Actually the senate bill that the house passed hasn't changed at all since the senate passed it (or else it would go back to the senate). It's still a huge bill that I doubt everyone in the house has read, but I think part of the reason the news reports are coming out quickly with what's in the bill is that they've had a good 8-9 months to actually read the thing.

I have used Dreamhost for a few years now and have also been very pleased with their service. Not only are their prices reasonable but they provide plenty of tools to either help you set stuff up or to let you do it yourself completely. And not only are their prices reasonable, but their overage prices are still reasonable. My wife recently discovered that some big PDFs and images she had were being hotlinked to a forum and was getting perilously close to going over our bandwidth, and she found that it's a dime per GB per month. Given their already generous plans, if you suddenly get slashdotted and get hit with an extra 50GB of transfer, you'd be out all of $5.

Especially with the whole "Did you mod but not pirate games?" aspect. Good luck finding those.

So the simple, easy-to-code games have a quick approval process, while the longer, more-complex games that include net code, notifications, and other doodads are delayed due to a longer approval process? I find that difficult to imagine why.

I empathize with you, and have a suggestion. For most venues, the music has to be loud so that everyone can hear it, including the people in the back. This means that those expensive front row seats (or elbowing your way up in a small venue) doesn't get you better sound; it just gets you a better view. And yes, that means that usually the music is way too loud to actually just listen to.

My suggestion is to look into foam earplugs. You can get a pack of Hearos earplugs at Target for very cheap. They're these little foam guys that you roll between your fingers to make them fit in your ear, and they then expand in your ear canal gently to [b]reduce[/b] sound, not block it.

The first time I tried them at a show it was incredible. The wall of bass and noise that I was expecting was replaced with actual music! And when I left, I took them out and my ears were perfectly comfortable. I became a convert with that show, and now always have some with me if I go to see a band.

Alternatively, small bands and local venues tend to have more reasonable volumes. But that's not always the case, and I've definitely noticed shows where the starting band was a reasonable volume and each group got progressively louder.

Yeah, it's one of the reasons I don't buy racing games anymore. There's no incentive to improve because it only matters if you get first, and by improving your skill you make the AI more challenging, making it harder to get first anyway.

I used to like them, but kicking ass on the first couple laps and seeing an AI car (that crashed or got stuck on an obstacle) suddenly zoom way up is bullshit. There's no point in playing a game where there's no reward for improving.

Seems like it would be a lot cheaper to simply go 45 days with no internet access.

One tool one job

I'd hate to see what your kitchen looks like.

Most everything that does require you to use handwriting requires printing anyway. Forms, mail, applications, they all want plain printing -- because it's far easier to read (and process by a computer, which means it's more consistent too). The point of communication is to be understood after all. I think far more people realize that it's better to print than write in cursive once they realize that they can only read their own cursive, and no one else's.

Like the iPod, which is definitely an also-ran in the world of portable music. I remember 3 years ago when the iPod was at the top of its game, and once everyone owned one the hype was exposed and now you can't even find them at WalMart.

Agreed, although this is one reason why Firefox will likely still have a life -- it's unaffiliated with a company that makes money through advertising. Why would Google support a browser add-on that allows you to block their main revenue source?

Lead affects cognitive ability, which perfectly explains why our parents have such a hard time with computers.

Morons are a problem, of course, but even they can be alleviated with better light planning. If the lights are short, people aren't going to figure "well, I've got 2 minutes to kill, might as well pull out the phone." They know the lights going to change and they won't be able to pull it out of their pocket in time.

In my city, we've got a couple streets where you can hit all greens, saving yourself about 5 minutes for the entire stretch, if you speed about 7-9 mph. You get half yellows and the rest are green. So anyone who tries it thinks "shit, this really is the best way to drive down this stretch," which just leads to a different kind of moron. Yet, if the lights were set up the *other* direction, traffic could be regulated so that there was no advantage to going over the speed limit -- you'd simply be approaching a red light anyway, and someone going exactly 25 or 35 would hit the light right after it changes. The only people slowed would be speeders.

There's a lot that cities can do to alleviate traffic problems, but it's not "popular" or particularly showy, so almost none of them do. Fiddling with traffic lights doesn't win elections.

Agreed. I was in San Francisco over the summer, and noticed that the majority of the lights were very short. I was there as a pedestrian, not a driver, but it seemed that all of the drivers were cool with the short lights. After being there a few days, it made sense -- if you miss a light, it's not a big deal because it'll be green again in about 15 seconds.

As a side effect, all of the pedestrians went to the corners to cross, because it was easier to wait a short time to get a light compared to waiting to jaywalk (since jaywalking only works if there's a gap in traffic).

Then, when I came home, the fact that we have many, many traffic lights that last well over a minute just irritated me to no end. Now I see tons of intersections where traffic is waiting for a green, yet there's no cross traffic because the lights are too long and the entire system cascades.

Most of the trouble I've seen, and most of the frustration I encounter, is from badly-timed traffic lights. And many delays are the result of civil service rather than accidents. For example, intersections that have very long red-lights lead to more people trying to speed through the light, causing accidents in the first place.

This technology may help people avoid problems once they occur, but it won't do squat to affect the root of many problems -- bad traffic planning. Without a good traffic plan, everything made to "fix" it is just a patch on top of a bad base.