"The largest wildlife census of its kind conducted in Chernobyl has revealed that mammals are declining in the exclusion zone surrounding the nuclear power plant."

Phew, that's a relief. With all that radiation, I was expecting something more like this to be happening to the mammals: http://www.snowspotmedia.com/blog/2010/04/06/Yao_Guai_by_Cyberpunk1989.jpg

Because if you don't have magic keys like that, then the terrorists and pedophiles win!

"they were able to correlate P300 brain waves to guilty knowledge with 100 percent accuracy in the lab"

Bet the accuracy wouldn't be so good in a non-controlled, non-laboratory environment. Of course, that wouldn't necessarily stop such a technology from being used, now would it?

The truth is, these keys are really just a safe guard in case /. ever posts Article Omega, bringing about the systematic slashdotting of the ENTIRE INTERNET!!!

Cemeteries make great hangout spots for more than just goths. For my friends and I in high school, the favorite spot to meet and talk and spar (we were all kind of martial arts nuts) was the local cemetery, and none of us were or are goths. The graveyard just provided a nice quiet place to have fun without worrying about bumping into little children or elderly folks like we would in the park. The grounds were better and more pleasantly kept than in the park, as well. We made sure not to disturb graves or markers, especially while sparring (we reserved that for open areas where anyone was yet to be planted), and so local authorities and the groundskeeper never had a problem with us being there.

When home from college, some of us still meet there and chat, though we don't spar quite as much anymore.

Grave markers can make for interesting reading, too.

Intel thanks you, people of China, for the gift of your body's water....

He said "ouch" at the end. He must have died as he was typing it.

Who cares if they tear one down? There would still be 5 others... unless of course the Japanese send 6 flag-tearing robots to do the job.
Oblig: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYeFcSq7Mxg

We have the same system with DC++ here, including support from ResNet, though the minimum share level is 5GB. Problem now is that since the system is tolerated by the admins, to cover their own skins (understandably) file sharing has been restricted to non-copyrighted files, with violators being permanently banned from DC++. As such it's hardly used anymore except for finding things like Linux distros without cutting into internet bandwidth allotment, and sneakernet's becoming more popular again.

I find it amusing that xkcd bothers to define -40 degrees Celsius as, "Spit goes 'clink.'" I know it's trying to offer intuitive ways to make the switch without having to reference Imperial units, but -40C and -40F are exactly the same.

Not even US-centric, but rather region-centric within the US. If you don't mind my asking, where do you live in the US, or where did you grow up? I was raised up North and practically never heard words like 'sir' or 'ma'am' being used, and when they were it was generally taken as a patronizing insult. When I went to college in Texas I was surprised at how much phrases such as, "Yes sir/ma'am," and, "No sir/ma'am," were used. Even within the US there are notable differences as to what is considered polite between various regions. So I wouldn't call your point of view US-centric, but rather centric to whatever culture formed you.

...but what if you tried scanning a live human with this? Might it tell you who the tastiest person in the room is?

Correct me if I'm wrong (I very well may be; I'm not overly familiar with the Drake equation), but doesn't that broadcasting time apply mainly to before a civilization has the technology to broadcast? What about when they still broadcast, but in such a way that their signals don't pollute deep space? Is that taken into account?

So if a sufficiently advanced civilization (like ours) eventually develops radio technology that doesn't get far beyond their own planet, could this severely limit how much we would detect from other planets in the way of radio signals?

No, the display is not necessarily an exhaustive list of ALL things named Enterprise. Although who knows why they picked the shuttle prototype instead of SS2....