I saw a documentary that demonstrated the Exxon Valdeez was large enough to support life for quite a few people...as long as no one dropped a match into the tanks, of course.

You're the only other person I've heard of that does this. I would like to think it's more widespread than I think -- but I fear it isn't widespread at all.

People look at me weird when I tell them that I do this.

I've had two "love taps" from behind, one by a tailgater in dense traffic, one by a lady putting on makeup while driving.

Then I got rear-ended by some punk teen in his hopped-up Tacoma with a big tacky add-on tach, gauges on the a-pillar, etc. That impact lifted the rear of my Miata and twisted her lengthwise. Instant kill. I was ok, the car died protecting me. It was a fun 10 years that I had that car, and I still miss her.

So now, whenever I stop at a light or stopsign, or when in traffic which is slowing down, I keep an eye on the rear view mirror. If I see an approaching car and I think they're not stopping -- or if I actually *see* them working the phone, I flash my brakelights and honk the horn lots. Saved me already once, for-sure. Guy looks up and the nose went down, he was hard on the brakes. Then he looks up, as if saying "What?!"

I lost faith when I saw this entry:

A small family sedan that hasn't been made since 1994 still hits #7 in getting the most tickets? It's the Mercury version of the Ford Tempo, which didn't make the top 20 at all. And I'd be willing to bet Ford sold a lot more Tempos than they did Topazs...

Ah, memories. That had us rolling on the floor at my office at the time.

For those who missed it, or want to relive it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

I had a similar problem with a work-issued Blackberry 9930. The only chargers that worked with it were the included Blackberry charger and the charger for my Samsung S3. We have at least 30 chargers laying around our house and cars, ranging from name brands like Apple and Samsung to no-name chargers we got for free, including chargers for my wife's iPad and my Asus tablet, and I tried them all. Only the Blackberry and Samsung adapters worked to charge the Blackberry. The cable didn't seem to matter - as long as it had the correct USB port, it worked - but the power adapter did.

Here in the US, I've done it once, and that was to confirm the chip in my card worked before I flew off to Europe with it. Turns out it's a chip-and-signature card, so it was as useless there as any other non-NFC card...perhaps even more useless come to think of it, because it ACTED like it was working. (From reading Slashdot, I knew this was likely the case before leaving, and I'd asked my banks about a chip-and-PIN card and got back, "Wuuhhh?", so I was prepared for this problem.)

So, for us, the Apple pay is actually a nice leap forward - as others said, right now it's a very fragmented market. I've had an Android phone with an NFC chip for two years now, and I've used it perhaps half a dozen times, just playing around to see if I could scan a credit card, my passport, or my cat's RFID chip (no go on the cat). Until I saw the Apple Pay announcement, I didn't care whether my next phone (which I had already decided was going to be an iPhone) had an NFC chip or not. I get why people in other countries wouldn't care as much about it, though.

Only 3rd party alarm apps - the built-in app from Apple works fine whether it's in the foreground or not.

I have an iPhone 6 on order, and I plan to use it either way, but I couldn't find the answer to this in the article: Can I use a playlist for an alarm, or can alarm apps work correctly in the background? Since the built-in alarm app only plays one song, you had to use another app if you wanted to wake up to a random song off a playlist. iOS 7 and older versions required that app to be in the foreground for it to play the song. Normally not a big deal, but if you answered a text message in the middle of the night or couldn't sleep and did a little websurfing and forgot to switch back to the alarm app, your alarm wouldn't go off. This isn't an issue with Android, and I'm hoping Apple has fixed this serious limitation - either by allowing the alarm app to use a playlist, or by allowing 3rd party apps to play a song without being in the foreground. It's my biggest pet peeve about iOS, especially after having an Android phone without this limit for the last two years. (If you read reviews in the App Store for alarm apps, most or all of them have people complaining about the app having to be in the foreground - they don't realize it's a limit of iOS rather than a limit of the app. So, I know it's not just me that's annoyed by this.)

I ordered one this morning, because I can't wait to stop using my Samsung S3. The S3 was supposed to be an iPhone killer; instead, it killed my interest in Android.

By what strange theory does Slackware support systemd? And how is the conversation being "held back"? At least on LQ, I think it's been discussed to death to the point where there's really nothing new to say about it.

I can say one thing for certain: you do not know that anything concerning systemd in Slackware is likely or not. Hell, *I* don't.

Apollo 13 should count, but not for what most people know about.

The second stage center engine shut down early due to a thrust chamber sensor reading low pressure. While this did not impact the orbital insertion (the remaining 4 engines fired for an additional 4 minutes to make up for it), the sensor reading that shutdown the engine may have been in error, and is still not understood. However, if this shutdown had not occurred, the vehicle would likely have been lost in just moments after when the shutdown occurred. The center engine was experiencing severe pogo osculations, resulting in the engine flexing the thrust frame up and down by 3 inches, 16 times each second—this motion would have resulted in disintegration of the rocket in short order. The thrust chamber sensor should have been unaffected by the pogo, so that is unlikely to be the cause of the reading that led to the shutdown. So it is possible that while one failure during launch almost destroyed Apollo 13, a second failure actually (temporarily at least) saved the mission.

See this article for more information.

Forget our petty differences, reconcile with the irreconcilable, forgive the unforgivable, relish the memories, and then throw the most epic party in the history of our planet as one united people planet-wide.

Go out with a raised glass of whatever beverage you prefer in one hand and a joint in the other!

It's sad, it's ridiculously two-faced, but the sad truth is in the USA people in cars / trucks kill cyclists quite often -- and seldom are charged. Even rarer is for an alleged "motorist" to get jail time for it.

I'd hate to be the guy a) pitching this operation at the change control meeting, and b) the guy signing off on this change.