This is a sidebar in relation to something she said, "LÃpez said in an interview that the Internet had given her a new lease of life and in one of her last posts, published in February, she wrote; 'When I'm on the internet, I forget about my illness. The distraction is good for you â" being able to communicate with people. It wakes up the brain, and gives you great strength.'"

I've often thought the Internet would be a fabulous tool for the elderly, though unfortunately, they are the group least likely to embrace it, as any of you with grandparents can attest. You know I love you, grandma, but if you fucking right-click ONE MORE GOD DAMNED TIME WHEN I TELL YOU TO LEFT-CLICK, I SWEAR TO GOD I WILL STRANGLE YOU WITH MOUSE CORD.

Sorry, flashback. Anyway, with nothing but free time on their hands, and declining physical abilities, the elderly have a dirt cheap, incredibly entertaining and mentally stimulating (depending on where you go) alternative to the idiot box, that is merely a phone jack away. My grandfather, who passed before the Internet was popular, would have absolutely loved it. He was very smart. He loved to read. He loved to research things. He tinkered with small engines and held a couple patents related to coloring fiberglass. He made stained glass windows for churches in his spare time. With a tool like the Internet, who knows what he would have done with his final 10 or 20 years of life.

I've seen the vast majority of senior citizens I know wasting away in their recliners, spending their final years listening to Oprah, Judge Judy and reruns of Green Acres. I'm not sure they enjoy it so much as they are simply limited to what they can do at that age. They are usually on a fixed income, physically infirm to some degree, and have declining mental faculties. The Internet is a great way for them to spend their time, if only there was an easier way to get them to understand the technology behind it. Even interactive games would keep their synapses firing a lot more than soap operas and cribbage.

Not every senior citizen would use the Internet to further their education; in fact most wouldn't. But I'd personally rather watch my great aunt ding 80 in Warcraft than have her sit through the 8th rerun of Green Acres where Arnold gets in the vegetable patch.

Good for you, Mrs. Lopez, and rest in peace.

"There used to be a lot of equipment manufactured by various countries (Germany is the first one that comes to mind) that lasted virtually forever..."

I understand the principle you are referring to, but I'm not really sure if it's a case of people remembering, or even imagining things more fondly than they really were. And I mean that literally; I'm not sure.

My grandfather, who passed away 16 years ago, left behind in his garage a lawnmower with a Briggs & Stratton engine. He originally purchased this lawnmower sometime in the late 50's. That lawnmower is *still* in my mother's garage, and still fully operational, some 50 years later. The only maintenance required is a bit of gasoline and a new spark plug every 10 years or so.

*50* years and still running strong

Fast forward to a car I owned in college. It was a 1985 Volkswagen Golf. The car was 5 years old when I got it; my mother owned it before me. It had about 60,000 miles on it when I got it, but it already had a cracked head (faulty radiator), CV joints were replaced 3 times (it was an engineering defect - anyone who owned a Golf or Jetta from about that time can attest to this), faulty fuel injector (it would stick at WOT sometimes when you floored it), headliner collapsed, sunroof broke twice (couldn't open it), and several other minor problems, and this was BEFORE I got it. I owned it for under two years and by then it was such a heap of garbage we decided to simply trade it in on something new, as it was too expensive to keep repairing. Mt grandfather bought me a 1992 Nissan pick-up, the no-frills base model, and it was mechanically the best vehicle I've owned to date, and I'm currently on my 8th automobile. I put over 200,000 (really rough) miles on it, and the only thing that ever failed was a bearing in the transmission, which was most likely my fault for driving it like a dragster. Was only $600 to repair, including parts and labor. Everything else worked great.

Going back in time again, I also have some of my grandfather's toys. They are stored away, and never touched, but the craftsmanship was so delicate, they never would have made it this long if continually played with. Even simple mechanisms like the Jack-in-the-Box readily break.

So taking into consideration the materials used in the past (heavy duty plastic, metal, solid wood) versus those in use today (thin plastic, cheap alloys, synthetic/pressed wood), as well as the business ethics of planned obsolescence (i.e. build something that breaks right after warranty) I would say that overall, if all manufactured products were compared to their equivalent from many decades past, it does seem that a higher percentage of products are now built more cheaply than they once were.

However, considering engineering advances, I'd put my Nissan up against any 1950's Ford or Chevy for reliability. And as has been mentioned by other posters, it's often what you pay and who you buy from. If you buy cheap, you shouldn't expect longevity. Of course there are exceptions to that, as well. My Nissan pick-up in 1992 was $9,000 out the door. The next most reliable car I've owned is my Viper, but it cost 10x as much as my old Nissan.

Just because it's on the books doesn't mean anyone will follow it, ever.

Did you know there is a law in Chester, England allowing you to shoot a Welshman with a bow and arrow if found inside the city walls at midnight?

UK government members received this message shortly after the news that they wouldn't be funding the upkeep of Bletchley Park:

"Hp gvdl zpvstfmg, qbsmjbnfou."

To further clarify this, there ARE polar orbit satellites, but, the problem is that while they are orbiting on a North-South trajectory, the Earth is spinning West-East. This makes it difficult for communications satellites because unless the orbit is perfectly synchronized with the Earth's rotation, which is difficult due to an irregularly shaped planet, axis tilt, elliptical orbits resulting in weird apogees, etc., then when the sat passes over, it's in a different spot every day. Geosynchronous orbit sats are always in the same spot spinning with the Earth at the same speed; very easy to tell your antenna to look at a fixed point in space.

So, the highly prized areas you are referring to are for communication satellites, and to a slightly lesser degree, television satellites.

North America and Europe are the two largest markets, but you're discounting Asia rather heavily.

To optimize the satellite's placement in relation to population density, you'll find sats towards the West side of the Atlantic, over the equator, serving the eastern seaboard of the U.S. along with the eastern part of South America and the Caribbean. Sats over the Atlantic towards the East will service western Europe and western Africa. Sats placed over the Indian ocean will service Southeast Asia, the Middle East, East Africa and western Australia. Sats over the Pacific will service East Asia (China, Japan) and the eastern seaboard of Australia, along with the west coasts of North and South America.

There is some overlap. For example, I can tune into AOR-W (Atlantic Ocean Region - West) or IOR (Indian Ocean Region) sats while I'm in the Mediterranean, but, I generally get the best reception on AOR-E due to it's location over the east Atlantic.

Polar orbit sats are still used, but they are not optimal due to most population centers in the world being near the equator, and you would need several sats in the same loop for 24/7 operation, as when your antenna tracked the satellite falling off the southern horizon, it would need another sat rising in the north to retune to.

This isn't a prob for the geosynch'd sats.

"I quickly bailed out from WoW.

When I divided the "fun" on the hours played, it was pretty obvious that could get much more enjoyment from other games/books/activities."

WoW was different from any game I've played obsessively. I played for 4 years, from the time it was released until just a couple months after WotLK was released.

My friends, who are hardcore gamers, sucked me back into gaming after I broke away completely for 5 years. Literally not one second spent playing a video game for 5 years until WoW came along.

I *hated* it for the first 2 weeks, but we had just rolled on a new server and were power leveling to get to 60, so the obsessive gamer aspect of my personality kicked in and next thing I know I was pulling 20 hours straight in front of the computer and not showering for 3 to 4 days at a time.

Once I got to 60, I took half a day off to rest and think about what I accomplished during the last two weeks of my life. The answer, of course, was nothing. But that's the end result of pretty much any video game; they're just entertaining wasters of time. But WoW wasn't particularly entertaining, yet I still felt compelled to play, especially since I dumped so much time into getting the toon to 60.

It was then I realized that WoW wasn't targeting only the 'fun' receptors in its player base. There were moments of fun, whether it was getting my teammates killed for shits and gigs by shooting 9 mobs then feigning death, or ganking Ali, but that was 2% of gameplay with the other 98% being mindless grinding.

The game was designed intentionally to stimulate other aspects of human nature, specifically our desire to collect (witness the number of set pieces in the game) and to exploit the human tendency to place value on things we've spent a great deal of time on, even if it is inherently valueless.

But, even realizing that, I started enjoying playing the game, though not in the same way I had enjoyed other video games. I knew how the game designers were manipulating the players, but they did it by targeting different aspects of the human psyche than most game designers do. Can't fault them for that. Of course, after I broke away from it, I don't plan to play it again, ever. It's one of the greatest time sinks ever invented, and the only thing I have to show from 4 years of play are a bad back, worse eyesight and 10 extra pounds of fat (down from 25).

It was a sometimes fun, sometimes frustrating, but often boring waste of time, and I never want to play it again :)

Define child porn, you say?

When I was 17, I had a 15 year old girlfriend. We performed every unholy sexual act under the sun, even ass-to-mouth. We were both very athletic, very curious teens with very high libidos, even by teen standards.

Technically, what I was doing, was statutory rape. Because we took photos and made videos of our acts, I also technically produced child pornography.

But really, I did neither.

We knew what we were doing, we were both consenting, we were also two of the smartest kids in school (AP/Honors classes, blah blah, etc.), so it wasn't a case of the stupids.

Now just because the currents laws aren't perfect doesn't mean child porn can't be identified, nor does it mean because the laws are flawed that it doesn't exist.

There are many things in life that can not be defined accurately with words, but, you know it when you see it.

Everyone gets hacked.

We're just more open about it.

You really think the Chinese or Russian or Iranian or North Korean governments would admit publicly to getting hacked?

"...the students posted an apology this afternoon."

In the words of Vince Vaughn, "Apologize for what, baby? Being awesome?"

"Fast boots could be a true advance in the history of computing."

-- Henry Kingman, 2009-01-28

Not to mention footwear.

Fi Noly Ilnux ahd a psellchecker.

Yeah, but falling down my stairs doesn't scare the fuck out of me.