it hasn't been called Mac OS for a decade now
Apple Menu -> About this Mac...

Yup, that's what I thought. Mac OS X. Mac OS is the name, X is the major version number.

He was "up to speed" just fine.

Of course, the problem is that there are numerous studies that show that traffic cameras do not "save lives," and go on to explain that the changes made to intersections to support them actually make those intersections more dangerous.

http://news.heartland.org/newspaper-article/2010/03/08/red-light-cameras-pose-danger-safety-studies-find

Red light cameras decrease safety at the intersection primarily because they shorten the yellow light interval, and increasing the yellow light interval is what would actually make the intersection safer. The camera operators actually *require* a reduction of the yellow light interval, a situation definitively proven to case more accidents. States like Ohio have actually banned the use of red light cameras because of this. The operator's intentions are bad enough that if a city increases the yellow light interval to a safe level, the companies that own the red light cameras will actually remove them. They are a money grab and have nothing to do with safety or saving lives.

Speed cameras are a different matter, because depending upon the state, the highways they're installed on may have truly reasonable speed limits. There's still some abuse there, I'm sure, but not to the extent red light cameras are abused.

That might have been true if there weren't such a thing as a residency. Residency is the true limiting factor in the amount of certified doctors in the workplace, not the board certification test. While there are a small percentage of doctors who go through residency and fail boards repeatedly, the majority pass without further incident... even without cheating.

On a slight tangent, what is a cause for concern is that doctors are retiring faster than they're being trained. With the Boomer population aging, we're heading for a major shortage. The number of residencies in the country is primarily set by Medicare (though there are some privately-funded spots), which could be an issue should one of the attempts to slash Medicare funding ever go through.

Grey box and L-3 written on the side: Millimeter wave
Blue box and Rapiscan written on the side: X-ray

What is annoying about the Engineering licensing in the states that do have it is that it's heavily biased towards Civil and Mechanical Engineers, to the point where it is nearly impossible to pursue as an Electrical or Computer Engineer. This is because of the requirement that you train under a certified mentor with the same degree after your Fundamentals of Engineering exam. This is an exam that specifically required all engineers to know the ins and outs of Civil and Mechanical Engineering, items useless to an EE. Since the certification is not very useful to EEs and CompEs, there are very few mentors to train under, making it extremely difficult to get certified.

So the result for an Electrical or Computer Engineer is that you spend somewhere between 4 and 10 years getting Engineering degrees (depending on whether you do graduate studies), only to find you can't actually call yourself an Engineer. If you went to an Engineering school, graduated with an Engineering degree, and work as an Engineer, it is ridiculous to not be able to call yourself an Engineer.

The problem with SpiderOak is that the client is abysmal. The whole "syndication" process is insane, and highly prone to failure. I had SpiderOak for nearly 3 years, and had to completely wipe out the application and start from scratch several times. Each time this needed to be done, or each time you add a new machine, a new syndication process must be started. At least in my case, this process would fail about 80% of the time, requiring the user to start over from the beginning. The data was secure on the server during this time, but I'd be without a backup mechanism for weeks at a time while SpiderOak CS worked to fix it. At one point, they gave up and just made me a new account because there was a server-side issue with my old account that prevented any additional upload/download transactions from occurring.

Another example of how poor the client was: Say you accidentally select a large 20GB file for backup. SpiderOak adds it to the queue. You then realize there's a huge file in the queue you don't want backed up. Your options are: wait for the file to completely upload and then delete it, or run experimental commands from a command line to flush your queue. There's a high probability that commands run in the command line hose your installation requiring the lengthy reinstall noted above, so good luck! 3 years and they never added the ability to remove an item from the upload queue, despite it being requested over and over again on their forum. WTF?

The amount of free space you have available on your account is actually calculated by the client. Unfortunately, the client is extremely poor at it. As you get close to your account limit, it's a nightmare. The client includes files that will be de-duplicated in the backup estimation, which can cause the client to refuse to backup any further files even though you may have plenty of space. As a bonus, after awhile your space calculation can get off, requiring the use of a command line command to recalculate the space remaining properly.

Eventually, I just had no confidence in the operation of the client and decided to switch to a new service. I changed to CrashPlan about 6 months ago, and I have no idea why I endured SpiderOak for so long. The CrashPlan client inspires confidence, and my upload and restore speeds max out my connection. Couldn't be happier to be rid of SpiderOak. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.

My post showed pretty clearly I understand, and I was simply conveying my story to illustrate it to others.

iMacs have supported secondary monitors since at least 2009 when I got mine. They may have supported them prior to that, but I couldn't say for sure.

Well, first, a Mac isn't Linux. Apple's in charge of making sure the drivers work with their limited hardware configurations, rather than Nvidia trying to support all hardware and all flavors of Linux.

Second, the iMacs use AMD/ATI graphics cards (mine's a Radeon HD 4850).

Nope.

My late 2009 27" iMac has faulty video drivers to this day, and Apple's acknowledged as much. A secondary display will display digital static every third or fourth time you wake it up. I gave detailed bug reports, and worked endlessly over a period of a year and a half with Apple engineers to track down the problem and get it fixed. I spent countless hours helping them track down the problem, going back and forth on the issue at least 10 times.

I got a notification two weeks ago that the problem was fixed, and updated drivers were released in the latest version of Snow Leopard (and Lion as well, I assume), but only if your hardware was manufactured after December 2010. They had the nerve to ask me to try it on new hardware to see if the problem is resolved.

So I spent all that time helping them, and they screwed me. This issue is a bigger problem than mine is, but I wouldn't expect anything but the very minimum possible to appease customers on anything but the absolute latest equipment.

Yeah, the people at the high end didn't get hammered nearly has hard as those on the low end with this price increase. Yours was just under a 3% increase, while my 1 at a time + streaming plan had a 61% increase ($9.99 to $15.98). The cost of that plan has doubled in just under 8 months, when it first went up from $8 to $10 in November.

If that was the sole reason, they could have just split the current $9 plan (for example) into a $4.50 disc plan and a $4.50 streaming plan, and gave you the choice to drop one or the other. That would accomplish the same effect.

Instead, they essentially said both of those things are worth $9, so we're going to charge you nearly double. So either their costs went way up, as a market leader they think they can get away with gouging, or they're looking for additional profit.

But it's undeniable that the inventor has a vested interest in proving that the device is safe. That's why third party evaluation is preferred.

In any case, you've brought up some good points and I've done a bit more research based upon your comments here. After all I've read I still can't say that I entirely agree with you, but I do appreciate the debate and the insight.

So instead of believing actual experts in the field, you're going to trust the manufacturer and original inventor? Are you serious?

In another post, you also cite a Johns Hopkins study. After even the most minute amount of research on my part, I found that this came just a month after DHS donated $6m to the university. A study in which the key data is all redacted. A study which no researcher at the university, or anywhere else, would sign their name to. A study that was conducted not on production equipment, but at a research lab owned by the manufacturer on a unit configured differently than those used at airports. A study that a university spokesperson told a reporter was being misued and misinterpreted by the government, and that they have never tested the safety of the units.

If you look at all their official statements, it's always that the "pose no significant health risk." There's a risk, they just don't consider it significant.

http://miami.cbslocal.com/2011/02/11/i-team-do-airport-x-ray-scanners-pose-a-risk-to-travelers/

"The only real reasons people are uneasy about their health effects are (a) they don't like the scanners on other grounds as well and (b) it contains the word "X-ray", which, like "nuclear" or "radiation", makes it automatically bad regardless of quantitative data."

What a ridiculous claim. All of us would do well to fall into category (b). Unsafe until proven otherwise. Believe it or not, prior to the installation of these scanners in airports, there is a reason why only specially-licensed medical professionals were permitted to x-ray any portion of a human being. Pregnant mothers and young children are at particularly high risk to their effects.

In the UCSF letter of concern, which I find it hard to believe you haven't read about, the key argument is:
"Unlike other scanners, these new devices operate at relatively low beam energies
(28keV). The majority of their energy is delivered to the skin and the underlying
tissue. Thus, while the dose would be safe if it were distributed throughout the volume
of the entire body, the dose to the skin may be dangerously high."

Clearly experts in x-ray imaging, biochemistry, and cancer research qualify as being "in the field."