Oh FFS, we are talking about a net change in arriving solar radiation of less than 0.1% over 11 year cycles, and though its likely there are some larger fluctuations that modulate the 11 year cycle, we haven't been measuring long enough. The notion that this data predicts a 'mini-ice age' is about as useful as using sunspot counts to predict the weather. Which is not useful at all. Sun spot counts don't predict weather at all. Even the proxies don't really link us to what is going on, though they do seem to loosely track solar oscillations. How long is the lag on those proxy relationships? Are they indicative of some other process that is being influenced by solar activity? No one knows. We don't have long enough direct solar activity measurements.

As the dominant dim bulbs around here are fond of echoing: Correlation is not causation.

As for global climate change due to our Industrial Age farting dinosaurs back into the atmosphere, we do need to get a grip on that. I doubt very seriously that some prediction of a long solar minimum is going to change the outcome much, if at all.

How many of those 3 million are sitting headless somewhere, serving up files or running batch jobs?

20% of gamers that run Linux, have a decent enough PC, and enjoy FPSes might be more reasonable.

Well, sort of. This is a document where Apple is arguing about changes to the DMCA and is not a statement of policy.

If this is their sole/primary objection, I fault them in the same way I fault anyone who makes a big deal out of some minor thing. Which is to say, I'll say they're misguided, but it's their choice so to each his own, right?

That's overstating things a bit much, though.

NYC they have wireless auto ticket printers. they'll just scan your registration and print a ticket in a few minutes and let you go to court to sort it out

U.S. speed limits are also set artificially low.

How else can you explain an engineering report that lists 120mph as the designed maximum limit for an interstate, and an 85mph recommended limit for travel, but somehow gets signed at 65? The only reason I can conclude why politicians ignore engineers' recommendations is because the politicians view the twenty mph gap as an opportunity - to increase tax revenue.

And of course the Bernie Madoff-like scammers we call insurance companies also benefit because they can double or triple your rates if you get speeding tickets, even if you are a perfect driver who's never wrecked.

Yeah, all companies ship everything on time, under budget, without defects and a product that the customer actually wants.

Well, I'm not a mathematician, but it seems to me that's precisely why there isn't a repetitive pattern in the numerical representation. If there was, that would mean the ratio can be exactly defined by a finite amount of information.

It can be exactly defined by a finite amount of information. And it's not impossible, in general, for a transcendental number to have some sort of pattern in the numerical representation. For instance, the Champernowne constant -- .12345678910111213...

Uhm...to say that there is no unified protocol for video and voice on XMPP just doesn't match reality.

The jingle specs are fairly universal in the XMPP world. Google's, interestingly enough, is actually a bit out of date at this point, but they've promised to update to the jingle specs once the XSF has settled them, which has only really happened pretty recently.

Other clients that support some level of jingle A/V, where some of them may be audio only (and remember, there's basically no support needed at the server level for any of this) are Psi, Cocinella, Spark (in Windows), and now Pidgin. Talkonaut is a mobile (WinMo and Symbian) client that does jingle voice. More niche clients that have support are some of the IP PBX systems like Asterisk and FreeSwitch. There are others that are listed in places that have support for it, but I don't know the degree of that support, so I'm not going to list them...others can speak up if they know better on some of the others.

iChat is definitely the outlier in the XMPP world for not supporting jingle, or at least supporting something jingle-like (Google hasn't moved up to the standard as specified yes, as I said).

Oh, and just to knock down a bit of bias...I'm typing this on a Mac, so ostensibly, I'm one of those snobby iChat users as well, except that I don't use it.

Warfare.

The upshot is that if my website even offers a way to enter a name and address, I'd be best off blocking everyone in Maine just in case. Nobody wants to find themselves on the wrong side of a "think of the children" law, however innocently. Who knows what some eager beaver prosecutor will decide constitutes "serving teens".

Since a minor could also conceivably email me his name and address or otherwise post it without invitation, we'd better just de-peer the whole state just to be sure. Sorry about that natehoy!

First, they probably don't have your work phone. Second, if they call work, you inform the boss what is going on. Provide the paperwork that has been supplied to you - the boss most likely knows that you weren't in Micronesia during that time, because you were WORKING for him. Third - get the boss to threaten legal action against the "creditors" for interfering with his place of business. It's almost certain the mere threat will scare them away - if not, get a lawyer to summon their asses to court in your home state. When they fail to show, the judge finds against them, and suddenly they owe YOU AND YOUR BOSS!!

This sounds like easier money than patent trolling. Think I'll switch my SSN to 000-oh-baby

I know you're just trolling, but I'll bite.

How can you seriously attempt to claim that this parody is racist because the face is white??? Was the original joker racist too because he wore white makeup? Are mimes racist because of their makeup? If the only photoshopping done was to paint his face white then I might agree. But quite clearly the intent was to relate him to a well-known character to get the artist's point across. Why must every criticism of Obama be related back to racism?

I know this is hard for you to fathom, but maybe some people just don't agree with his policies. And I bet if someone of a different race had the exact same policies, that group still wouldn't like them. Not everything is about race.