Thanks for the info. You can probably tell I'm not a network engineer. Gotta admit though, it sounded pretty clever until that damned reality bumped into it. :)

It wouldn't surprise me if when detecting bittorrent traffic AT&T disallowed connecting to any peers or seeds with an AT&T IP address. The downloader would still max out their up/downstream bandwidth, but it would be a single-edged sword as all their connected peers and seeds would be non-AT&T customers. AT&T would then have more available bandwidth (at the expense of the other ISPs) and could argue they were enhancing their customers' experience. A brilliant plan until other ISPs find out and do the same. Perhaps then AT&T could start their own VPN service marketed to their own customers under a different brand, touting unrestricted bittorrent connectivity as a selling point.

Unintentionally, no doubt. On the bright side the more absurdly and widely abused the system is the more ammunition for reforming it. I hope they cause a real mess spamming the USPTO with every possible patentable combination of words. Maybe they'll replace the USPTO staff with an infinite number of monkeys with typewriters to process them.

Judgement is also a driving skill and probably the most important one. Knowing the rules is irrelevant if your poor judgement causes you to ignore them. Alcohol only impairs judgement if you let it (up to a point, obviously). It's not as if you're possessed by a demon and literally no longer have control over your thoughts and actions. If you remain mindful that you're intoxicated the impulse to do something potentially unwise is immediately followed by the question "Is this wise" and you can decide to crush the impulse and not perform the action. The problem, other than people who just can't drive worth a damn in any case, is people who have too many drinks and remain in denial of their altered state. If you have a broken leg you can walk just fine with a crutch and a little care. Most drunk drivers throw away the crutch, pretend their leg is just fine, and sprint with obviously disastrous results.

They did that on Mythbusters, but it was between alcohol intoxication and sleep deprivation. Interestingly they found sleep deprivation to be equally (if not more) debilitating than alcohol intoxication.

I like the idea for your study, but it would be fun if they also had a test requiring the participants to send a text message or repeatedly answer the phone or set up their GPS while driving.

This would be a useful equation if it weren't for the fact that the person in question was a fuckwad long before the anonymity or audience came. The idea that a thoughtful, virtuous person somehow becomes a troll because of anonymity and an audience is bullshit. The only thing anonymity does is melt away the facade of civility a fuckwad has carefully crafted for themselves.

It is ironic, though it may be because the Big Media remakes and sequels are often so shitty that we geeks spend the remainder of our lives trying desperately to scrub their memories from our minds. For example, if Alien 3 and 4 had been as good as the first two I would be cool with a new one every few years until the end of time. Another issue is that people tend to think sequels and remakes come at the cost of the exclusion of new/original works. As if making Star Wars XIV somehow prevents someone else from making a Heinlein film.

They didn't. CBS or Paramount or whoever generally turns a blind eye to projects like these as long as they don't make any money. Other than the recent films (which arguably are only Star Trek in name), the franchise is dead. It's possible even that they're keeping an eye on how the public receives it in consideration of creating a new official television series. I think if there is to be a new series they should put it on HBO and go for broke. Good actors, good writers, the occasional full-frontal and beheading/gibbing will make for some unforgettable Trek, if nothing else.

Either they're still tolerable or you haven't been watching much television lately. There are a lot of good shows, but holy shit, the majority are pretty awful. I think of ToS more as on-screen theater than some gritty, brutally-realistic drama. It's like Shakespeare. You gotta watch it with a certain perspective and malleability in order to enjoy it.

Premise is largely irrelevant; it's more about the execution with special attention to commanding performances and excellent writing. The problem with Star Trek (and I've seen every episode of every incarnation and all the films) is that it's hit and miss with the acting and writing. I kinda like the premise, as most sci-fi is about "us" versus "them". The concept of exploration, the search for knowledge and the betterment of the human race and the galaxy as one large community is something everyone on this planet could take some lessons from. Star Trek is an allegory about our own struggles here on Earth.

That being said, I'd love to see more quality science fiction on television and film drawn from the works of our greatest authors.

I wish your post could be modded to +infinity, or perhaps there should be a "Holy fucking shit, chisel those words in stone in a national park somewhere" mod. Nicely said.

Banning things that people want leads to an increase in crime, and while you may say the only crime will be selling tobacco, for some reason criminals with no recourse for being wronged (since it's illegal) will take reprisal into their own hands. Prohibition created the mob. Making marijuana illegal created countless videos of narcos cutting necks and chainsawing people on meat hooks. Yes, lets make more shit people want illegal and see if it works.

Interesting point, although the debate regarding the difference between zero and 1/150,000,000 seems pointless when you begin to consider the odds of getting killed on any given day just walking outside your front door.

I think the lottery is a win in general. Yes, you have people who become addicted or can't afford to spend the money, but that's life. On the plus side a lot of people sincerely enjoy playing and much of the cash goes to public works and schools and such. It's practically an optional tax, and the idea of taxes being optional I find fantastic.

No, there's a new paper and THAT'S THE LAST WORD. Everyone update their recommendations and reprint their pamphlets, immediately! I think this is what Scott Adams was ranting about a few weeks ago. You're right, though, and one other thing that alcohol does even if drinking alone is to relax you, lift your spirits and get your mind off whatever stressful events actually are draining your life force. I appreciate people doing all this research, but they need to show a little humility. Hard work doesn't mean you're right.

In recent years I've been noticing this in a growing number of products. I'm not an engineer or QA person though as a programmer I may have better insight into design than most, but it seems everything from cars to coffee makers have one or more obvious, critical design flaws that somehow make it through every check at well-known companies and all the way to retail.

My only theories are that 1) People are getting more stupid generally, 2) QA departments are incompetent, 3) designers and engineers are incompetent, and 4) consumers are either apathetic or incapable of recognizing [in]effective design.

In any case, anyone else have any recent experiences with products making it to retail that anyone with basic AutoCAD experience and more than two brain cells should have caught prior to production? Perhaps there should be a wiki of really stupid shit designers/engineers should avoid when creating a product to save us all the pain.