Have you ever tried calling verizon tech support? I can't blame her for that. They just pass you around to different divisions of people that can't help you. First you talk to tech support. "Oh, your TV isn't displaying that channel? That's a billing issue, let me get you their number". After on hold for 20 minutes, "Oh that channel doesn't work, that's a tech support issue not a billing issue." After 20 minutes again, "Oh I can't access your account because it's classified as a business account (even though you live in an apartment). We only do residential accounts and the business lines are closed today"

I've had variations on the above conversation with verizon support on multiple occasions. Usually you just get disconnected or hung up on after being on hold or someone has to transfer you to another center where the process starts over again.

It seems they're taking the "protect the children" route. That will probably help their odds of getting it passed. But one can only wonder how long it takes before something like this (if passed) would lead over into the virtual world, like how the protect act (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PROTECT_Act_of_2003) was able to convict someone to 20 years in prison for having cartoons which depict underage-looking girls engaging in sexual acts (http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hJ-ZPbjBP2nc1wF3JqIbElBYgKngD9563DJO0).

For LCD HDTVs, most of the input lag comes from all the processing hardware, not the LCD panel itself. Many TVs now come with a "game mode" that disables certain processing features to decrease lag time at the expense of noise reduction, or upscaling quality, or whatever.

When I play Guitar Hero on my Sony LCD TV, I get about 60ms lag with the TV in its normal operating mode (as measured by GH's lag compensation feature). When I enable game mode on my TV, the lag effectively drops to zero. With game mode enable, many of the picture optimization features are not available, but that doesn't generally bother me since I usually disable them anyway.

...the Kinesis contour keyboard (http://kinesis-ergo.com/). I have about three of these and they're really comfortable. My arms reach straight out so the wrists don't have to bend out awkwardly, the keys are aligned vertically, the backspace/ctrl/alt/del/enter keys are right under my thumbs so my pinky doesn't get stretched out of place, and they have dvorak/qwerty switchable models... They are expensive at $300+ usd but if you spend all day on a computer like me I'm not sure why you would want to live with a $20 keyboard.

So that's obviously the case, but the point of studying the topic is: "why?". It's also important to determine if this is by their own choice or if women are subtly coerced into their disinterest.

I helped out with FIRST LEGO League at Georgia Tech a few years back. FIRST LEGO is a robotics competition for middle-school students using LEGO automation parts to perform various tasks. There were tons of girls participating at all levels, and it was pretty noticeable how different the demographics were between the middle school competitors and the typical college-age engineering students at Gatech. Thus, it's worth asking whether girls seem to lose interest in engineering as they get older, and if so, why?

If it's purely biological (the parts of the brain that determine interests are gender-specific), then so be it. If, however, it's due to upbringing and society's pressures, then it's a topic worth discussing. Indeed, it is probably desirable to change it. Why limit the pool of intellect in a field to men? You're potentially losing 50% of the problem solving skills, assuming men and women are equally capable.

I voted FRIST

So I guess you weren't aware he retired?