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In addition to them choosing Condoleezza Rice (ewwwww!) for their Board of Directors, did you know @Dropbox costs 4x more than Google Drive for 500GB?

Sign the petition and Drop Dropbox now: http://chn.ge/1iExYQW

And check out #DropDropbox

https://support.google.com/dri...

AT&T Drive Mode

Motorola Assist

Apps like these seem to do most everything the blogger is looking for:

• Blocking / auto-responding to texts
• Detect when you're driving (manually disable if used as passanger, or otherwise needs to be used)
• Allow voice control
• Doesn't depend on car integration support

A nineteenth-century schoolbook addresses this question. Post-apocalyptic society might not be too different from that of a "colony." Farmers, millers, carpenters, blacksmiths, masons, shoemakers, doctors, school-masters make the cut; barbers, just barely; silversmiths, soldiers, dancing-masters, lawyers, politicians, and "gentlemen" do not.

[note.â"Mr. Barlow one day invented a play for his children, on purpose to show them what kind of persons and professions are the most useful in society, and particularly in a new settlement. The following is the conversation which took place between himself and his children.]
Mr. Barlow. Come, my boys, I have a new play for you. I will be the founder of a colony; and you shall be people of +different trades and professions, coming to offer yourselves to go with me. What are you, Arthur?
Arthur. I am a farmer, sir.
Mr. Barlow. Very well. Farming is the chief thing we have to depend upon. The farmer puts the seed into the earth, and takes care of it when it is grown to ripe corn. Without the farmer, we should have no bread. But you must work very +diligently; there will be trees to cut down, and roots to dig out, and a great deal of hard labor.
Arthur. I shall be ready to do my part.
Mr. Barlow. Well, then I shall take you +willingly, and as many more such good fellows as I can find. We shall have land enough, and you may go to work as soon as you please. Now for the next.
James. I am a miller, sir.
Mr. Barlow. A very useful trade! Our corn must be ground, or it will do us but little good. But what must we do for a mill, my friend?
James. I suppose we must make one, sir.
Mr. Barlow. Then we must take a mill-wright with us, and carry mill-stones. Who is next?
Charles. I am a carpenter, sir.
Mr. Barlow. The most +necessary man that could offer. We shall find you work enough, never fear. There will be houses to build, fences to make, and chairs and tables beside. But all our timber is growing; we shall have hard work to fell it, to saw boards and planks, and to frame and raise buildings. Can you help in this?
Charles. I will do my best, sir.
Mr. Barlow. Then I engage you, but I advise you to bring two or three able +assistants along with you. William. I am a blacksmith.
Mr. Barlow. An +excellent companion for the carpenter. We can not do without cither of you. You must bring your great bellows, +anvil, and +vise, and we will set up a forge for you, as soon as we arrive. By the by, we shall want a mason for that.
Edward. I am one, sir.
Mr. Barlow. Though we may live in log-houses at first, we shall want brick-work, or stone-work, for +chimneys, +hearths, and ovens, so there will be employment for a mason. Can you make bricks, and burn lime?
Edward. I will try what I can do, sir.
Mr. Barlow. No man can do more. I engage you, Who comes next?
Francis. I am a +shoe-maker, sir.
Mr. Barlow. Shoes we can not well do without, but I fear we shall get no +leather.
Francis. But I can dress skins, sir.
Mr. Barlow. Can you? Then you are a useful fellow. I will have you, though I give you double wages.
George. I am a tailor, sir.
Mr. Barlow. We must not go naked; so there will be work for a tailor. But you are not above mending, I hope, for we must not mind wearing +patched clothes, while we work in the woods.
George. I am not, sir.
Mr. Barlow. Then I engage you, too.
Henry. I am a silversmith, sir.
Mr. Barlow. Then, my friend, you can not go to a worse place than a new colony to set up your trade in.
Henry. But I understand clock and watch making, too.
Mr. Barlow. We shall want to know how the time goes, but we can not afford to employ you. At present, I advise you to stay where you are.
Jasper. I am a barber and hair-dresser.
Mr. Barlow. What can we do with you? If you will shave our men's rough beards once a week, and crop their hairs once a quarter, and be content to help the carpenter the re

Iraq does not have a democracy. It has a foreign mandated puppet government. that government is frightened of losing its foreign support, funding, and the weaponry they've come to rely on to protect themselves from the most radical, anti-American movements in Iraq. The racial and religious discrepancies between Kurd, Shiite, Sunni, and Arab remain a source of homicidal guerrilla warfare against the very American supported government that is supposed to resolve their differences.

There's a fairly good analysis, if excessively optimistic, at http://www.google.com/url?sa=t...

Microsoft ... just said that they are done providing free repairs.

They are not repairs. They are defects caused by sloppy coding.

Do a Google search for General Motors recalls. General Motors pays.

There is no resistance to the idea of man made change of climate.

That isn't what is going on.

The resistance is based on:

1) The truly, ginourmous amounts of fraudulent science they are using in convincing people man made climate change is real. People who resist this sort of stuff are mainly true scientists, who do true research. These people do not have NSF grants, and are largely publicly funded through institutions which do not have a stake in the outcome of the research either way. Most of that IPCC crap MUST come to the conclusion that trillions of dollars are needed to stop man made climate change otherwise these people wouldn't have a pot to piss in who create this bad science.

Only those institutions, and research scientists that demand people lose their academic credentials if they do not submit the the fraudulent science, are the primary proponents of Man Made Global Warming, also known as Climate Change.

2) The solutions. The IPCC suggests if we tax nations and build a global army, and enforcement arm of carbon credit taxes, we can control the earths climate and prevent run away green house, or other such disasters. Only if Billions die can we obtain these goals.

The plan how to kill that many humans and lay waste to most of the current human settlements on the globe is outlined in the AGENDA 21 plan, published by the United Nations.

To see how they will kill you, read it here:

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t...

--

Others like myself who disagree with these policies offer much better "science" including developing space industries to explore off world, revolutionizing underground as well as above ground city designs which include growing the food for a city inside the city itself, creating new power technology like Checmical/Low Energy Nuclear Reaction plants as well as Thorium Nuclear power.

We have the people and the skills to begin now. millions of people are sitting idle as the Bankers consume and destroy around the globe in pursuit of this AGENDA 21 plan.

People who resist do not want to die, there is a better way. That is the way to go, and we do not need Al Gore, a Carbon Credit Exchange or billion of people to die through AGENDA 21 stealth programs like Vaccines, Sterilization of Black People and other such garbage.

The Bible says we are suppose to be stewards of the Earth, and if we put forth a little effort we certainly can do that easily, with even 30 billion people on the globe.

We might even make a small Island in the Pacific and put the IPCC panel and their crony banker friends who dictate their report findings a nice little mud hut to live it too.

The Bush tax cuts have been continued by the Obama administration because they were judged to be a sound method of stimulating the economy.

No, they haven't been so judged.

https://www.google.com/search?...

They were continued as part of a brokered budget deal. The Democratic house & senate didn't particularly like it, but it was the best compromise on the table at the time.

A bird is extremely improbable

Because it's not like a pathogen has ever learned to hop from one species of host to another leaving utter devastation in its wake.

Swing Flu
Bird Flu
Goat Flu
(funny I meant the last one as a joke but searching for the family guy video, it appears goat flu is real)

Anyone know someone who'll make book on what the next animal flu will be? My money is on a karma induced pangolin flu wiping out poachers...

It was a 7 degree rise for ages:

http://www.mnn.com/earth-matte...

Now that's the high end of the "prediction".

In 2010 NASA said this:

"8th December 2010 13:24 GMT - A group of top NASA and NOAA scientists say that current climate models predicting global warming are far too gloomy, and have failed to properly account for an important cooling factor which will come into play as CO2 levels rise."

And "New NASA model: Doubled CO2 means just 1.64C warming
'Important to get these things right', says scientist"

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2...

In 2011 it was "Discovered" trees eat CO2:

Originally found at: http://www.google.com/hostedne...

Forests soak up third of fossil fuel emissions: study
By Marlowe Hood (AFP) – 5 days ago

PARIS — Forests play a larger role in Earth's climate system than previously suspected for both the risks from deforestation and the potential gains from regrowth, a benchmark study released Thursday has shown.

The study, published in Science, provides the most accurate measure so far of the amount of greenhouse gases absorbed from the atmosphere by tropical, temperate and boreal forests, researchers said.

"This is the first complete and global evidence of the overwhelming role of forests in removing anthropogenic carbon dioxide," said co-author Josep Canadell, a scientist at CSIRO, Australia's national climate research centre in Canberra.

"If you were to stop deforestation tomorrow, the world's established and regrowing forests would remove half of fossil fuel emissions," he told AFP, describing the findings as both "incredible" and "unexpected".

Also odd how this guy in 2007 was able to predict this winter's 100-year record breaking cold from things the IPCC have nothing to do with climate:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

Do the alarmists have an explanation for these?

http://www.google.com/intl/en/...

It turns out they are not that much cheaper though, so I don't really see the value proposition in practice implied by Phil Shapiro since they are not yet $100 and screens still cost money:
"Review: Asus crafts a tiny $179 Chromebox out of cheap, low-power parts"
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets...

I'm surprised Roblimo could miss pointing the Chromebox out, just mentioning the Raspberry Pi. Although he was right to point out the SSD speedup is significant for any small computer.

Another big miss is that for US$50 you can buy an Android Smartphone and use it only with Wi-Fi. Example of what we paid $50 for a few months ago, but now is $31?
http://www.amazon.com/Kyocera-...
"The Kyocera Hydro is sophistication and style in a mainstream Android smartphone that can work for everyone. Plus it offers water-resistance, giving consumers the âoeno-fearâ durability and security they demand. With a 3.5 inch HVGA touchscreen, 3.2 MP camera and video, and Android 4.0, you get the best of all worlds."

Although I would much rather use the Chromebook with a keyboard for making content than trying to use an Android phone. But $30 to be connected with the global internet? That is an amazing realization of many educational technologist's dreams (e.g. Alan Kay Dynabook or OLPC XO-1). And perhaps also some nightmares... See also the 1950s short story by Theodore Sturgeon called "The Skills of Xanadu" on where that all could lead.

My own hopes and predictions from 2000 based in part on seeing the "Cybiko":
"[unrev-II] The DKR hardware I'd like to make..."
http://www.dougengelbart.org/c...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...

Also, I don't see why a teacher or librarian is so keen to limit people's mobility (although it doesn't surprise me, going with the "school is prison" meme).

A big value to my $250 Samsung Chromebook is how light and portable it is. I still use my Quad Core Mac Pro Desktop with three big screens for work and running VirtualBox VMs (and the Chromebook could not replace that, especially the screens) -- used to run Debian for about five years until we (my wife especially) got tired of all the random breakage with every "apt-get dist-upgrade" around 2008 (probably much better now). But I use my Chromebook (with Linux under the covers) for just noodling around or surfing the web and posting on Slashdot sitting in our living room, or doing some light for-fun development work. As I said in another post, I wrote this JavaScript-based information manager tool bootstrapping system entirely on the Chromebook:
https://github.com/pdfernhout/...

Why do I use the Chromebook instead of my desktop (treadmill workstation actually) Mac Pro? Psychological and social, mostly. I gain some distance from my daily paying work by using a different computer in a different place. I also have done it partially as an experiment in learning about the next generation of computing. It's true that our two-year old Macbook Pro is still a much better computer as far as keyboard and screen and CPU and what it can do -- but it is often otherwise in use these days. My wife would always complain about me leaving a lot of tabs open in Firefox. And so on. The Chromebook is more a personal computer just for me. And it was cheap enough that I could justify it as an experiment compared to another $1000-$2500 Macbook.

We did however buy a $1000 Win 8 ASUS laptop a few months ago anyway. What a disappointment as a laptop. Even with a bigger screen and much faster pr

Perhaps since it's not widely held...

Search: Colbert Snowden

Weed out statements by Colbert himself. Currently, the first page results are all from different authors. Is there even one who sees Colbert's comments about Snowden as somehow pro-Snowden? If I'm missing some hidden bunch of people, enlighten me.

graffiti artists are the people responsible for those really cool murals;

The thing is, those "really cool murals" aren't as cool when you find one on your house one morning. Or on your fence that you just had painted. The day that you are having a big party at your house for your staid work colleagues, including your boss.

https://chrome.google.com/webs...

I just wrote a completely open ended HTML5/CSS/JavaScript app on my Samsung $250 Chromebook using the regular user mode and "Caret". I saved versions of the files on the Chromebook and ran them locally from Chrome. The app I wrote uses IndexedDB for local storage of snippets of HTML (which can include JavaScript). The app is intended to support boostrapping a better app by supporting experiments with HTML5/CSS/JavaScript. You can edit text and have it included as a section of HTML on the page. From start to finish (well, it's not really "done") I wrote it on the Chromebook.

I just put the code up on GitHub as an example for you (again using only the Chromebook) :
https://github.com/pdfernhout/...

You can try a demo version here which will store data in your browser: http://rawgithub.com/pdfernhou...

Here is a direct link to the bootstrap.json content to paste in as a start: https://raw.githubusercontent....

See the GitHub repo for basic instructions on how to use it.

Granted, to do C compiling I'd need some tool that converted C to JavaScript in a special way, but more and more such tools exists.
https://github.com/kripken/ems...
http://www.infoq.com/research/...

So, more and more things are possible with Chromebooks or similar devices.

> That font is hideous and unreadable,

I happen to think it's much more readable. The font wasn't messed with, he simply wrapped his post in tt tags, which ... unsurprisingly, is converted to whatever font your browser has configured to handle Teletype Text. I hope you can understand why it is considered more readable by many people, who happen to use computers daily.

You can probably change your font handling via

Chrome - https://support.google.com/chr... (look for fixed width font in your font settings)
Mozilla - https://support.mozilla.org/en...
(or use a plugin, or other guide, etc)

None of this has to do with his post and a great deal with your unfamiliarity with anything other than (probably) facebook. If you don't like it, as he suggested, change it.

I think he's saying a lazy, greedy, corporation is more dangerous than 1000 imaginary terrerists.

long done deal

http://code.google.com/p/linie...

Not sure exactly what lines but, if I remember right, distribution lines are in the 13kV range.... you don't just "cut" them with a pair of dykes. The result of the connection being disrupted can generate some amazing sparks. Electricians who work on circuits like that wear protective suits:
https://www.google.com/search?...

I managed to find such an area after a brief search. On the map you'll see a $95k house in Atlanta that's 0.3 miles from one that's selling for $2.95mil. So there's at least one...

graffiti artists are the people responsible for those really cool murals;

You are confusing eyesores with art.

More graffitis in cities...

I wish those so-called "artists" practised their art on canvas at home or something, instead of ruining cityscapes and costing taxpayers millions for cleanup.

Methinks you are conflating "professional graffiti artist" with "idiot taggers."

graffiti artists are the people responsible for those really cool murals; taggers are those wastes of flesh with nothing better to do than hose a wall with random lines and shapes, then claim it's some sort of "signature."

Regarding this KATSU person, it appears from a Google image search that he's of the latter group.

More graffitis in cities...

I wish those so-called "artists" practised their art on canvas at home or something, instead of ruining cityscapes and costing taxpayers millions for cleanup.

Methinks you are conflating "professional graffiti artist" with "idiot taggers."

graffiti artists are the people responsible for those really cool murals; taggers are those wastes of flesh with nothing better to do than hose a wall with random lines and shapes, then claim it's some sort of "signature."

Regarding this KATSU person, it appears from a Google image search that he's of the latter group.

Here you go.

Search for "clean restaurant in NYC", and get accurate results based on reviews by professional restaurant inspectors.

Find out how clean a restaurant's kitchen is with a glimpse into the kitchen: google kitchen view

Sorry for the bad link, i meant
https://code.google.com/p/chro...

I think this is the link of the bugreport in question:
https://code.google.com/p/chro...

Seems legit. f#$!.. Google don't be evil. This attributes to being evil, regardless whether it happened knowingly.

I did a little critical thinking. I asked myself, "What's the story behind voice search? I don't know anything about it." It turns out you have to click to turn on voice Search. They aren't recording everything by default: https://support.google.com/chr... What they do with the recordings and how long they keep them, I don't know.

Nope. They bought the rights from Xerox.

If they bought the rights from Xerox then why, in the middle of the Apple/Microsoft suit, did Xerox try to sue them for infringement?

In the midst of the Apple v. Microsoft lawsuit, Xerox also sued Apple alleging that Mac's GUI was heavily based on Xerox's.

Apple purchased the Xerox patents later.

So, no thanks to TFA, I found the actual bug report, and it turns out the guy went public less than 2 days after reporting the bug to Google. Talk about impatient. And it's not true that "Google issued a low-priority label to the bug when he reported it, until he wrote about it on his blog and the post started picking up steam on social media". It's true that it was originally given a low-severity label at first, it was bumped to medium a day-and-a-half later, then up to high a few hours after that--around the same time that he went to reddit about it. Not exactly sure if it was before or after, since I don't know the timezone of the times reported on Chrome's issue tracker, but one of the comments from Google says that they had already bumped the severity rating before they knew about him going public.

It's old, but fvwm has been great for me for 17 years now. Fvwm95 is lightweight, and looks an awful lot like Windows... (Okay, windows doesn't have virtual desktops out of the box, but otherwise it's quite similar.)

and this article brought to you by the same people that stated Stephen Hawking would never have survived his illness if he lived in the UK and had to deal with their medical system.
https://www.google.com/search?...

I expect you're one of those people who thinks Venezuela's current government is "forging a bold new alternative to neo-liberalism", aren't you.

I certainly do. The GNI per capita has soared since the Bolivarian revolution. Big reduction in poverty. Longer life expectancy. Better access to water. And unlike the USA, the Venezuelan government is running a surplus, not a deficit.

http://translate.google.com/tr...|en&tbb=1&ie=UTF-8

The thing that's the self-convolution of the pupil function is the point spread function (g(theta) in my example from a few posts back).

Wrong. The Point Spread Function (in the case of incoherent imaging) is the magnitude squared of the Fourier Transform of the pupil function.

You can read : Born & Wolf, Principle of Optics, Chapter 8, Section 5 : "Fraunhofer Diffraction at apertures of various forms" (see here, starting p436).

For the case of an ideal, top-hat shaped pupil function, the point spread function will fall to zero, and stay zero, at theta = 2*theta_pupil.

Wrong. In that case, the PSF will be similar to the Airy pattern (circular aperture) or a Cardinal Sine function (square/rectangular aperture). Both have unlimited support (see previous book reference).

And the Fourier transform of a function with limited support has unlimited support in Fourier space.

Right. And the Fourier transform of a function with an unlimited support in the direct space has a limited support in Fourier space.

Hence, while the optical transfer function will never fall to zero in this case (or any other case with a sharp edge to the pupil function), except for occasional zero crossings.

Wrong. The PSF has unlimited support, thus the OTF (and MTF) has limited support.

Unfortunately I'm short on time this morning, so please forgive the quick bullets:

- Patentees today often appeal rejections and ultimately receive a patent. Not sure what your point is about Edison.
- An iPhone-style "swipe to unlock" on a Neonode would have been the holy grail of Samsung's invalidity case if true. It's an urban legend perpetuated by people who haven't read and understood Apple's patent -- https://www.google.com/patents... -- and think all it covers is responding to a finger gesture.
- Courts in the UK and Netherlands have not thrown out Apple's U.S. patent claim. They've acted on the corresponding patents filed and prosecuted in their countries under their patent regimes. Unless you're an expert on comparative patent law across these countries and have analyzed the scope of the respective claims, you have no basis for saying that what the UK and Dutch courts threw out is the same as what Apple is asserting against Samsung.
- Neonode's phone was considered by the USPTO before granting Apple's patent. It's not the same concept -- in fact, precisely the opposite. Read Neonode's own patent on it for yourself, in particular, the last phrase of claim 1: https://www.google.com/patents...
- It's not clear what you're saying your Discman had. If a touchscreen-based button, again, Samsung would have quite cheerfully taken that to the bank, and it also seems to consume your following argument that the idea wasn't practical until capacitive touchscreens hit the mainstream. If a mechanical button, so what? This seems to be just like saying that the threshing machine shouldn't have been patentable, as I've pointed out elsewhere in this thread.
- In any event, it's not correct that resistive touchscreens were a limiting factor. Palm Graffiti was a swipe-based input system on a resistive touchscreen available since the 1990s that worked quite well. But for some reason Palm never implemented the "obvious" swipe-to-unlock.
- Multitouch isn't a requirement for swipe-to-unlock and thus is irrelevant here.

Unfortunately I'm short on time this morning, so please forgive the quick bullets:

- Patentees today often appeal rejections and ultimately receive a patent. Not sure what your point is about Edison.
- An iPhone-style "swipe to unlock" on a Neonode would have been the holy grail of Samsung's invalidity case if true. It's an urban legend perpetuated by people who haven't read and understood Apple's patent -- https://www.google.com/patents... -- and think all it covers is responding to a finger gesture.
- Courts in the UK and Netherlands have not thrown out Apple's U.S. patent claim. They've acted on the corresponding patents filed and prosecuted in their countries under their patent regimes. Unless you're an expert on comparative patent law across these countries and have analyzed the scope of the respective claims, you have no basis for saying that what the UK and Dutch courts threw out is the same as what Apple is asserting against Samsung.
- Neonode's phone was considered by the USPTO before granting Apple's patent. It's not the same concept -- in fact, precisely the opposite. Read Neonode's own patent on it for yourself, in particular, the last phrase of claim 1: https://www.google.com/patents...
- It's not clear what you're saying your Discman had. If a touchscreen-based button, again, Samsung would have quite cheerfully taken that to the bank, and it also seems to consume your following argument that the idea wasn't practical until capacitive touchscreens hit the mainstream. If a mechanical button, so what? This seems to be just like saying that the threshing machine shouldn't have been patentable, as I've pointed out elsewhere in this thread.
- In any event, it's not correct that resistive touchscreens were a limiting factor. Palm Graffiti was a swipe-based input system on a resistive touchscreen available since the 1990s that worked quite well. But for some reason Palm never implemented the "obvious" swipe-to-unlock.
- Multitouch isn't a requirement for swipe-to-unlock and thus is irrelevant here.

That's fine.

Selling little bottles of very expensive water with labels that very carefully imply that they do, indeed, cure diseases (while legally not saying anything of the sort) to people who don't know any better is what gets people up in arms.

But selling little bottles of expensive water in a way that carefully implies that they do, indeed, cure social problems (while legally not saying anything of the sort) seems to be totally okay with everybody.

"Rapidly losing the will to live here."

If not a joke, your contributions would be missed, whether agreed with or not. See also my comment to someone else related to depression: http://slashdot.org/comments.p...

And on the value of public disagreements:
https://sites.google.com/site/...
" The theory Dan Sperber suggested--the argumentative theory of reasoning--proposes that instead of having a purely individual function, reasoning has a social and, more specifically, argumentative function. The function of reasoning would be to find and evaluate reasons in dialogic contexts--more plainly, to argue with others. Here's a very quick summary of the evolutionary rationale behind this theory. Communication is hugely important for humans, and there is good reason to believe that this has been the case throughout our evolution, as different types of collaborative--and therefore communicative--activities already played a big role in our ancestors' lives (hunting, collecting, raising children, etc.). However, for communication to be possible, listeners have to have ways to discriminate reliable, trustworthy information from potentially dangerous information--otherwise speakers would be wont to abuse them through lies and deception. Listeners must have mechanisms of epistemic vigilance. One way listeners and speakers can improve the reliability of communication is through arguments. The speaker gives a reason to accept a given conclusion. The listener can then evaluate this reason to decide whether she should accept the conclusion. In both cases, they have used reasoning--to find and evaluate a reason respectively. If reasoning does its job properly, communication has been improved: a true conclusion is more likely to be supported by good arguments, and therefore accepted, thereby making both the speaker--who managed to convince the listener--and the listener--who acquired a potentially valuable piece of information--better off.
Our evolutionary account is much more in touch with the prevailing view of the evolution of human cognition. According to this view--alternatively named the social brain hypothesis, or the Machiavellian intelligence hypothesis, among others--most of human cognition evolved to answer the demands of our social world. ..."

And:
http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes....
"We do not claim that reasoning has nothing to do with the truth. We claim that reasoning did not evolve to allow the lone reasoner to find the truth. We think it evolved to argue. But arguing is not only about trying to convince other people; it's also about listening to their arguments. So reasoning is two-sided. On the one hand, it is used to produce arguments. Here its goal is to convince people. Accordingly, it displays a strong confirmation bias -- what people see as the "rhetoric" side of reasoning. On the other hand, reasoning is also used to evaluate arguments. Here its goal is to tease out good arguments from bad ones so as to accept warranted conclusions and, if things go well, get better beliefs and make better decisions in the end."

So, thanks for being part of that process. In any case, hang in there, there is a chance it might get better.

Also, tangentially, on things "getting better" and depression and being in a minority:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I...
"Its goal is to prevent suicide among LGBT youth by having gay adults convey the message that these teens' lives will improve."

Example:
"It Gets Better - Princeton University"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

But that sentiment can apply to lots of things given a life so full of

I'm sure you have heared of Moore's Law ?

Did you know solar panels are on a similar course ?:

https://www.google.com/search?...

Look here for the Chrome "IT Administrator" installer that will install to %ProgramFiles%.

So this is perfectly normal.
And now it's scientifically proven..

The U.S. is #2 among "populous" countries. Nauru, "a small island in the South Pacific, has an obesity rate of 71.1%, the highest of any country."

Or maybe they *do* like smart cars, and just find tipping them amusing. I've never heard it suggested that cow-tipping was motivated by any particular dislike for cows or farmers. And with a bit of alcohol (or asshole) in their systems a bunch of bemused people might not even consider the damage done. For that matter was any real damage done? The things have roll cages, and I don't recall seeing any broken headlights, etc. in the photos. I'm sure some people will cite the horrible expense of scratches in the paint, but in terms of mechanical damage all I can think of is possibly draining some of the fluids into places they shouldn't be. And I don't think a car has anything half so prone to orientation damage as a refrigerator - and that's easy enough to fix with a flush and recharge.

Why do you discount the cost of the bodywork? Isn't that still damage? The roll cage isn't there to prevent damage, it's there to prevent the roof from being crushed in a rollover accident. Someone once keyed the side of my car and tore the driver's door handle off in an attempt to break in. It cost $4500 to replace the door and repaint that side of the car - the car itself was only worth around $7000, so it was close to being totaled. A smart car is smaller so the bodywork repairs might cost a bit less, but popping out or replacing the side body panels that were on the ground (sidewalks in SF are made of hard concrete in SF, not of fluffy pillows as they apparently are where you live) and repainting it is still going to be in the thousands. So each car owner is probably going to be out $500 - $1000 or whatever their insurance deductible is, plus whatever amount their insurance increases after they make a claim.

Besides, have drunks ever successfully tipped over a cow? There seems to be a lot of debate about whether or not cow tipping is a real thing, and little evidence that it's real: https://www.google.com/search?...

https://www.google.com/search?...

Damn, I thought you were joking but his moobs put most women to shame.

It is times like these I am reminded of the Orangutan.

The lean younger and over active orangutan males fail to impress most females. Instead they seek out the longer survived, more experienced, and gentler male with his hair covered bigness and prominent cheek pads.

If they could speak their ladies would say, "I want a real man, not a scrawny thin-headed sucker who's tits and tool-shed haven't come in yet and doesn't even reek."

It's as if nature finds perverse pleasure in mocking us by keeping examples of happiness around in branches of life's tree to remind us of the price we paid for our souls.

You're doing it wrong. You squint your eyes when looking for Asia. Stand on your head to see the land down under.

Oh take it easy. I'm not being serious so stop acting offended.

For comparison see google maps. There are definite similarities, but it's not an exact match. If you rotate Australia 90 degrees to the left the juts on the left look right, but the the curve of the right side is wrong.

So honestly, you are right that it doesn't "look like" Australia, but the summary only says that at a glace it looks reminiscent of the shape.

especially when he calls some people subhuman.

Didn't happen. Google around. If he had really called anyone "subhuman" (or even be merely accused of doing so) it'd be all over the internet rather than just an empty accusation in the backwaters of Slashdot.

https://www.google.com/search?...

Then install Windows 8 and spend $5 on StarDock's Start8 and you never need to be in metro again. Or wait for Windows 8.1 Update 1 and you will get the start menu back.

Or you could do what I do: get used to it. I am almost never in Metro, except for app selection, on my main windows system. YMMV but I find most windows 8 really don't have to spend much time.

Russians, Chinese it doesn't matter. We have lots of nations in competition in many hi-tech and low-tech fields always looking for an edge. Sometimes it's not state-sponsored either. Back in the 80s, Hitachi was found stealing computer technology trade secrets from IBM in the 80s and settled out of court. While technology today allows for the theft of more secrets and to reverse engineer just about everything out there more quickly, it's more imperative that companies take this kind of threat more seriously. Patents, which force the inventor to disclose how an invention works, are one thing but when whole industries are stolen it not only represents a national defense but a national economic issue as well.

Wouldn't it be more appropriate to give the Wikipedia link for Marvin Oppong (English?

Ahh yes, the "colors of sound", some of those mysterious qualities and adjectives of sound that only people who are trying to justify spending way too much money seem to ever be able to understand.

Sounds more like they have synesthesia. Which might be a benefit to a professional musician, but I don't see how that makes it different for the rest of us.