And further, I have asked myself, Would I want to be one of my grandparents.

My grandmother is upper 80's, she can no longer form short or medium term memory. Meds help with anger which was an issue early on. She needs a walker and can be coherent (while asking the same questions over).

Her husband is my grandfather, Wib, he turned 90 about a week ago (my son is named after him, their actual name is Wilbur but they will always been known as Wib). He's got his mind and gets around fine, albeit with considerable pain in the entire body. I don't like that he still drives, but it is a necessity where he lives. And he still works, although most of his customers have died off. It is his routine. And he loves his wife and would certainly perish quickly if she passed.

My grandmother wrote a letter to her grandchildren in the 1980s, and she said "these bones are ready for the grave." I found it when I was about 10. We talked about it, but I don't remember the conversation, just the phrase. Burned in my mind. She was in her late 60's at the time.

Kurt Vonnegut said, on the Daily Show, that he would have already committed suicide if not for how it would affect his grandchildren. He passed a couple of years later.

So it goes.

The decision regarding death's timing should be up to the individual (if possible, accidents and such interfere), with the decision based on his/her considerations of pain/quality of life and family and/or other obligations. Alzheimer's and Dementia are different stories, thus the need for living wills addressing mental situations (if you were no longer yourself, would you rather spend your funds on your care or helping your family financially?).

Soylent Green had it right, there should be euthanasia centers, 'tis a sad aspect of a civilized society, but it is civilized, allowing for self determination (with the same music and film as the movie, one of my favorite scenes in any movie). Keep in mind that the starving masses didn't choose to die, they continued to suffer. Fantastic movie.

As for society and being worthless (per the general society), that's a question of being/trying to be employed, but it has nothing to do with whether one should die. But worth with family is another situation, and is more important anyway (I don't care what society thinks about or values about me).

You are absolutely correct about life expectancy. At birth, per the Social Security Administration's actuarial tables, men have a life expectancy of 76.1 and women 80.94.

From there it never appears to go down (it is flat a couple of times, age 9-10 for both genders; add actual age and expectancy then diff over time). At no point is your full life expectancy, per standardized tables, at or below 75. At 75 the men and women life expectancy's are 85.89 and 87.77 respectively. Women are expected to live longer until age 116, at which point men and women have an equal life expectancy...

Here's the table: http://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/...

I haven't used an actuarial life table in a couple of decades, fun stuff.

And to be clear, the expectancy is from that age, so adding them is correct. Here's the full note:
Note: The period life expectancy at a given age for 2010 represents the average number of years of life remaining if a group of persons at that age were to experience the mortality rates for 2010 over the course of their remaining life.

My dashcam can be triggered on motion. I don't use this feature, I just let it record all of my driving.

That should dramatically cut the power used by the camera when it isn't recording.

I'm about to get a 2nd one that will be rear facing (and then maybe left/right facing, I need to find a model that doesn't come with a screen, so it would be smaller).

I've already used the threat of the dash cam to get some guy and a cop off my ass (he said I hit his car with my door, but I hadn't even been on the parking level where it happened, I told the cop I would gladly pull up my dashcam videos if the guy would like, the cop came back a couple of minutes later and said that wouldn't be necessary...).

A couple of years ago a friend of mine plugged into my laptop to charge her iPhone, she clicked something with regards to the iTunes prompt (I had an iPhone so it was installed), and next thing we know 800 photos on her phone had been deleted but not backed up to my computer. I never figured out what she did, and she wouldn't connect to any computer but hers after that (she didn't synch/backup to iTunes on her computer, the phone was stand alone).

I really enjoyed the iPhone experience (through iPhone 4). But I like to develop for Android, so that's where I'm at now. Nexus 5 owner. Battery life isn't that good, but I have wireless chargers at work, in my living room, my bedroom, and my kitchen. I just put it down wherever I'm at and it stays charged. There's are two more in my travel bag, ready to go (one for the hotel, one for the office).

Nexus 5 is the boss. Cheap comparatively. My wife left iPhone's behind because she wanted my phone. Needs a case for sure, but I wouldn't carry a phone without a case.

This has been the most well thought-out and reasoned rape and murder discussion I have ever been a witness to.

Well done everyone.

Holy shit, you are correct. In fact there's more to it than what you described.

Here's some C# code, the last examples (z, z2) really bother me (in those cases the string was cast to a number):

                        int i = 1;
                        string j = "1";
                        double k = 1.15;

                        var x = "1" + 1; // string "11"
                        var y = i + j; // string "11"
                        var x2 = j + i; // string "11"
                        var z = k + i; // double 2.15
                        var z2 = i + k; // double 2.15

Regarding "var": Our C# standard (which is part of a couple of actual standards, iDesign's is one off the top of my head) is as follows:

Var is only used if it is explicitly clear what the data type is when the variable is defined.

So these are fine:
var aString = String.Empty;
var someVariable = new TypeOfSomeSort();

The variable should be explicitly declared otherwise:
string aString = SomeMethodThatReturnsAString();

Of course I ignore the standard and just explicitly state the type, it's how I've always done it...

var is handy for non-fetched Linq queries as well. Do a ToString() on it (if it is for a database operation) and you get the SQL that will execute.

Why would one correct for the heat island effect? It is in fact the truth; the climate in cities can be quite different from the suburban areas (same with weather, if the heat island is dry it ends up diminishing or even killing off a lot of rainfall, or it can feed a system if the ground is saturated and it's hot, adding a lot of additional humidity in a localized area).

The heat island is a true localized climate (sometimes temps are over 10F lower only 10 miles from the city of St. Louis), like some desert/tropical forest areas in the Galapagos Islands where the environment transforms after a couple of minutes of elevation change when driving (on the main island, the name escapes me).

I would seem to me that you shouldn't adjust any individual values, and that the average for a larger region should be the basis for science.

I would agree that adjustments would be needed if you know that the data is inaccurate to begin with. Determining why the data isn't accurate and how to adjust is the devil in the details. And great fodder for deniers.

For the record I believe in man-caused climate change on a global scale. We're dumping considerable amounts of CO2 stored for millions of years back into the environment (which can and is leading to larger methane releases that only exacerbate the problem). Coral is dying, we are destroying ocean ecosystems via over fishing; but at least we realize and recognize these things now. The 1960s/70s were bonanzas of "because we can" with little or no consideration of systemic effects (especially with regards to food, "let's put these chemicals in the food, it will be better"). We're better on that front, except for India and China (and Africa), or half the population of the Earth.

You appear to be correct, there was likely a draft and it was on the books about 6 weeks after 9/11.

9/11/2001 was the hijackings. The USA PATRIOT Act was introduced on October 23rd, 2001, passed the House on the 24th, passed the Senate on the 25th, and was signed by George W. Bush on the 26th. So about 6 weeks from the event.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P...

The bill was 131 pages, creating or amending some 100 laws/sections.

Text (and original bill PDF): https://www.govtrack.us/congre...

Someone had to have a draft prepared ahead of 9/11. I would bet it was probably drawn up from the neo-con PNAC report "Rebuilding America's Defenses", which was released in September 2000. The document even referred to "a new Pearl Harbor": Section V of Rebuilding America's Defenses, entitled "Creating Tomorrow's Dominant Force", includes the sentence: "Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event––like a new Pearl Harbor". PNAC was a pretty scary and very powerful group (Bush appointed about 20 people from the group to positions in his administration).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P...

With KitKat (Android 4.4 on a Nexus 5), you press the button to wake the phone, tap on the payment thing (starts Google Wallet, no interaction other than the tap), then enter a PIN number for Google Wallet (the user interaction/verification). There's another tap to verify the total and you are done. There is no scenario that doesn't require the PIN.

I wish my local grocery stores supported it.

Sort of sarcasm, but maybe the government should double down on the no-fly list to attempt to obtain evidence that it is effective.

First, they need to report the number of people denied the ability to travel due to the no-fly list.

Then, they need to start detaining and comprehensively searching anyone denied the ability to fly due to the no-fly list. This allows for the collection of ACTUAL evidence that the list is effective at stopping potential criminal activity on a flight. Anyone found with weapons or explosives should obviously be arrested, and that is the evidence.

Thus we would have statistics, how many people have been detained and how many have been arrested for weapons or explosives when trying to fly.

Of course it's all security theater, designed to both install fear in us and at the same time assuage that fear because the government is doing something about it.

For the record, my bag gets hand searched every time I fly. Having a container of baby powder will result in this every time - takes about 10 minutes to search my bag and then drug test my butt powder. And I always ask for a pat down rather than going through a machine. I've been temped to strip down to my underwear before (almost pulled the trigger on that idea when they were yelling at people to take their shoes and jackets off a few years ago). I hate flying these days (it was awesome fun in the late 1990s though).

Per your sig, which I love more than any other song to play on guitar (excepting Follow You Into the Dark, which my 4 year old daughter requests at bedtime, my son requests Jack and Diane...), we are all in a cage if there is an emperor. I thought, via Civics in high school, that we didn't have an emperor.

Apparently, I have been wrong in my assumptions.

So be it. I would take nothing over the Executive Orders. Congress passed the Patriot Act (terrible, terrible legislation), they would support some things.

No action is better than enforced action "requested" by a very small group (or a single person). Regardless of the implications (freedom an liberty before "risk" type stuff).

Checks and balances appear to be nothing more than bank notes and the ability to stand upright.