Because it is a word, albeit not perfectly applied in this context? The platen is the plate used to press the paper into the type in a printing press, so it's probably more applicable to the drum in a copier than to the cover glass.

At any rate, I don't think he meant "platen" as some sort of bastard-German plural, like Vaxen.

You don't actually know many librarians, do you? They're the ones who put books on the shelf that cause protests. They've installed filtering software when legally mandated, and they get rid of it as soon as they can.

I renewed my card at Enoch Pratt a few years back, and the librarian looked over my record, said, "Oh, they were collecting SSN's back then--let me just delete THAT from the record..." Not your typical bureaucrats, there, not at all. They're not in it for the money or the power.

The obvious risks of copying my buttcheeks? Care to elaborate, 'cause it's not especially obvious to me. Stupid, maybe, but not risky.

Apple should remember that India does, in fact, have nukes.

That the officer might have expectations of privacy is the worst part of it. He has every moral right to privacy in his private life, but when enforcing public law on public roads and public salary he is not acting privately (at least, he better not be, because then he's just a thug.)

I can't speak for MD in particular (although I do live here) but beyond the pernicious "the public can't watch us do the public's work" aspect of this is those dashboard cameras we all love on America's Funniest Car Chases and whatever. I've certainly seen clips that include audio from the citizen as well as the police officer--are we to take it that these too are felonious wiretaps?

If you need a lab analysis to find the problem, how much of an impact can it be?

I have an Atari 2600 cart that I wrote in my youth. No timestamp per se, but the instructions (which were my fault as well) show a copyright date of 1983. (The source code is, alas, long gone.) Not as cool as punched cards or tape, but hey, it's what I got.

Vacant apartment. At least, that's how it was done when somebody spent $500 of my rent money on electronics. With rapid shipping, overly-relaxed merchants ("It's OK--your bank will take care of it.") and overburdened police, even though I caught the problem the morning after it happened the package was still successfully delivered to a vacant apartment in New York, and duly signed for (God knows what name they used.)

Seems obvious because you didn't use the card ever again after that?

I could be wrong, but if I were walking into a Walmart with a rigged-up card, I think I'd want a fresh number, something from the previous 48 hours, maybe. Sixty days seems like an awfully long time in hot-CC-number-years. If nothing else, it shows tremendous restraint on the part of a small-time criminal, most of whom can't seem to wait sixty minutes before they spend the money (unless, of course, her name badge read, "D. B. Cooper.")

Wow, you actually wasted mod points on a side thread to a poll response?

Well, there is that, but how do Alaskans explain her election to begin with? Was her only opponent that moose she shot from the air?

So how are you dealing with Sarah Palin?

Thanks!

Alas, I haven't forked over the ducats to the OED. What's it say?