"At first you might think that a very slow, awkward runner should just walk directly from base to base, except that he'd likely fall down trying to make the sharp turn at first.."

I would like to point something out.

Making a 90 degree turn is physically impossible without coming to a complete stop. If a person immediately applies a force orthogonal to their current velocity, it would not result in a 90 degree turn in the path (but it would probably cause them to fall down). The only way to make a 90 degree turn is to come to a complete stop, then turn, then accelerate in the new direction. There would be no reason for the runner to fall down under these circumstances.

Because our muscles exert a finite amount of force, and force is the time rate of change of momentum, and momentum is mass times velocity, the time required to come to a stop must be proportional to the velocity of the runner.

This confirms the obvious fact that for a walker, the time that it takes to go from walking speed to a full stop is a fraction of a second, and hence there is no measurable time wasted in making a 90 degree turn, and no reason to walk anything other than the shortest path if you are walking.

We know that the optimal path for a faster runner involves some overshooting, and this proves that there is a continuum of optimal paths that is dependent on velocity. It is also clear from Newton's first law, as I showed above, that running faster befits reducing curvature of the path. This applies to any velocity. Thus, in the limit as velocity goes to infinity, curvature becomes ever increasingly important, and hence in the limit the optimal path must be a circle.

I have a feeling the judge was not aware that cell phones are computers, and that all cell phones, and all major personal computer OS's like windows, linux, and Mac contain encryption software.

"Why do we remain in the virtual dark ages, when clearly we have better alternatives readily available?"

Quite simply, it's because the people who know how to beat the current system and get into positions of power know that they are not the same people who would get into power under a different, more fair, system.

If Microsoft can patent the ability to "shut down" a computer, and the ability to have a "user interface with buttons," then why can't they patent the ability to "use a GPU for its stated purpose" ? I'm just wondering how long it will be before Microsoft patents the ability to "use a computer to do computations." Did you know that the concept of "using a hash table to lookup information" has also been patented?

I really love how patents on software and technology are awarded by Lawyer's and secretaries who know nothing about software or technology.

I can see this being used to interrogate POWs!

If you have so utterly given up on the hope of ever actually forming a relationship with a female, yet are emotionally dependent on such a relationship to the point where you are willing to entertain the concept of voluntary insanity by trying to convince your mind into thinking that a "virtual girlfriend" is real, then you should just kill yourself.

1) Right. So somebody knocks on your door and says, "Hello, my name is Mike and I live two doors down. I'm legally obligated to inform you that I've got an insatiable urge to lure children into my house and eat their brains. But don't worry, because I'm not allowed to leave your neighborhood."

2) Doesn't matter where you put those GPS devices, criminals will have them removed. You can implant them in their stomach, intestines, brain, testicles, heart...it doesn't matter. Don't bother to think about the human rights violations of doing this to a person. Don't bother to think about the underground scene of "professional" surgeons for performing these removal operations.

Great, robotic birds land on the power lines and run up your electric bill.

...or "legitimate" service through the Internet, as well as any activity or "legitimate" use conducted through the Internet...
----

Isn't the word "legitimate" up for interpretation here? Is porn a legitimate use of the internet? Is copyright infringement a legitimate use? Is spying on your wife a legitimate use? Is preaching scientology a legitimate use? Is preaching Christianity a legitimate use?

I thought analog TV was turned off a long time ago...guess I was wrong!

A double blind study is to prevent placebo effect as well as experimenter bias. I guess they are worried that the trees might feel compelled to grow more if they were told that there are no radio waves...

1) Did Blizzard ever stop to think that many (most?) people play their games as an ESCAPE from real life?

2) Anything on Blizzard forums goes on Google, and comes up in search results. That means anybody who uses their forums is going to be labeling themselves, forever after, as a nerdy computer game player to future employers, dates, etc...which is not something that is looked upon positively by many people. I would certainly discriminate against potential employees if I saw that they were a WoW geek.

3) People sometimes have bad days, say things they regret later...on a forum this is all saved forever. Luckily only the people who know their forum name can find it. So you protect your hidden identities more securely than you protect your email passwords. Blizzard aims to make all those mistakes unforgivable.

There is nothing that is possibly worth saying on the Blizzard forums that is worth sacrificing one's anonymity for.