Only n00bs use anything other than Transparithermite for their viewing window. For additional security, the system is also cooled by liquid propane, and the +5V rail on the power supply is custom engineered to deliver 480V if anything trips the ground fault circuit interrupt.
It's cost me $30k, eight different graphics cards, and two girlfriends, but the peace of mind that a truly secure setup provides is invaluable.
Because a strong argument can be made that investing in public transit is cheaper than continuing to expand and maintain the existing road infrastructure to accomodate increasing population?
Gas/vehicle taxes don't even come close to the cost of constructing and maintaining roadways, at least in the United States.
I prefer unnatural selection... bring on the zombie apocalypse! All of that bullshit about natural selection goes out the window when you're competing and/or reproducing with the undead!
The three things most in demand after a zombie apocalypse are, in order: 1. Sledgehammers (Fuckin' A!) 2. Social skills (An armed society is a polite society. And an unarmed society in the age of zombies has the lifespan of a mayfly.) 3. Shotguns (More valuable than ammo, you can't club a zombie to undeath with a shotgun shell) 4. Ammunition (Preferably edible.)
And for all of you jackholes saying that wasn't three things; math is not in demand after a zombie apocalypse. The last thing we need is another l33t m4th d00d comparing the relative quantities of ammo and zombies.
I hate to say this, but MMO games and the continuing subscription model limited only by server and bandwidth costs make PCs king of the profit field.
I hate to say it because I think all of the MMO games currently available are roughly comparable to being consumed by and subsequently shit out of a bear.
Eventually some visionary developer is going to get it right, though... and they're going to end up richer than God.
People with your attitude (I don't like the terms of sale, so I'll just take it) are the entire reason DRM exists. Honest gamers like me have securom installed by their purchased games because people like you will pirate them at the first opportunity. Yet I bet in your head, nothing is your fault, its all those evil bastard game devs making games you want so badly you will steal them rather than stick to your principles.
Actually, DRM exists because legitimate consumers seem to be willing to put up with arbitrary pain-in-the-ass DRM restrictions. DRM will always be broken given sufficient demand for a product, so the only real effect that copy protection has is the imposition of additional annoyance to legitimate users. Brad Wardell of Stardock is probably the most authoritative voice on this topic:
"The reason why we don't put CD copy protection on our games isn't because we're nice guys. We do it because the people who actually buy games don't like to mess with it. Our customers make the rules, not the pirates. Pirates don't count. We know our customers could pirate our games if they want but choose to support our efforts. So we return the favor - we make the games they want and deliver them how they want it. This is also known as operating like every other industry outside the PC game industry."
He's on the right track, which is why Stardock games consistently sell well. I don't want to hassle with copy-protection, being able to backup CDs, or any other nasty shit that comes out of DRMware. If I'm aware that a program comes with something evil or makes me jump through hoops, I definitely won't purchase it, and thus the producer will get none of my money. It's no coincidence that Stardock.net and Steam account for the majority of my game purchases in the last year or two...
So, I don't give a shit about people who pirate software. What ticks me off is DRM that wastes my time as a paying customer, simply because corporate kleptobots think they can get away with it. Stop encouraging them.
Unfortunately, all of the costs of identity fraud are borne by the consumer, while all of the benefits of quick/insecure identification are reaped by the lending industry.
Strong and secure methods of identification and verification need to make their way into the financial world, but changing the existing infrastructure is expensive, so it isn't going to happen. At least, not until some enterprising individual has their identity stolen and successfully manages to sue the lending industry for fraud...
Many, many MMORPG players are 13 year old kids. Immature kids. These people are not adults. They do not behave like adults. If the company "calmly addresses the issues", then they'll be flooded by complainers, cheaters and opportunists within no time.
You seem to be making a rather dubious assumption; most evidence suggests that any given MMORPG's baseline can be defined as being 'flooded by complainers, cheaters and opportunists within no time'. This also appears to take place completely independently of developer policy.
On a similar note: even if an AK-slinging fanatic is stopped by multimillion dollar munitions(and all the work behind fielding the munitions) we end up losing anyway since we lose far more money than they invested.
Fortunately, there's an even greater imbalance between the combined resources of all terrorist groups likely to be slinging AK-fanatics against our civilization and the resources we have to put into improved technology opposing them. The "war on terror" is a police action against few networks of psychopathic malcontents, and the only way society can possibly lose it is by doing the terrorists' work for them.
Unfortunately, many aspects of the current execution of "war on terror" are glaring examples of our policy makers being unable to grasp that concept.
I strongly disagree with a lot of libertarian economic policies, but I don't think that your post gives their reasoning a fair hearing.
First, libertarians on principle oppose government involvement in monetarist policies, which implies getting rid of the federal reserve and the monetarist policies it administers. This has absolutely nothing to do with government spending, which is fiscal policy handled by Congress. I would imagine Ron Paul's fiscal policy would be some variant of pay as you go, following strong fiscally conservative principles. Getting government out of monetary policy probably isn't a good idea, but having people attempting to muddy the waters by rolling all of the issues together is also a crock of shit.
Second, Ron Paul advocates the repeal of the individual income tax, which accounted for roughly $1.04 billion of the $2.40 billion overall tax collected by the Federal Government in 2006. The balance is composed of corporate income taxes and other taxes, and in a cursory overview, I was able to find no evidence that Ron Paul opposes these forms of taxation. Excise taxes and a reduction of spending to 1995?-levels would account for the deficit. Tariffs are not a significant part of his tax plan, for the simple reason that the volume of international trade is not significant when compared to the size of the American domestic economy.
I wouldn't vote for Ron Paul, but my reasons don't have a lot to do with the half-assed hyperbole and half-truths you're spouting, and many of the issues he raises do have relevance to policy discussions today.
The parent post is verifiably false on both counts, either horribly misguided or a shill for the corporate stooges they referenced.
Obama's 2004 Senate campaign finance records are easilyavailable and seem to be noticeably not dominated by banking interests with a stake in bankruptcy law or their employees.
This matches up with Obama's vote against the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005.
Now, if they cannot explain this reasoning to the point that the population can agree with them, then they stand a good chance of being booted in the next elections.
Unfortunately, gerrymandering throws a rather large wrench in your argument. In practice, the effect of gerrymandering is preservation of the status quo. Why? Because the borders are re-drawn by the existing representatives, who have a vested interest in being re-elected and thus an incentive to re-apportion the vote. "Here, I'll trade you this neighborhood of people who like you better than me for one of your neighborhoods that likes me but not you, and we'll both have an easier race!"
In my state, this has led to a scenario where very few districts are even remotely competitive, taking any real choice from the general populace and placing it in the party establishment and primary election, and encouraging the phenomenon of self-serving politicians, who can get away with all kinds of shenanigans while being perfectly assured of re-election, because the primary arbiter of their re-election is the approval of their party leadership and being nominated to run, not their constituents.
Gerrymandering + partisan poltics = self-serving politicians-for-life - transparency - accountability, at least on the state and congressional level.
Significant progress in election reform will be difficult until re-districting is in the hands of an impartial third party.
As for directly-elected politicians serving their office, that's absolute lunacy. The founding fathers intended for Congress to be directly accountable to the people, which is why they spend close to half of their terms campaigning for re-election. The Senate was intended as the more stable body looking out for everyone's long-term interests and ignoring the passing fancies of the democratic mob while acting as appointed representatives of the government of their states, but the 17th Amendment blew that right out of the water. Direct election of Senators is a horrible, horrible idea, and we're continuing to pay the price today-- every time a Senator publicly jumps into a controversial issue with knee-jerk pandering, blame the 17th.
Come to think of it, that's a plausible reason why I strongly dislike so very many of the current crop of Presidential wannabes.
I agree in principle with most of Kucinich's major campaign planks-- universal single-payer healthcare, sustainable environmentalism, government transparency and accountability. Unfortunately, the protectionist, isolationist stance that the supposedly 'progressive' wing of the democratic party insists on waving around like a flaming sword is a complete dealbreaker.
I will not support any candidate who is blind to the fact that international trade and our trade policies offer by far the most effective means for promoting social and political change and the welfare of humanity as a whole... and I can't stand candidates who pander to the isolationists and corrupt labor union leadership with simplistic, protectionist demagoguery about 'saving American jobs'.
You think anybody in Congress has ever flown standby?
Or even knows what it is?
Sure. For the majority of states, flying back and forth every time Congress is in session ain't cheap. $165K goes a long way in a lot of places, but when you're making at least 10+ round-trip trips a year and maintaining a second residence in Wa$hington DC it doesn't go nearly as far as you'd think for congresscritters who aren't independently wealthy.
Sure, a lot of them are independently wealthy, but many of them are not. Financial disclosures are nifty-keen.
Gawd, cry me a river. TF2 doesn't even keep track of deaths, but since you're so determined to do so, you may want to consider going back and camping some more counter-strike...
I'd say these 'growing pains' appear rather similar to the challenges faced by any corporation of similar size. Potential mergers with companies in the same field being investigated by the FTC? Welcome to the Fortune 100. Open source alternatives as a 'threat' to ubiquitous name recognition and >50% market share? Yep, that's a truly pressing problem most tech companies would love to face. Difficulties sustaining rapid growth when your market cap exceeds $150B?
Well, yes, it's difficult to grow rapidly when you're valued at over 1/400th of the gross world product. Pick a bigger planet next time, perhaps?
Honestly, did this article really say anything insightful or unusual? If it did, I missed it...
Right now I'd almost consider trading IQ points for mod points.
There is no form of cognitive testing that you can't improve on by training your mind appropriately. IQ tests, SAT tests, driving tests, arithmetic, even anticipating shots in tennis-- neuroplasticity is a wonderful thing.
So the question becomes:
"Are the public schools encouraging cognitive training that's useful to society and individuals' performance within society, or cognitive training designed to defeat the metrics of standardized testing with no other practical applications?"
I know which one they pushed me toward, and I've felt dumber ever since... even with Google helping out.
I have actually heard that line multiple times from Dell. Which translates too, "Im sorry, we have to waste your time just in case you are wrong"
It's tech support. If someone contacts tech support and already thinks they have a diagnosis for their problem, the vast majority of the time their diagnosis is wrong. Never assume anything about a computer's status when you're getting all of your information secondhand, because at least three-quarters of the time, the assumption will be wrong, and then you spend half an hour troubleshooting a broadband connection that is working perfectly normally when the problem is with the router plugged into it under the user's desk.
The hard part is getting all of this mission-critical information out of users in a friendly-enough manner to avoid making them uncooperative, and yet precisely enough to successfully resolve the issue.
...and that's why I hate calling tech support for other large entities I have to interact with, because either A) I don't know what I'm doing, usually due to insufficient documentation from techs in the field or B) I know what I'm doing, but I know the techs I'm calling will have to assume otherwise.
Either way, talking to a tech who knows what they're doing is priceless, and if they ask you a question, there's probably a good reason for it, whether that makes sense at the time or not.
If someone kicked in the door and started shooting and killing people I know I'd probably freeze up.
Freezing up is a mental reaction to an unexpected situation. It's difficult to make rational decisions under pressure, and it becomes more difficult to make rational decisions under extreme stress. Without some framework to weed out ideas, your brain has to consider everything, and chokes on the raw data. Your brain can be trained to deal more effectively with crises, but steps must be taken in advance to do it.
Establishing a mental framework to deal with any given problem is critical. Consider the difference in outcomes for an airline passenger who paid enough attention during the safety briefing to think "OK, my exit door priorities are there, three rows up-right, then there eight rows back or there left, and I'll either be going down a slide or off the wing" versus "Oh my god, the plane just crashed, what do I do?" when the plane cabin will be non-survivable ninety seconds after impact? How about with a fractured arm? Cabin filled with smoke, three foot visibility? Injured and incapacitated seatmate?
Spending five seconds to establish a default plan of action when you're not already in a stress situation frees your mind to actually respond to what's happening around you.
That's why even a modicum of forethought/training/mental preparation is literally priceless when confronted with an unexpected and potentially-lethal situation. Successful militaries have known this for a very long time.
Situational awareness and low-level crisis planning are valuable habits to acquire, and fun to practice.
"Subscribe to view" webpages that are still visible to users browsing as GoogleBot.
User agent switcher extension + Browse pretending to be GoogleBot = Annoying "register/pay to see me!" pages go away. I have no idea how many sites it works on now, but I think it still gets into a lot of archived newspaper articles and suchlike.
Rather than requiring content filtering at the broadcaster or on the cable box, I support filtering on a per-child level. Parents should be able to purchase individually-tailored shock collars for their children which automatically activate whenever the child is exposed to non-parental-approved content or situations. By harnessing the power of the shock-averse 'natural intelligence' already guiding children, parents can sleep soundly knowing that their children are making every possible effort to avoid corrupting and immoral influences.
Slashdot Mirror
Only n00bs use anything other than Transparithermite for their viewing window. For additional security, the system is also cooled by liquid propane, and the +5V rail on the power supply is custom engineered to deliver 480V if anything trips the ground fault circuit interrupt.
It's cost me $30k, eight different graphics cards, and two girlfriends, but the peace of mind that a truly secure setup provides is invaluable.
Because a strong argument can be made that investing in public transit is cheaper than continuing to expand and maintain the existing road infrastructure to accomodate increasing population?
Gas/vehicle taxes don't even come close to the cost of constructing and maintaining roadways, at least in the United States.
I prefer unnatural selection... bring on the zombie apocalypse! All of that bullshit about natural selection goes out the window when you're competing and/or reproducing with the undead!
The three things most in demand after a zombie apocalypse are, in order:
1. Sledgehammers (Fuckin' A!)
2. Social skills (An armed society is a polite society. And an unarmed society in the age of zombies has the lifespan of a mayfly.)
3. Shotguns (More valuable than ammo, you can't club a zombie to undeath with a shotgun shell)
4. Ammunition (Preferably edible.)
And for all of you jackholes saying that wasn't three things; math is not in demand after a zombie apocalypse. The last thing we need is another l33t m4th d00d comparing the relative quantities of ammo and zombies.
I rest my case.
I hate to say this, but MMO games and the continuing subscription model limited only by server and bandwidth costs make PCs king of the profit field.
I hate to say it because I think all of the MMO games currently available are roughly comparable to being consumed by and subsequently shit out of a bear.
Eventually some visionary developer is going to get it right, though... and they're going to end up richer than God.
People with your attitude (I don't like the terms of sale, so I'll just take it) are the entire reason DRM exists. Honest gamers like me have securom installed by their purchased games because people like you will pirate them at the first opportunity.
Yet I bet in your head, nothing is your fault, its all those evil bastard game devs making games you want so badly you will steal them rather than stick to your principles.
Actually, DRM exists because legitimate consumers seem to be willing to put up with arbitrary pain-in-the-ass DRM restrictions. DRM will always be broken given sufficient demand for a product, so the only real effect that copy protection has is the imposition of additional annoyance to legitimate users. Brad Wardell of Stardock is probably the most authoritative voice on this topic:
"The reason why we don't put CD copy protection on our games isn't because we're nice guys. We do it because the people who actually buy games don't like to mess with it. Our customers make the rules, not the pirates. Pirates don't count. We know our customers could pirate our games if they want but choose to support our efforts. So we return the favor - we make the games they want and deliver them how they want it. This is also known as operating like every other industry outside the PC game industry."
He's on the right track, which is why Stardock games consistently sell well. I don't want to hassle with copy-protection, being able to backup CDs, or any other nasty shit that comes out of DRMware. If I'm aware that a program comes with something evil or makes me jump through hoops, I definitely won't purchase it, and thus the producer will get none of my money. It's no coincidence that Stardock.net and Steam account for the majority of my game purchases in the last year or two...
So, I don't give a shit about people who pirate software. What ticks me off is DRM that wastes my time as a paying customer, simply because corporate kleptobots think they can get away with it. Stop encouraging them.
Unfortunately, all of the costs of identity fraud are borne by the consumer, while all of the benefits of quick/insecure identification are reaped by the lending industry.
Strong and secure methods of identification and verification need to make their way into the financial world, but changing the existing infrastructure is expensive, so it isn't going to happen. At least, not until some enterprising individual has their identity stolen and successfully manages to sue the lending industry for fraud...
Many, many MMORPG players are 13 year old kids. Immature kids. These people are not adults. They do not behave like adults. If the company "calmly addresses the issues", then they'll be flooded by complainers, cheaters and opportunists within no time.
You seem to be making a rather dubious assumption; most evidence suggests that any given MMORPG's baseline can be defined as being 'flooded by complainers, cheaters and opportunists within no time'. This also appears to take place completely independently of developer policy.
On a similar note: even if an AK-slinging fanatic is stopped by multimillion dollar munitions(and all the work behind fielding the munitions) we end up losing anyway since we lose far more money than they invested.
Fortunately, there's an even greater imbalance between the combined resources of all terrorist groups likely to be slinging AK-fanatics against our civilization and the resources we have to put into improved technology opposing them. The "war on terror" is a police action against few networks of psychopathic malcontents, and the only way society can possibly lose it is by doing the terrorists' work for them.
Unfortunately, many aspects of the current execution of "war on terror" are glaring examples of our policy makers being unable to grasp that concept.
BIGTITS : Big Inanimate Gamma-ray Thing In The Sky
Shouldn't that be "BIGrTitS"?
I strongly disagree with a lot of libertarian economic policies, but I don't think that your post gives their reasoning a fair hearing.
First, libertarians on principle oppose government involvement in monetarist policies, which implies getting rid of the federal reserve and the monetarist policies it administers. This has absolutely nothing to do with government spending, which is fiscal policy handled by Congress. I would imagine Ron Paul's fiscal policy would be some variant of pay as you go, following strong fiscally conservative principles. Getting government out of monetary policy probably isn't a good idea, but having people attempting to muddy the waters by rolling all of the issues together is also a crock of shit.
Second, Ron Paul advocates the repeal of the individual income tax, which accounted for roughly $1.04 billion of the $2.40 billion overall tax collected by the Federal Government in 2006. The balance is composed of corporate income taxes and other taxes, and in a cursory overview, I was able to find no evidence that Ron Paul opposes these forms of taxation. Excise taxes and a reduction of spending to 1995?-levels would account for the deficit. Tariffs are not a significant part of his tax plan, for the simple reason that the volume of international trade is not significant when compared to the size of the American domestic economy.
I wouldn't vote for Ron Paul, but my reasons don't have a lot to do with the half-assed hyperbole and half-truths you're spouting, and many of the issues he raises do have relevance to policy discussions today.
The parent post is verifiably false on both counts, either horribly misguided or a shill for the corporate stooges they referenced.
Obama's 2004 Senate campaign finance records are easily available and seem to be noticeably not dominated by banking interests with a stake in bankruptcy law or their employees.
This matches up with Obama's vote against the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005.
It's also difficult to credit Obama as a 'corporate stooge' given his record of seeking accountability and transparency for lobbyists.
Get your facts right if you're going to contribute to the discussion-- mod parent down.
Now, if they cannot explain this reasoning to the point that the population can agree with them, then they stand a good chance of being booted in the next elections.
Unfortunately, gerrymandering throws a rather large wrench in your argument. In practice, the effect of gerrymandering is preservation of the status quo. Why? Because the borders are re-drawn by the existing representatives, who have a vested interest in being re-elected and thus an incentive to re-apportion the vote. "Here, I'll trade you this neighborhood of people who like you better than me for one of your neighborhoods that likes me but not you, and we'll both have an easier race!"
In my state, this has led to a scenario where very few districts are even remotely competitive, taking any real choice from the general populace and placing it in the party establishment and primary election, and encouraging the phenomenon of self-serving politicians, who can get away with all kinds of shenanigans while being perfectly assured of re-election, because the primary arbiter of their re-election is the approval of their party leadership and being nominated to run, not their constituents.
Gerrymandering + partisan poltics = self-serving politicians-for-life - transparency - accountability, at least on the state and congressional level.
Significant progress in election reform will be difficult until re-districting is in the hands of an impartial third party.
As for directly-elected politicians serving their office, that's absolute lunacy. The founding fathers intended for Congress to be directly accountable to the people, which is why they spend close to half of their terms campaigning for re-election. The Senate was intended as the more stable body looking out for everyone's long-term interests and ignoring the passing fancies of the democratic mob while acting as appointed representatives of the government of their states, but the 17th Amendment blew that right out of the water. Direct election of Senators is a horrible, horrible idea, and we're continuing to pay the price today-- every time a Senator publicly jumps into a controversial issue with knee-jerk pandering, blame the 17th.
Come to think of it, that's a plausible reason why I strongly dislike so very many of the current crop of Presidential wannabes.
I agree in principle with most of Kucinich's major campaign planks-- universal single-payer healthcare, sustainable environmentalism, government transparency and accountability. Unfortunately, the protectionist, isolationist stance that the supposedly 'progressive' wing of the democratic party insists on waving around like a flaming sword is a complete dealbreaker.
I will not support any candidate who is blind to the fact that international trade and our trade policies offer by far the most effective means for promoting social and political change and the welfare of humanity as a whole... and I can't stand candidates who pander to the isolationists and corrupt labor union leadership with simplistic, protectionist demagoguery about 'saving American jobs'.
Of course, if Bill had consulted anyone outside than the Vista QA team, he'd have realized the true value:
$640k = $655,360
You think anybody in Congress has ever flown standby?
Or even knows what it is?
Sure. For the majority of states, flying back and forth every time Congress is in session ain't cheap. $165K goes a long way in a lot of places, but when you're making at least 10+ round-trip trips a year and maintaining a second residence in Wa$hington DC it doesn't go nearly as far as you'd think for congresscritters who aren't independently wealthy.
Sure, a lot of them are independently wealthy, but many of them are not. Financial disclosures are nifty-keen.
Gawd, cry me a river. TF2 doesn't even keep track of deaths, but since you're so determined to do so, you may want to consider going back and camping some more counter-strike...
I'd say these 'growing pains' appear rather similar to the challenges faced by any corporation of similar size. Potential mergers with companies in the same field being investigated by the FTC? Welcome to the Fortune 100. Open source alternatives as a 'threat' to ubiquitous name recognition and >50% market share? Yep, that's a truly pressing problem most tech companies would love to face. Difficulties sustaining rapid growth when your market cap exceeds $150B?
Well, yes, it's difficult to grow rapidly when you're valued at over 1/400th of the gross world product. Pick a bigger planet next time, perhaps?
Honestly, did this article really say anything insightful or unusual? If it did, I missed it...
Right now I'd almost consider trading IQ points for mod points.
There is no form of cognitive testing that you can't improve on by training your mind appropriately. IQ tests, SAT tests, driving tests, arithmetic, even anticipating shots in tennis-- neuroplasticity is a wonderful thing.
So the question becomes:
"Are the public schools encouraging cognitive training that's useful to society and individuals' performance within society, or cognitive training designed to defeat the metrics of standardized testing with no other practical applications?"
I know which one they pushed me toward, and I've felt dumber ever since... even with Google helping out.
I have actually heard that line multiple times from Dell. Which translates too, "Im sorry, we have to waste your time just in case you are wrong"
It's tech support. If someone contacts tech support and already thinks they have a diagnosis for their problem, the vast majority of the time their diagnosis is wrong. Never assume anything about a computer's status when you're getting all of your information secondhand, because at least three-quarters of the time, the assumption will be wrong, and then you spend half an hour troubleshooting a broadband connection that is working perfectly normally when the problem is with the router plugged into it under the user's desk.
The hard part is getting all of this mission-critical information out of users in a friendly-enough manner to avoid making them uncooperative, and yet precisely enough to successfully resolve the issue.
...and that's why I hate calling tech support for other large entities I have to interact with, because either
A) I don't know what I'm doing, usually due to insufficient documentation from techs in the field or
B) I know what I'm doing, but I know the techs I'm calling will have to assume otherwise.
Either way, talking to a tech who knows what they're doing is priceless, and if they ask you a question, there's probably a good reason for it, whether that makes sense at the time or not.
I could have sworn there was a law that requires judicial orders to be grounded in the realm of reality.
Fortunately, that law was changed, by judicial order.
If someone kicked in the door and started shooting and killing people I know I'd probably freeze up.
Freezing up is a mental reaction to an unexpected situation. It's difficult to make rational decisions under pressure, and it becomes more difficult to make rational decisions under extreme stress. Without some framework to weed out ideas, your brain has to consider everything, and chokes on the raw data. Your brain can be trained to deal more effectively with crises, but steps must be taken in advance to do it.
Establishing a mental framework to deal with any given problem is critical. Consider the difference in outcomes for an airline passenger who paid enough attention during the safety briefing to think "OK, my exit door priorities are there, three rows up-right, then there eight rows back or there left, and I'll either be going down a slide or off the wing" versus "Oh my god, the plane just crashed, what do I do?" when the plane cabin will be non-survivable ninety seconds after impact? How about with a fractured arm? Cabin filled with smoke, three foot visibility? Injured and incapacitated seatmate?
Spending five seconds to establish a default plan of action when you're not already in a stress situation frees your mind to actually respond to what's happening around you.
That's why even a modicum of forethought/training/mental preparation is literally priceless when confronted with an unexpected and potentially-lethal situation. Successful militaries have known this for a very long time.
Situational awareness and low-level crisis planning are valuable habits to acquire, and fun to practice.
"Subscribe to view" webpages that are still visible to users browsing as GoogleBot.
User agent switcher extension + Browse pretending to be GoogleBot = Annoying "register/pay to see me!" pages go away. I have no idea how many sites it works on now, but I think it still gets into a lot of archived newspaper articles and suchlike.
but for long-term security there's no better consumable.
Beer is my preferred consumable for long-term security. Everclear for backpacking trips.
Rather than requiring content filtering at the broadcaster or on the cable box, I support filtering on a per-child level. Parents should be able to purchase individually-tailored shock collars for their children which automatically activate whenever the child is exposed to non-parental-approved content or situations. By harnessing the power of the shock-averse 'natural intelligence' already guiding children, parents can sleep soundly knowing that their children are making every possible effort to avoid corrupting and immoral influences.
No, I think the grandparent poster's apostrophe use was Slashdot-compliant.
Besides, they're looking for asexual unitard-wearing types, not grammar kingpins.
Oh wait...