Sorry for posting an XKCD link, but this one could have been created in anticipation of your post :)

They had to keep the antenna pointed at Earth to get Doppler data from the signal. This meant that the cameras had to point somewhere else :)

From the comment section on the update:

Yes, Dropbox is better than nothing, and very good for sync, but you can set up proper backup software in a fire-and-forget configuration with no interaction needed at all. I use Crashplan and am happy with it, there are many others. If you help relatives and need to do point-in-time recovery for some reason, you'll thank me :)

For backup purposes, use a proper backup program. Dropbox is probably better than nothing, but it is atrocious for backups. I had Dropbox delete most files from my account due to a bug (booted up an old linux partition which Dropbox quickly filled, and then it proceeded to delete everything that wouldn't fit on that partition from all my boxes). Turns out you can't undo a whole "delete" operation from Dropbox, although you can view it. You have to restore files individually (or by folder, I can't recall. It would have been a huge job to do in any case). I quickly restored from one of my other local backups (Crashplan).

So, use a proper backup solution which preferrably backs up locally *AND* online (offsite). Use Dropbox for sync if you want, but back up your Dropbox folder as well :)

I remember an amusing one: user reported a print re-run registration page failing on a few particular orders among thousands during the history of the (subcontracted) application. I found the common factor to be that all failing orders were for 142 copies. It turns out that the handling code for some absurd reason assigned page*count/(amount-142) to the total_page_count (or whatever), and overwrote it with the proper "amount * page_count" in the next line*. The rest of the code worked fine for all positive integers in the relevant range, and it was of course not caught by the unit testing for invalid input. I tracked down the guy who checked in that particular piece of code years later, he had no idea why he originally put it there.

* Yeah, it was done on a budget, the subcontractor obviously didn't have code reviews. I know there are many ways in which the bug could have been avoided. The application is still in production and works well.

I live in a cold climate, and am replacing incandescents with LEDs as they fail. We don't heat our home with electricity (we have very cheap central heating covering our local community), so the heating aspect of incandescents is not important.

The reason why I started is that I have about 15 ceiling spots, of which one or another gave out literally every week. I started replacing them as necessary with LEDs, which don't fail, and even at the very high prices we pay for them in Europe they have paid themselves off already. I'm also happy with the quality of the emitted light which has a warm tone, and we do save a bit of power. I'm replacing them in other lamps as well, with good results. It's a no-brainer, really.

I agree with you on disabling traction control, but you are mistaken if you think that spinning helps you on slippery snow. I have lots of experience driving both front and rear wheel drive cars on snow. If it's slippery, and you start spinning uphill and don't recover before losing too much speed you're pretty much bound to back down and try again. So you avoid spinning as far as possible. In fact, a sure sign you're a (technically) bad driver is if you push down on the pedal when you start spinning, you'll lose speed and eventually stop. Mind you, there are plenty of drivers who don't get this and just frantically increase the revs when they start slipping, and it's very annoying being behind them when that happens so you have to back down as well.

The same goes if you get stuck. If you spin you'll just dig yourself down deeper, without getting anywhere. You have to keep from spinning, creep carefully along, and employ a rocking motion by using the clutch in a periodic manner to boost yourself out if you can't advance*.

You achieve all this by carefully coordinating revs and clutch**, while using "the seats of your pants" (feel) to gauge traction. When I learnt to drive (in a place with lots of gradients, and lots of snow) there was no traction control, and the first one I tried years afterwards really sucked. My favourite example is the 2 km, 12 degrees uphill section of road going to the family cabin, it's really a challenge during winter without dragging out the snow chains [which of course is a cop-out thing to do :)]. It's only very modern traction controls that can even get close to climbing the hills that I can do manually.

* I've also driven quite a bit in mud when living in South America. Mud is different, in some kinds of mud you can get a boost from a controlled wheelspin at the right moment. Very wet organic mud still behaves pretty much like deep snow, though. That was not what you were talking about, however.

** Good luck doing any of this in an automatic. I've driven a newish Mercedes which supposedly had a very advanced automatic transmission / traction control on really slippery snow-covered ice, and it still sucked bowling balls through garden hoses (maybe a bit less than other automatics, but I avoid them as far as possible). I could probably outperform its traction in a stick shift with my eyes quite literally closed.

I have never heard anyone call ebooks "virtual" books. To distinguish most people use paper book and ebook. As for why you chose the term "real", I already addressed that above.

As for the scrollbar, I'm quite capable of parsing it if necessary. Normally you'll prefer to use the ToC, bookmarks or search to find stuff you read earlier in an ebook. Those features are handier to manage than a forest of small coloured bookmark-tapes (what is the proper name for those in English?) or "I'm looking for something that I remember to be about a third and a bit more into the book" IMO. The tactile feedback you mention is really just a workaround for the inherent lack of advanced lookup features in a paper book, but it IS handy for those who are not able to efficiently use the corresponding ebook in a proper reading application.

The clincher is, of course, that the hundreds of ebooks are available on your phone which you always carry anyway (or maybe your tablet), while a single paper reference book is maybe 0.5 kg that you're not likely to just have around wherever you go, much less your entire bookcase.

PS ebooks are no less "real" than paper books. Calling paper books real as opposed to ebooks (which are... what? Imaginary?) is just an abuse of language to elicit an subconscious emotional response, like the "real men buy real diamonds" campaign from DeBeers. The content is what's important in a book :)

I have read many thousands of pbooks and 505 ebooks in my life. I find that the E-Ink display on my reader is slightly different from paper, but equally easy to read. Nothing painfully obvious about it at all for my part. Add in the convenience and it's a no-brainer. YMMV.

And even most PC demos today are coded in high-level languages like C++. The guys writing space-constrained demos (64K and less) will turn to assembly. But on the PC you generally can't beat the compiler performance-wise, and in the few cases where you might have squeezed out a couple of percents better performance your time will be better spent polishing your effects.

Source: I discussed this with one of the coders in Andromeda, who has experience both from the Amiga and PC scene.

My brother got his licence in Nebraska, and it was ridiculously easy. It was in no way stringent enough to judge if you were actually able to drive on public roads in his opinion. I'm from Norway, and we have a strict practical test lasting one hour, during which you can only make two non-serious mistakes (like switching on your turn signal a bit late) and still pass. Forget your turn signal altogether and you fail, no matter how well you drove otherwise. This is a good thing.

About restricted licences: In Norway you get an "automatic" licence if you do the practical test in an automatic, and you're not allowed to drive a manual. Most people who take the test on an automatic do it because they're not physically able to drive a manual due to disabilities.

In my experience stick shifts are few and far between in the US. My brother was an exchange student in Nebraska. We both knew how to drive manuals (they were certainly the most common option in Norway in the nineties, and are probably still in the majority), and when I visited him many of the locals were impressed by that fact, as generally only classic muscle-car owners knew how to use a stick. Putting someone who has only driven an automatic behind the wheel of a manual is asking for trouble, though, if you ask me it makes perfect sense to restrict those people to automatics :)

I don't live in the US, but I find it strange that the fact that *more than zero* NSA agents has actually done this is not bothering you. All that power, readily accessible to people with severe lacks in the integrity department; I would say that spying on your SO in this way indicates a major personality flaw. Remember that these people control more information about their fellow citizens than any other institution in the history of mankind.

From your posting history I gather that arguing with you is fruitless, so I won't try to do that, but I am left to wonder about you personally. Assuming for the moment that you're not actually connected to the NSA*: why is it so important to you to convince yourself and others that there is "nothing to see here, move along, move along"? Most people all over the world are bothered by government strangers having this kind of detailed knowledge about everything you do, and in other countries we generally try to curb their ability to do so. There is no reason to believe that this information isn't used for purposes other than fighting terrorism, in fact the contrary has been proven. The NSA have been shown to lie about nearly everything they do to everyone, including the legislators who are supposed to have some oversight, don't you find this worrying in the slightest?

I realise this post can be construed as an ad hominem, but I am really curious about what motivates you to employ such extreme contortions of reasoning necessary to convince yourself that these people are trustworthy, when they have proved conclusively, time and time again, that they are anything but.

* I don't believe that you are, mostly because if you were astroturfing Slashdot on behalf of the government you would have been spectacularly bad at your job. Come to think of it, if you're trolling, you are better than most trolls :)

Neal Stephenson already provided one (page 3) in 1999, which kinda reminded me of your statement:

"In The Beginning was the Command Line" is a bit dated now, but it is an amusing read nonetheless.

I like your reasoning, I think I would have enjoyed conversing with you over a beer :)