Ack, wrong button! The last paragraph is my opinion, not a quote.

The standard set in 1976 was not "sloppy." The standard is for minimum yellow light durations, with the final determination based on other factors in addition to approach speed, such as geography, traffic volume and current automotive technology. The Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices calls for a yellow duration of 3 - 6 seconds. Any sloppiness you see is due to the need for the standards to have leeway for situations that aren't best-case.

This is from the FHWA website

: Section 4D.26 of the 2009 MUTCD requires the duration of the yellow change interval to be determined using engineering practices, and indicates that such engineering practices can be found in two books published by ITE. (Visit ITE's website at www.ite.org, where you will find additional information under "Technical Information".) Because vehicle laws vary by State and conditions vary by intersection, the engineer must exercise judgment in deciding on the length of the yellow interval, as noted in the ITE guidelines.

In general, the minimum durations work out to be three seconds for traffic of 25 mph, with an additional second for each 10 mph above 25. And, these are supposed to be minimum durations. Cities and companies who set yellow times that don't even meet these standards should be held legally responsible. I'm thinking involuntary manslaughter or worse. Maybe criminal indifference.

Technically, this is correct. This is true regardless of what one uses as money--even gold has no absolute financial value. Things that are rarer and non-consumable, like gold, often have a higher relative value than to tree leaves and bread, but there's also quite a bit of "What do I do with it now?" involved in any sort of trade. In other words, if I don't like gold and don't have a use for it, it's worth less to me than it is to a jewelry maker.

However, currencies don't need to be backed by anything physical. Let's put aside the argument over what any currency's component worth is for the moment (because it is fairly close to nothing). The real value of any currency is the ability to pay taxes to one's own government without having to suffer through currency exchanges. As an American citizen, I can pay my taxes in U.S. Dollars, but I can't do the same in Yen, Euros, or Bitcoins. Those other forms of money may be stronger, but come April 15, no currency has more value for me than the Dollar.

Bottom line is this: Until taxes can be paid in Bitcoins, they will remain a fringe alternative money utilized by people who don't mind the hassle of finding a place to trade them for local currency. Things like this trojan won't help Bitcoins gain acceptance.

Allow me, tender age of 31 with a case of old-man-itis, to show the superiority of the wrist watch.

Steps required to tell time on a watch:
--Flick wrist.

Steps required to tell time on a cell phone.
--Dig through pockets, or worse yet, purse.
--Flip, slide, or otherwise turn on screen.
--Find clock application or tiny time display.
--Put phone back in pocket or purse.

I feel naked without a wristwatch on. As a consequence, I have a garish tan line on my left wrist even in the dead of winter. And I love analog for the sole reason of I think they look cooler.

First: Agreed.
Second: No one died, but that doesn't make Harold Camping less culpable for intentionally sowing fear and panic based on bullshit numbers pulled from thin air pointing to a made-up date for his prophecy. The seismologists were acting on good faith in accordance with their training and experience. That's a huge difference, and one that does carry a lot of weight.
Third: Off-topic it may be, but it does make for an interesting comparison.
Fourth: I'm sure there's a lot of people who agree that the intentional actions of a predatory fraudster should be punished more severely than the seismologists who made an honest, if not slightly careless, mistake. I certainly didn't read the question as a joke.

it doesn't matter what legal liabilities you have, nor what the legal system ultimately decides with regards to your guilt. There's a great deal that you can't just waive a "not guilty" verdict at to make go away. Because we place too much faith in law enforcement to do things right, there's an automatic assumption of "arrest= guilt." The police aren't infallible, though. Due to complacency or laziness or incompetence, they screw up, and their mistakes, which inflict a harm on society that is at least equal to the damage caused by the criminals that they do manage to take off the streets, are an all too common occurrence. Then, when the cops screw up, we act surprised and wonder how this could possibly happen.

When the dust settles after a major police screw-up, something that I find to be absurd happens: The police continue about their way, immune to any real consequences. They are free to screw up again--which they will. Meanwhile, the poor soul whose life they've ruined has little to no recourse to repair his reputation and make himself a productive member of society again.

As much as a applaud the EFF's efforts to bring sanity to law in this digital age, they're wrong on this. My first responsibility is to protect and provide for myself and my family. As long as I don't bring harm to others by taking care of myself, any protections I take in the fulfillment of this first responsibility are reasonable. Encryption on a wi-fi router is hardly damaging to anyone else, and, therefore, is reasonable.

It's not a new tax. It's not a tax increase. It's a new attempt at the enforcement of an existing rule.

I predict that we'll have just as much compliance under the new enforcement as we do under the current honor system. As long as "zero" is a valid input for taxes owed on any form, people will put it in.

What law does this kind of app aid a person in breaking?

I do not jest when I ask this, because it is NOT illegal to avoid contact with the police. Driving is not a right, but rather a privilege. However, you DO have the right to travel from one place to another free of undue and unwarranted harassment. Because of the way that DUI checkpoints are conducted, they absolutely qualify as undue and unwarranted harassment. You personally may not mind being the presumption of guilt that hovers over you at a DUI checkpoint, but most reasonable people resent the mindset of police who are looking for any excuse to slap you with a ticket--or worse. I consider the ability to avoid unnecessary interaction with an agency that does not have my best interests in mind to be a legitimate use. If you don't, then you really need to get a clue.

Furthermore, the locations of DUI checkpoints are published beforehand. Would you also take newspapers to task for publishing this information? You could certainly use it to get plastered and then avoid the cops. The checkpoint locations are intended to be public knowledge, and trying to restrict that knowledge is not too good an idea.

Yes, it is illegal to drive when drunk. Here's the thing, though--as soon as you get behind the wheel of a car you can't control (for nearly any reason) and start driving it, you've already broken the law. Once you're truly drunk, you don't have the mental capacity to take a route home based on where the police aren't. If you can think ahead and plan out your trip home based on a DUI checkpoint alert program and actually stick to it, then you probably aren't the danger to the driving public that MADD and the police say you are.

I haven't even gone into the inaccuracy of breathalyzer readings, nor the fact that field tests are designed to be failed. I could, but I trust that I've made my point.

This is only partially correct. I'm for getting rid of most of the leniency that comes with drunk-driving "punishments" handed down these days. There is no excuse for the unbelievable lack of forethought that comes with getting behind the wheel of a car that you can't adequately control.

However, so long as we rely on inaccurate breathalyzers (none of which are accurate, fwiw) for determining who is drunk and who is not, leniency is absolutely called for to counter the grossly wrong way in which DUI cases are handled. People talk a lot about punishing DUI offenders as is done in Europe, but Europe doesn't screw around with breathalyzers.

I know it's been thrown around here before, but this should be enough to make anyone who thinks that our current system of evidence gathering is good enough change his mind.

It takes a real man to admit that he might not be a good father. I get the "you'd make a good father" line all the time, but I've never really agreed with that. And so, because I don't want to do my kids a disservice by not being able to raise them properly, I sit here at the age of thirty with no kids in my past and none in my future. Personally, I believe that to have a kid when you shouldn't be doing so is selfish, far more than not having kids at all.

I don't feel bad about not wanting to have kids. Not in the least. If someone calls me selfish for it, I smile and agree and crack a joke or two. If someone asks why, I say straight up that I don't trust myself to do the job. That usually puts the issue to rest, but if it doesn't, the person I'm talking to isn't worth talking to about the subject.

The funny thing about parenthood, though, is that you don't know for sure until you try--and once you try, there's no easy way to go back.

No official way to do this, but the unofficial way works perfectly. The gApps4Archos installer is quite easy to find and doesn't require the device to be rooted.

Archos is kinda cool like that. The only thing that my A32 is missing is an internal speaker, but an old laptop was more than happy to donate one.

Sad, but true. This is the same agency that nearly killed the sub-250cc motorcycle market because most of bikes (and ATVs as well) with engines that small are meant for kids to learn on. Yes, adults do occasionally ride 150-cc dirtbikes, but kids are the target user.

Why was this market nearly killed? The CPSC was afraid of kids licking the battery terminals and sucking on lead wheel-balancing weights. Never mind that kids can't really swallow these things, or that these parts won't poison you even if swallowed. They have lead, and lead is bad. The CPSC doesn't care to look any further than that.

Agreed. ICO and SotC are beautiful works of art in their own ways. I'd mail him a copy of Okami, too. If being immersed in living sumi-e paintings isn't art, then what the heck is?

This would require properly set speed limits and reasonable enforcement, say 10% or 5 MPH (whichever is greater) either direction. Inclement weather and rush hour aside, the speed limit is the expected rate of travel. Driving far too slow for conditions is just as dangerous as too fast.

There are too many people that don't want anyone to have our God-given/Constitutionally-recognized (however you choose to see them) rights, period. They view rights like free speech as dangerous because such a right allows others to criticize them and possibly undermine their authority or whatever else it is they're afraid of. Since it's easier to condition young people to not claim those rights than it is to strip those rights from older people , who are already accustomed to exercising them, that's the route that has been taken.

That's why schools now have essentially the same authority over students that the parents do. In many ways, it's nothing more than an end-around that bypasses the First Amendment--and many others. Schools were transformed from a pure agent of the state into quasi-parental figures without losing their state-given powers of coercion.

Since there's no magical age at which people begin to think responsibly, schools have decided that allowing no differing thoughts of any kind is the way to go. And they can, because they have that power. Eventually, all of society will be like our schools; no one will know how life could be different because no one was ever allowed to taste the thrills, or responsibilities, of freedom.