To what government are you referring? The U.S. government has made strong moves toward Open Source, and the military barely glances at Windows anymore (with a few notable exceptions).

Many other governments (and I do mean MANY) won't touch Windows at all. They feel (in my opinion rightly): if it ain't Open, it ain't suitable for public agencies.

Eh... that's pretty thin. I don't think the relevant court cases agree with you. At least in most states.

In general, courts have ruled that pornography is only pornography because of its content. Even when it's sexually explicit (generally speaking), it's only "obscenity" if it has ZERO social or artistic merit other than pornography.

Granted, child pornography is different in that the only requirement for being "obscene" is anything sexual explicit. It doesn't matter if it's "artistic".

Even so, that's why taking a picture of your kid in the bathtub is not "child pornography". There's nothing sexual about it.

I am pretty sure that in most states, now matter how it was marketed, even if there was cover art of porn stars, an innocent video clip of a kid splashing around in the tub would not be ruled child pornography. There are standards and there are reasons for them. It's not just someone's arbitrary opinion, and it doesn't matter what label is slapped on it. Probably the worst it would get is a charge for fraud because it wasn't pornography after all.

THAT part I agree with, but "she needs to go to jail", I do not. Necessarily. OP was vague on the details.

But I think a lot of what was exposed in OP's article is that these are teenagers being prosecuted for doing your average dumb teenage things. Hell... in a lot of states it is legal to actually have sex for 2 or more years before you're even legally allowed to give someone a nude picture of yourself. And I think that says there's something seriously wrong with the "sexting" laws.

I'm using government's own data. Where's the graph on YOUR page?

Funny, that page says it's "below normal" but doesn't say how much.

The fact is, it's barely below the 1981-2010 mean.

It's about normal.

OP is pretty funny since there normally isn't ANY sea ice within about 100 miles of Alaska this time of year.

Utter nonsense. Microsoft won't certify your product UNLESS you store certain things in the registry.

Certainly you can write your programs a different way (as I do), but don't expect to get your software Microsoft certified.

Nothing I wrote contradicts this. What makes you think it does?

It's probably completely bogus. The sea ice isn't far from normal for this time of year, and higher than in other recent years. It's higher than in 2005, not quite as high as 2006.

Let's not forget that parts of the Pacific coast were a little warmer than normal, too. But that doesn't imply "warming", because the majority of the U.S. was way colder than normal.

So we have: sea ice that might be just a little lower than normal in certain parts of Alaska, but pretty normal overall.

Not really. It's just bad design.

Your server isn't getting games installed on it, which put all kinds of settings in the registry, then removed later when the game is old and tired, leaving behind cruft (including DRM bullsit) in the registry.

When a program is UNinstalled, all traces of it should be gone. Apple took a different approach, which arguably works far better. Even if stuff is left behind, it just takes up a bit of disk space, and doesn't affect the system at all.

The original debates, while important, were not as important as the ratification debates that came later. That is where the Federalist Papers (and Anti-Federalist Papers) came in. They explained the original meanings of many of the clauses in the Constitution, and the ratification debates used them as references.

For example, during the ratification debates it became clear that many states would not ratify UNLESS the Constitution was interpreted to mean that there would be no Federal control of arms at all, and that States had the power to oppose the Federal government if it overstepped its Constitutional bounds... Supreme Court or no Supreme Court. (The latter was made clearer later by Jefferson and Madison.)

This much is clear: the Constitution would never have been ratified if it hadn't been made abundantly clear that the Federal government is a tool of the collective States, not the other way around. The Federal government has the authority allowed it by the States, and no more.

You need to take some history lessons. The Second Amendment wasn't written by the South. And the writers of the Constitution had to acknowledge that in the day it was written, there was no way it would be ratified by the States if they tried to abolish slavery immediately and directly.

But if you notice, it was written in such a way that it guaranteed rights to every person... making it easy to amend it later to abolish slavery. They didn't HAVE to write it that way, you know.

The Second Amendment was written because the British government tried to control arms in order to suppress dissent and rebellion. Our Founding Fathers understood that denying arms to the people, no matter what excuse is given for it, is always a tool of oppression.

OP's basic premise is BS. It is not possible to "redefine" common words in a government document. That's not the way the law works.

Words have accepted meanings. In Common Law countries like the U.S., it is the original MEANING of a statute, or section of the Constitution, for example, that is the governing factor.

Official (like the President) do not have authority to "change" a law simply by saying "I think this word means something different now than when the law was passed." It doesn't matter what he thinks or how he tries to re-define it. What matters is what the ORIGINAL AUTHORS of the legislation meant when they wrote it.

It's just another example of the Whitehouse ignoring Constitutional law, and going off in its own rogue direction.

You didn't bother to read my reference on pyrometers, did you? Because if you read it, and understood it, and were honest, you'd know that is complete bullshit. That's not the "difference" they measure.

And that's the only reason I respond to you: to show others your bullshit. Funny how you don't seem to bother to read the TEXTBOOKS on how these things actually work, and instead just toss in your own theories. And... that's how you came up with the WRONG answer, which doesn't even check out using your own equations.

NO. That is NOT what I claimed, and that is not what I am claiming. That isn't even misunderstanding, it's just a lie. You HAVE TO understand this by now. You could not NOT understand it, unless you are 100% clueless about what the term NET means.

I do not claim "no" radiation is absorbed. To repeat once again: no NET power from radiation is absorbed. Those are 2 completely different claims. You keep saying I claim the former, when I've actually only claimed the latter. And by now, there can be no remaining misunderstanding about that. You are simply lying. Again.

No, I am not arguing with them right now, as I made clear. I was arguing with YOU about Spencer's experiment. And you lost the argument.

When A is warmer than B, (Ta^4 - Tb^4) yields a positive number. Which means all NET radiative energy transfer goes from A to B. That is clearly indicated by the minus sign, and is further dictated by the Second Law of Thermodynamics. There is no NET energy going from B to A. Only when B is hotter than A does any NET energy transfer in the other direction.

A high-schooler can easily understand this. It's simple subtraction.

Further, by the same equation the temperature (T) of warmer A does not depend on the cooler B. And as the Stefan-Boltzmann temperature-power relation (e*s)*T^4 clearly implies, the power output of A also does not depend on B.

Power output of A at a given temperature Ta is independent of B. Changing the temperature of B (as long as it remains cooler) does not affect the power output of A. This is exactly where you have been getting it wrong, by trying to use a heat transfer equation rather than a power output equation.

This is textbook stuff, and you're getting it wrong. Period. I don't give the slightest damn whether your precious professors agree or disagree. My argument was with YOU.

It fit the pattern I saw in the past. It's possible that it was someone else. Just not very likely.

I am curious. Example?

GP was being sarcastic. However, it's true that it's an alarming trend. And it's only a trend because people have allowed it to be.

I *OWN* my phone. It's rooted and unlocked, and I do what *I* want with it, not what some large corporation thinks I should do with it. They get the information I want to give them, and little else.

It's time to take back "things"! Say NO to subscription services. Say NO to term contracts. Buy it, own it, do what you want with it.

I don't disagree, but that has nothing to do with my argument. They chose their particular waste management methods. They choose to enforce them. We might disagree with the law but it's not your law or mine.