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User: Tickety-boo

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Comments · 33

  1. Re:Error My Ass on NBC Apologizes For Editing Zimmerman 911 Call · · Score: 2

    The captions on a local new program usually spell his name "O'Bama". Cracks me up every time.

  2. Re:Words, Not Communication on Wild Parrots Learning To Talk From Escaped Pet Birds · · Score: 1

    Now I've got "Bjorn under a bad sign" stuck in my head. Thanks....

  3. Re:Carbon Harvesting on Will Climate Engineering Ever Go Prime Time? · · Score: 1

    I've seen these Terrestrial Reclamation Energy Exfoliates too! I hear that when they are fully charged, you can make all sorts of neat stuff out of them chairs, tables, houses...

    I know what you are getting at, I just couldn't resist....

  4. Re:...and they were trying to accomplish WHAT now? on Police Vulture Training Not a Success · · Score: 1

    It's something about how they smell

    The vultures or the naughty bits?

  5. Grats! on IBM Turns 100 · · Score: 0

    IBM, UBM we all BM for IBM!

    Couldn't resist.....

  6. Re:Data over power lines? on California County Bans SmartMeter Installations · · Score: 1

    Data rates for BPL (Broadband over Power Line) is about 3Mb/s. This is too slow to sell it as a DSL competitor, but fine for AMI data. The largest amount of data they would need to send would be during a firmware upgrade which could be from 50MB-200MB, so 3Mb/s should be sufficient and is similar to other data methods. PLC (Power Line Carrier) was on-par with modem speeds (which PGE tired this), and may be what they are referring to.

    The common reason for not using BPL is that you need to "hop" over the transformers, and the equipment for this is expensive and interferes with HAM radios and other wireless traffic.

  7. Re:Maybe it's a bad idea to have a "smart grid" on Securing the Smart Grid · · Score: 1

    Smart grid is the name given to technologies that provide advanced capabilities to these "last mile" customers

    I think you are thinking of Advanced Metering (AMI). Smart Grid is the integration of Generation, Transmission, Distribution, Retail, and Consumer technologies.

  8. Re:Computer that happens to be a phone on Police Can Search Cell Phones Without Warrants · · Score: 1

    You are correct, but if you are under arrest it is reasonably foreseeable that there will be a proceeding. In some cases, someone saying "I'll sue you " counts.

    Now if you had the data elsewhere, and you wiped the the device, you would be safe because you are not destroying the evidence. This is best for you as a defendant as they need to make the case to a hopefully independent judge that the data is related to what you were arrested for. At this point, the prosecutor would have to know how the data is related, and can't just ask for "all data that was on the phone that shows you are guilty of X", and they can't ask for anything not related to what you are charged with. (Wikipedia's US v. Hubbell article has a good example of what they can ask for.)

    Your state law may vary, and arguing constitutional law to a cop probably won't help.

  9. Re:Computer that happens to be a phone on Police Can Search Cell Phones Without Warrants · · Score: 1
    Yup, that sounds like good, old fashion spoliation of evidence.

    The spoliation inference is a negative evidentiary inference that a finder of fact can draw from a party's destruction of a document or thing that is relevant to an ongoing or reasonably foreseeable civil or criminal proceeding

  10. Re:Now that you know how fear works on Dissecting the Neural Circuitry of Fear · · Score: 2, Funny

    I'm afraid I can't do that.

  11. Re:Idea needs building industry support on Large, Slow Airships Could Move Buildings · · Score: 1

    Yes, the English did this in Hong Kong a year or two before handing the island over to the PRC. The building was constructed elsewhere as bunch of "bricks" and then shipped in and assembled.

  12. Re:Should I quote from the book of Revelations? on Biometric IDs For Every Indian Citizen · · Score: 1

    I think this may have more to it than the KJ translation. I believe in greek it would be DCLXVI, or 500+100+50+10+5+1 which to me looks like a countdown timer or a bunch of numbers in descending order.

    I am no bible scholar, so this is just my observation

  13. Re:secret resistors abound on Hardware Hackers Reveal Apple's Charger Secrets · · Score: 1
  14. How do you know? on LA's Move To Google Apps Slows As "Apps For Gov't." Announced · · Score: 1

    Ok, so they will separate your data from everyone else's, but how do you know they aren't mining your data and storing the index on another machines? Remember, Google is an advertising company first. All of the other products like Postini, gDocs, etc are there just to give them more data to mine.

    Your contract may state that they are not allowed to mine or even store your filtered data, but how would you ever know? Good luck executing an eDiscovery search on largest collector of data in the world. I'm sure the attorney's would love it though.

  15. Re:Opera users didnt have a problem on Google Introduces, Then Scraps, Bing-Style Background Images · · Score: 1

    It's really remarkable, isn't it? Does Google sell it's spam filter by any chance?

    I think it is called Postini.

  16. Re:Really? on UK Scientists Create a Three-Parent Embryo · · Score: 1

    Competition for adopting babies is pretty fierce.

    Only the white ones. There is a shortage of families willing to adopt black children. It has gotten better over the last year, but two years ago some agencies were offering 25-50% discounts if you considered black or mixed race babies.

  17. Re:Really? on UK Scientists Create a Three-Parent Embryo · · Score: 1

    Consider the fact that a full adoption is more often than not a years-long process (waiting lists, background checks, etc), requires a lot more effort to complete, and often costs more than whatever this particular treatment will cost?

    In the U.S., this is only the case when you want a white baby at birth. If you have no racial preference, but reasonable restrictions on the birth-mom's health (not epileptic, no drinking/pot when pregnant, etc) you can have a newborn in less than a year for about $10-15k. If you go through the state's foster system, and you are less restrictive on age, you could easily adopt in less than 6 months and just pay the processing fees which are usually less than $200.

    Compare that for fertility treatments, and then different in-vitro procedures, adoption is still cheaper. There are agencies out there that charge much more($25-40k)for domestic adoptions, but they are generally geared toward people who want white children from mom's of a certain background, and they provide more services to birth-mom during the pregnancy.

    I somewhat disagree about your point that we all want to pass on our own genetic material. I think that most people are not exposed to adoption, or are only exposed to the Hallmark Channel's interpretation of adoption, so they never look at it as an adoption.

  18. Re:I've got to get busy! on Look At Sick People To Give Your Immune System a Boost · · Score: 1

    You've come to the right place....

  19. Re:I thought China's population is to decline? on China To Tap Combustible Ice As New Energy Source · · Score: 5, Funny

    And who wants to move to somewhere that is cold, inhospitable, underdeveloped and filled with relatively unfriendly people?

    Leave Quebec out of this.

  20. Good luck with that... on Justice Dept. Asked For Broad Swath of IndyMedia's Visitor Records · · Score: 5, Informative
    If she is only retaining the logs of the IP addresses for a few months, and did not know this order was coming, she is safe.

    FRCP Rule 37 states:

    Absent exceptional circumstances, a court may not impose sanctions under these rules on a party for failing to provide electronically stored information lost as a result of the routine, good-faith operation of an electronic information system.

  21. Re:high building standards on 7-Story Wooden Condo Survives 7.5 Magnitude Quake · · Score: 1

    This may sound facetious, but I had a similar question the first time I saw a large Sodium-sulfide (NaS) battery. It was the size of a garden shed, and basically was filled with molten sodium. The engineers said that it was safe from thunderstorms, tornadoes, tree falls, and earthquakes. My first question was "it is safe from two or three of those if they happen at the same time?"

    A now very pale engineer answered "no". I guess they hadn't considered a tree falling on it in the rain, and we all know how much fun sodium is when it gets wet...

  22. Sub ubi on Periodic Table Gets a New, Unnamed Element · · Score: 1

    How about Semperubisububium

    Always wear under wear

  23. Re:Money Grab on NY Bill Proposes Fat Tax On Games, DVDs, Junk Food · · Score: 1

    Thanks for the tips. Grilled veggies are always a good side, although I was thinking more along the lines of beer-flavored celery, or buffalo-wing-bananas.

  24. Re:Money Grab on NY Bill Proposes Fat Tax On Games, DVDs, Junk Food · · Score: 2, Funny

    How about using the proceeds to make healthy foods taste better?

  25. Re:Damn on Louisiana Rep. Preps State Bill Banning Human-Animal Hybrids · · Score: 1

    As a parent of both biological and adopted children, I can tell you that I went through a similar transformation that you went through with the biological kids, and then through a just as significant transformation with the adopted ones. (As a note, they were adopted right from the hospital.) What I was learning is that the "my" kids was not what any of them are*. They are not my possession, but someone I get to have an enormously close relationship ans responsibility to. This doesn't mean that there isn't a bond, quite the contrary, but that the bond is more realistic and better understood, just as you now understand what the bonds in your family friends ans S/O's through your children.

    I know you had a question about surrogacy, and this is not exactly that. I will tell you that the bonding with the adopted kids did take extra time, but it is there, and it is just as deep as it is with the bio kids.

    *Note: I am not trying putting words into your mouth, but this how I think I saw things with the first bio kid.