Sorry for my lack of paragraphs... my screen is playing tricks on me and I see a line break where none shows up after I submit... Oh well.

That's part of the problem right there. There IS and WAS no problem with the McD's machines. They made coffee hot, very hot. Well, water can only get so hot before it isn't really 'water' anymore. You could steam the coffee and let it recondense, but not sure that would be very time effective. Coffee is hot. The heat range of the McD's coffee was normal, and the consumer is the biggest flaw in the cup design. Admittedly, McD's could have used a more stiff composition for its cups to make them flex less so the lid wouldn't pop off, but even then it was a minority issue. There were previous occasions of burns, but the same could be said for the clumsy consumer spilling coffee on themselves at home. I know my personal coffee maker would probably scald me just as quickly. Making it fireside, while camping, with boiling water in a pot has the same dangers and effect to produce coffee. Hot tea can also carry the same dangers. It's all about just being careful. If you are getting a hot beverage and plan on driving while trying to drive or hold it, that is just foolish. Drink it at a red light, pour it into a 2nd more stable cup in the parking lot... save it until you get to your location. McDs deciding not to change the design so long as costs remain low, sounds bad at first thought, but really is common practice and reasonable when doing business. You look at the failure rate and reasons, cost to change the design, and possible benefits of changing the design (among many other points), and then make your decision. A cup is a cup, you can only do so much with the design McD and most other places work with. Cheap styrofoam would be the only weakness in the design. I still feel this whole thing was overblown, and the zealous jury just wanted to try and make an example out of McD. The lady got her money, McD got mocked for a few years like it was going out of style (which it did...), and not its a common reference and argument piece on society and the flaws in our legal system. More often than not, this case is cited as a failure of the legal system, where common sense can be litigated.

Ok, what about the aesthetically unappealing proof of concepts that manage to make it mainstream? Case in point... Virtual Boy! I think i can probably blame my currently horrid vision on that piece of demonic eye-raping hardware.

Not trying to argue that so much as shed my thoughts on the subject. From a little searching I came across the following for third degree burns. http://www.accuratebuilding.com/services/legal/charts/hot_water_burn_scalding_graph.html Here, it basically states that 3rd degree burns can be received after about 2 seconds of contact with 150degF water. Coffee is generally brewed at about 190degF... you know, boiling water over coffee grounds for the standard method. Also, there were and are no state standards for the temperature of coffee. In fact, in that case, the National Coffee Association supported McDs methods of brewing coffee using BOILING WATER and being held at ~180-190degF to maintain 'optimal taste'. McD's could have handles this specific situation better as it wasn't the first time burns had happened, BUT accidents happen and not all are worth a lawsuit. You spill coffee on yourself, if it's fresh, it'll be hot. Lesson learned. So, the last two posts from the AC crowd not willing to give a name to their inaccuracies just go to show that they are, in fact, the 'Slashtards' that are the laughing stock. The severity of the McD's case was an abuse of the legal system in just about every way. The old lady had an accident and spilled HOT coffee on herself. Now, this would have been different if they been using say... thermite to brew their coffee. (Don't bother me with the physics of this!) McDs was within standards for coffee temperature and this lady got fresh brewed coffee. I would have supported them assisting with medical costs as they've done in the past, but they are under no obligation to do so. It would have gone a long way in the name of public PR though.

Wouldn't he be allowed to sue because said agreement and the clause was violated by AT&T first by breaching his data plan? That was what I took from it. They breached first, therefor he was allowed to pursue legal means even against the clause stating he wouldn't. Regardless, it won't change the way AT&T does anything since a few extra zeros weren't added on there to make the burn count. Lack of major publicity for this event didn't help either in shining light on how yet another big biz does bad biz.

I enrolled at Westwood University Online for some courses and had overall mixed reviews about the whole experience. I was taking classes that were not offered locally in any functionally similar fashion. I would have had to taken a variety of certification or otherwise frustrating convulated paths to get the same I was to receive from the online courses. When it came to the courses themselves, I got about what I expected. This again is both good and bad. There was relatively limited interaction between students and teachers, and students and other students. It usually consisted of no more than forums posts, peer reviews (also in forum posts as lessons), and private messages. There were recorded slideshows of sorts from the teacher for certain events as well. I proposed several ideas to liven up the interaction, but all were shot down as being outside the teachers' required involvement. To me, that screams lazy and uninterested. I believe as a teacher you should be upheld to a higher standard when it comes to your students. It's no place to be lazy and 'let the students figure it out'. If we could all do that for everything, we wouldn't need the degrees. The good was mostly centered around the convenience of the courses and my ability to procrastinate and cheat the system. I was young, recently married, and still an avid gamer. The unstructured environment and lack of defined routine from not having a real schedule to adhere to let a LOT slide that did not when I was in traditional college. I saw this in others in my classes as well, and many dropped out due to basically disappearing from their courses. If you are able to structure yourself, guide yourself, and motivate yourself with your personal life as well than online classes could work out just fine. My biggest gripe about my particular experience was the cost. I was charged for attending twice the time I actually did since I decided not to complete my courses as a whole. The school refused to return the unused money to the lender for my loans and kept it stating they've 'reserved my place' in classes that had no defined limits. As no space was actually set aside for me and there were no consessions made to accomodate me... just a danger of dealing with people you can't go to in person I suppose.

For the legacy coding point, I'd like to make one suggestion on commenting. At the time that code was written, it wasn't 'legacy' code... but they still chose to comment (however poorly). I would suggest commenting where ever possible to clarify intent as you never know who will be fixing your code, and when people will be complaining that IT is legacy code. For the relatively minor amount of coding I have directly done, I commented a reasonable amount so as to locate code segments quickly and for others referencing my work to do the same for any debugging. Oh... and now, that code is considered legacy due to the nth-teen revisions made on it since 2002.

Some of this I 'should' know, but admittedly I use enhanced level defaults for my browsers of choice, Chrome. Slightly enhanced security, but no custom settings aside from my theme. I'm a smart browser and haven't had a virus in years, excluding the wife downloads.... I DO use Incognito Browsing for Chrome from time to time though, and may do some custom enhancements to Chrome for security if I get off my butt. Since it's apparently sub-topic now... anyone have suggestions on enhancements that don't sacrifice the speed of Chrome I've come to love?