogg's and whoever "daniwell" on Nico Nico Douga is.

Or maybe we just acknowledge that pop culture is a rich fertile humus best cared for by tilling and turning, rather than by boxing up and labeling.

Yes. It's cultural compost. People are arguing about who owns manure. Makes me proud to live in the 21st Century.

In the US, it depends on the jurisdiction:

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Do_you_have_to_be_a_lawyer_before_becoming_a_judge

and

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=67949

Also, rule 5.06 applies... http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/official_info/official_rules/ball_in_play_5.jsp

I learned an urban myth as a kid, I guess. Something about Babe Ruth not having to run the bases after he hit another out, he ran them for the crowd.

Are you sure? Can I please get a source on that?

The following links says otherwise. (Though admittedly they are unreferenced and generally not trust-worthy).
1
2
3
4
5
6

eric conspiracy pointed out:

Maybe on some other planet, but on Earth John Adams did not write the US Constitution.

You are, of course, correct. I was thinking of James Madison. My error.

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Who_wrote_the_US_Constitution

Piss-poor authority, especially given the page's unreadability without Javascript.

Try this one, instead:

http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution_history.html

Maybe on some other planet, but on Earth John Adams did not write the US Constitution.

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Who_wrote_the_US_Constitution

According to these specifications a taster is less than 1Kw. The Tesla Roadster, uses high-power 16.8 kW Level 2 charging station, which can charge the car in 3.5 hours. So that is like running 16 toasters continually for 3.5 hours for a total of 58.8Kwh. Assuming a toasting cycle takes 3 minutes that would make 2240 slices of toast. Few people do that.

According to this post an average 2-story 3-bedroom house uses 50 Kwatt-hours per day. That makes the car even worse than the house as it draws more then 24 hours worth of power in 3..5 hours.

When will we move away from currencies? It seemed a good idea when there were fewer people, and society was small but clearly, the system is not designed for these numbers -- and upper class people tend to change the rules often.

I'd also like to participate in economics without having to evaluate how much a currency is being traded.

William Harrison in a 1840 speech (making the rich richer and the poor poorer) Shelley in 1840 said That the rich have become richer and the poor poorer. In modern times, Stanley Lebergott states that under a free market, the rich get rich and the poor get poorer. Source

The digital divide will soon encompass the poverty divide

PS2: And it's not the "Star Trek logo", which consists of the stylized words "STAR TREK", but the Starfleet arrowhead emblem.

(puts on Simpsons' Comic Book Guy voice):

"Any *true* Star Trek fan knows that calling those 'logos' is perfectly acceptable, I refer you to Wiki-Answers... etcetera..."

THEY ARE ALL called emblems, or logos, or icons, or badges, which all mean the same thing. - http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Does_the_Star_Trek_emblem_have_a_name

"You must go now. For the good of the city!"

I just did, and I don't understand what point you are trying to make.

Or perhaps you were confused about what it means. or what he said.

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Is_west_Virginia_a_red_or_blue_state

http://www.wvgazette.com/Opinion/Editorials/201103251017

I'm sorry, but any time someone brings up submarine launched BMs, I'm forced to laugh to myself about the submarine toilet instructions.

History at its finest. And we call it a science.

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Why_is_history_a_science

  I would wish they taught shit like this to science graduates. So many miss this lesson.