Unfortunately, the Curtis Culwell Center where the event took place is owned by the Garland ISD. I don't think it's a school, but as a TX CHL holder myself, I'd be very leery about carrying there without some serious research (it's either owned by the city, in which case it's illegal for them to prohibit licensed concealed carry, or it's a school, in which case it's illegal to CC regardless of whether it's posted - being a test case would be an expensive proposition).

Gotta love those "(legally carried) gun-free" zones...

But otherwise, yeah... in TX, in any gathering of 100 or more people in a place where it's legal to CC, there are going to be at least one or two armed, statistically speaking...

As a TX CHL holder, the main reason I'd have a pistol at work is that I'd like to have it with me before and after work. Those two times are when most of the running around/errands get done, and if I can't have it at work, it would mean driving home, getting it, and going back out again. I don't particularly like leaving it in the car (secured or not), because it's just too easy to break into, and too difficult to get an IWB holster on and off unseen while sitting in a car.

This is actually a really good point about new "normal" cars these days. I drive a 2001 Toyota Solara (2-door Camry, basically), which has a 2000lb tow rating. It works great to pull my single PWC trailer (~1250lb wet), or other smallish utility trailers around (and, BTW, gives me way more hauling capacity than an SUV or pickup on the few occasions that I need it, not to mention that FWD is better than RWD on slippery boat ramps). Most of its contemporaries also had 1000-2000lb ratings.

Most new cars these days don't seem to have any tow rating any more (which I would guess translates to warranty denials if you have a hitch installed), leaving your only option to buy some kind of truck or SUV.

Because backing in makes it easier to get large/longer vehicles parked straight. Going head-in, you constrain your steering to the space between neighboring vehicles, while backing in lets you position the rear of the vehicle, then steer it in straight. This goes for parking ANY vehicle in tight quarters. Generally, the people that actually know how to drive their large trucks are the ones you see backed in. The others are the ones parked crooked head-in.

Plus, it's safer to back OUT of traffic, than to back into it.

Problem is, they can probably apply it retroactively to any car you're likely to currently own.

I'm not sure you'd even need to vaporize anything. Ever seen one of these?

Moore's Meta-Law:
The number of people predicting the end of Moore's Law doubles every eighteen months!

Hm... if someone came up to me as asked me to buy them a lottery ticket, I'd be rather suspicious. At the very least, I'd buy a second one with the same numbers and keep it for myself.

You mean the ones that will probably never get hired because of their criminal record?

Or maybe just a straight-up heroin OD?

Really, we just need to ban anyone who wants to run for office from ever actually holding office. Pick the pool of candidates like we pick jury pools.

So, I guess we know where the cataclysmic meteor will strike!

This. We have reached the point where electronic security for most individuals is simply not possible. The problem is that it's "hard," and most people that aren't security professionals (and even some that are) will never understand how things like encryption, asymmetric keys, etc. work. Which means that in order to secure themselves, they HAVE TO trust someone to take care of those details for them. But any company these days essentially has to be assumed to be under the control of a government, or will instantly fold when pressed.

And even if you're comfortable managing keys and such, you probably can't write your own software (especially strong encryption algorithms) and build your own hardware.

Totally different:
1. In a proxy, the key used to sign MITM traffic is on a device not accessible to anyone but the admins, not stored on a PC (probably improperly secured) that other malware could access.
2. A good proxy will check certs on the server side of the connection. The one we use will either "pass through" certificate errors, or allow us to block sites with invalid certs entirely.
3. A proper setup will use the URL categorization to not MITM certain traffic. We decrypt anything that's blocked (you have to in order to deliver a block page without cert errors), but that's not a big deal since it never even talks to the server. We also don't decrypt healthcare, banking, shopping, etc.

Condoms? A 2% chance of failure isn't a chance I'd like to live with (not to mention the annoyance of using them)

Male birth control pills would have a similar problem. For a woman, 99.9% effective means that she's only fertile, on average, once every 80 years or so. THOSE odds, I'll take.

99.9% effective for a male means there's still almost 300,000 viable sperm every time.