Ditto.

You've got to be pulling my censorleg.

Emails... sending emails... receiving emails... deleting emails...

Judging from TFA, the librarian wrote it down for NPR to write an article on in the future.

We had that blinky-green business at an intersection near a place I used to live. I thought it was great, and felt much less pressure on whether I'd make the intersection.

There's a hidden danger with the red-yellow, though: Some people start early. Another place I lived had pedestrian timers that counted down how long a street-crosser had to finish walking. When the counter ended, the stop light that direction turned yellow. It didn't take long for the drivers stopped perpendicular to the crosswalks to start watching the pedestrian signals. They'd wait for them to end, wait another second, and gun it. Then they smack right into the driver headed the other way who decided s/he could just make the yellow.

W.r.t. the first paragraph, one would hope that "slower" means "the speed limit" which in a sane universe would actually be the maximum safe driving speed.

W.r.t. the second paragraph: Assholes; pretty much the sole reason we can't have nice things. As a side note, it's my understanding that following too closely or (ironically) too far away is what causes most traffic. You actually entice the assholes to merge into your lane when leave that much room. Then, you have to slow down to re-adjust for your minimum-safe-distance when they swerve in, and everyone behind you has to brake to maintain their respective distances. I'd link the study, but I can't find it. :-\

I'm not saying you're an asshole; that would be the tailgaters. But your behavior tempts them to wreak more havoc.

Fun fact I discovered while reading this thread: United and 4 other airlines created Orbitz (and still own it).

I grew up in Thailand, but left after school. I went to visit Chiang Mai again for a few months over term break at uni, and lost 15 pounds. Returning to the West, I gained it all right back. (This was several years ago.)

I'm curious though about the next generation of Thai kids. Thais used to be short, but with the king's milk program from a few decades back, the average height of the population has grown. I wouldn't be too surprised if the next shift is the average girth.

I dunno about you, mate, but the thing I miss the absolute most about Thailand is the cheap food. I could visit a little rahn-ahan (literally "food shop" but more like a mini restaurant) for 30B, maybe $1 US or so, for rice and two things to go with it (say chicken curry and a veggie dish). It'd run me $20 US here plus tip, and I'd be less impressed with the food.

Not to be coy, but NK dispatched embassy employees to a barbershop in the UK to complain about an advertisement poking fun at KJU's haircut. It is entirely reasonable to believe that they knew about a movie announced in March of 2013 that featured their country/leader and decided to do something about it.

Whether the hacking was that response is still up for discussion (although I'm inclined to believe the FBI), but to suggest that "they probably hadn't even heard of [The Interview] before this debacle" is unreasonable.

I used to applaud these sorts of ideas, but lately I've been thinking that they sound exactly like the "We have an effective monopoly, so we're going to intimidate anyone we feel like" actions that a free society should oppose. I'm open to being convinced either way.

Maybe everyone except me already knew this, but my coworker explained it to me yesterday:

There's a sliding scale for theater openings that looks something like this (dates and percents are depend on the particular movie):

The first three days after a movie is released, the studio (not the theater) gets 100% of ticket sales. If it weren't for those marked-up concessions, the theater would be operating at a loss to show the movie.
The next five days, the studio gets 80% of the ticket sales.
The next two weeks, the studio gets 60% of the ticket sales.
After that, the studio gets 40% of the ticket sales.
Etc., etc.

Apparently, when the Star Wars sequels (I know, I know) came out, the studio got all of the take from the tickets for the first solid week.

Very the interesting conclusions you have!

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I appreciate the voice of sanity in your post w.r.t. the access itself.

Can we agree that the problem is that even if the people with access aren't dicks right now that they might become dicks in the future. It only takes one person evading your dick filter for a while to hire some other like-minded dicks and dick everyone over. There's also a pretty convincing thesis that ordinary people with power** are at unique risk to become dicks.

(Also, I'm not saying you're a dick. Just to be clear.)

** One could argue that access is power.

It can also do future weather. I use a watch face that keeps track of current weather, but if you shake the watch, it switches to a 3-day forecast AND a by-hour graph of the next 24 hours' temperature and precipitation.