Mod parent up. They may have posted AC but it's the only post not to rely solely on anecdotal info. They must be new here...

By definition, if cosmic rays passed "too close" to a black hole it would enter the event horizon, from which it could not be accelerated away. Did you mean "close, but not too close", perhaps?

Well. You could call her unlucky, based on the fact that she had stacked the odds against herself. Driving at 100mph with a shitload of coke in your system *is* incredibly poor judgement, she would have been lucky not to get into an accident.

I would also make the case against it being called "tragic", though dictionary.com isn't strictly agreeing with me on this.

Worked at Blockbuster for almost two years during highschool. Worst job I ever had. You get yelled at by customers who returned rentals late (regardless of the fact we kept up with our checkins and made sure they were done promptly), so to stop them yelling, you gave them a credit but told 'em not to do it again. Then you'd get yelled at by your boss for going over the store's "credit allowance" for the day.

Fuck. That. I'd sooner go back to being a Pizza Hut cook before I *ever* worked for that abortion of a video rental company again.

How would the kid know which mailboxes to look in? How many people use GameFly, anyway? And what are you doing, posting big billboards in front of your hourse declaring use of their service? Seems like long odds for some kid to just be peering in mailboxes and happen across your rented game...

Of course, nothing people do should *truly* surprise one anymore. Just seems like a pretty improbable right place/right time combo...

Um, aren't most of these devices or techniques capable of being appropriated by the pirates themselves from ships that maybe didn't use them quite effectively enough? Seems like they'd be very useful for disorienting the crew on a ship you're trying to board...

=/