How about "1.21 jigadollars"?

Spoken like someone who never swallowed a teaspoon-sized plug of chewing tobacco as a 10-year-old. I didn't die (obviously) but I really wanted to. I'm convinced a larger dose could have killed me.

But... But... But - This was a study on how the Last Supper was portrayed, not what was actually served. Those who don't want to posit that there ever was a Last Supper could view this as being intellectually equivalent to a study looking at the chronology of changes in Wonder Woman's apparent bra size. You don't have to believe she actually existed to study changes in depictions of her.

Nightclubs?

Nightclubs?

What about Congress?

This invention is screaming to be used in DC.

Or maybe you misinterpreted what you heard in the lecture? You probably needed hearing aids. :-)

I can see how it sounds like that, but that was the farthest thing from my mind.

I'm an old codger who grew up in the 50's in a rural area about 12 miles southwest of Greenville, SC, and I can remember glancing up at night and being overwhelmed by the presence of the Milky Way. I can also remember the first mercury vapor nightlight we could see from the house. Now from that house you can see more nightlights than you can see stars. Of course there are more neighbors, but my point is that there are more nightlights. In the 50's in that neighborhood, no one had lights that they left on all night, not even 60-watt bulbs, much less 400-watt. It would have seemed profligate.

So what I intended to convey was that we could save a lot of energy (and therefore a lot of carbon emissions under current energy-production conditions) by simply turning off nightlights. I recall that in the 50's the power companies pushed really hard to light up the night, giving major rate reductions for night lighting. The rationale they expressed was that it leveled out their load. I think that by now they can find other ways to compensate. In my view, most of that light is wasted anyway, since no one sees it. As you can tell, I'm not fond of light pollution, so I'm sure that colors my attitudes.

Since my first post I've fallen to wondering if it would actually be cheaper for a municipality to issue night vision gear to each resident than to provide streetlighting. And how far that would go toward satisfying whatever needs there are that are currently satisfied by lighting up the night. I think that if I were a bad guy who wanted the cover of darkness to sneak around under, I would rather have street lights than a town full of night vision gear. But that's just me. YMMV

I like to tell people that I'm not going to believe this country (US) is serious about energy conservation until Democrats can see the Milky Way. Then it's fun to let people sputter for a while before explaining: If you compare a satellite image of the US at night, to a political map showing red/blue counties in a fairly close national race, you see that the lighted areas are mostly blue, and the blue areas are mostly lighted.

When we stop throwing megawatts into production of photons that will never be intercepted by a human retina, then a typical Democrat will be able to step outside on a clear night, look up, and see the Milky Way. Until then, there's just too much light pollution for the typical Democrat to see the night sky clearly, and IMO the country is not serious about conserving energy.

I'd like to see some indication of what prompted Paypal to do this. Not that it would make a lot of difference, but "because we could" would lead to a different attitude on my part than "because they were a source of malware that kept making unauthorized deposits into their account."

Not that I think either of those is likely to be their public explanation.

OK, how about capitol punishment - forced attendance at a paranomasiacs' convention in Washington, D.C. (or Rome, London, Oslo, Paris, Madrid, Berlin, whatever)?

Although this would run afoul of the 8th Amendment in the US.

It would definitely be unusual, and for many, cruel.

Of course a person can be charged with drunk driving if they haven't had anything to drink. Reasons for this might include, but will not be limited to:

1. Evil cops (not likely, IMO, but definitely possible).

2. Deluded cops (more likely, but still a stretch).

3. Overzealous cops, particularly if you're exhibiting something that looks like inebriated behavior but isn't; for example, several neurological conditions can cause you to have slurred speech or an unsteady gait but still be fine to drive.

4. Getting framed by an enemy.

5. Being acquainted with Ashton Kutcher.

In addition, as several posters have already pointed out, a person can be charged with drunk driving if they haven't actually driven and are not going to drive.

I'd be fine with capital punishment for people convicted of causing an accident while driving drunk, but I'm a little uneasy about draconian punishments for those who haven't actually caused damage yet, and I'm adamantly opposed to punishment of people without due process. To me, publishing names of arrestees is punishment without due process.

Why bother? You already have the high tension line. Run the data on that. Physical security against most attackers is built in by the numerous volts sitting on the line already, and by the redundant network already in place. IT security should be no worse than you already have on the internet, and you should be exempt from attacks by casual hackers because they don't have easy access. Concerted attacks by dedicated evil-doers are another matter, because anyone can gain access. but the evil-doers are going to be a problem anywhere.

While that's undoubtedly true, it doesn't actually convey much useful information. After all, the silicon content of a wafer as delivered to a chip plant "can be measured in the parts per million," too.

(Hint: It's really, really close to 1,000,000 ppm.)

My guess is that NOx content of diesel exhaust is in the tens or hundreds of ppm and is therefore not comparable to the usable N content of fertilizer, but you didn't tell me that.

Somehow you're reminding me: what makes me want to ROFL convulsively is watching the morons yelling into their Bluetooths in places like an airport or a downtown sidewalk, while clearly expecting privacy. Don't believe it? Try holding a running tape recorder near their face and see how they respond. Be ready to run (or fight).

I haven't assumed privacy on a telephone since 1954, and never, ever on a cell phone. For me this means that things I want to keep secret aren't mentioned on the phone. If I have to talk about them, it's face to face or STFU. Of course, it'd be different if I were in a business that required secrets. But still...