The bigger problem is working around the requirement by (ab)using the principles of the psycho-acoustic modelling of sound, like with A-weighting and equal-loudness contours.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal-loudness_contours

Essentially, the human ear's perceived intensity at different volumes is frequency dependent. One trick is using an auto-tuner to "shift" audio to nearby frequencies so that the overall loudness (as measured by an ideal microphone) is within the acceptable limits in the proposal, but the human ear "hears" them as if they are louder than they really are.

You failed to understand the joke. Assuming the number X uses the lexical base of Y, with Y being represented in base "ten", then (X)_Y (ie: "X" in base "Y"), then, (X)_Y = (10)_3 = "three to the first power". Therefore, gmuslera's joke means "there are three kind of people, those that understand ternary .... ". You either thought he/she meant "binary", or you don't understand ternary. Your joke "there are 11 kinds of people" would technically be correct, if the original joke referred to binary rather than ternary.

There are 79 usable frequency bands, as Bluetooth uses frequency hopping techniques. So long as you are not attempting to perform the initial pairing operation for all keyboards simultaneously, you should be able to get a few dozen devices working at the same time for normal operations. It will likely wreak havoc on your wifi network though. Additionally, BlueTooth dongles can typically connect to as many as 7 devices at the same time. Hope this helps :)

Wouldn't Amazon be able to sue Apple for such a blatant knockoff of the Kindle?

Finished all ten questions correctly in under 2 minutes with no calculator while suffering from a raging hangover.

This is disturbing, as all of these questions are on par with those one would find on a third grade math exam in Canadian elementary schools (ie: an eight year old could excel at this level).

Really? The extra stuff added to commercial products is garbage. The last few Disney movies I bought force me to sit through 12 consecutive advertisements for new movies, along with ads for re-mastered copies of 20 year old movies that they are now re-releasing. I have to wait 5-10 seconds for each one to become skippable (ie: I can't just keep mashing the "Next" button on the remote). Then I get to read an FBI warning, yadda yadda, that I cannot skip or fast-forward through. It takes 10 minutes to get the to main menu if I just let it sit unattended. This is exactly why tools like VobBlanker or DVDfab are so popular, you can remove this crap in seconds. I've already paid for my movie, why am I forced to endure countless ads every time I view it?

What really annoys me though, is that they are advertising for the BluRay copy of something I already own on VHS and DVD. Where is my upgrade option to pay $5 for the new media without having to pay for a new license to a movie I have owned for 20+ years?

Every time "RIM" and "security" is in a news article, we get an overly pessimistic and misinformed sensationalist article about how their security is completely broken, when it's little more than a minor nuisance at best. Every time Apple boasts improved security, it gets praise despite being cracked like clockwork 18 hours after release.

They have brains?

Sure you don't mean the in-dash controls on their militarized Ford Explorers?

Doug Stanhope has covered this so many times. I got to see it in person, and people were falling out of their chairs laughing.

You were born free, you got fucked outta half of it, and you wave a flag celebrating it!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTOQhPd2Xh4

They say if you give a man a fish, he'll eat for a day, but if you teach a man to fish.... then he's gotta get a fishing license, but he doesn't have any money. So he's got to get a job and get into the Social Security system and pay taxes, and now you're gonna audit the poor cocksucker, 'cause he's not really good with math. So he'll pull the IRS van up to your house, and he'll take all your shit. He'll take your black velvet Elvis and your Batman toothbrush, and your penis pump, and that all goes up for auction with the burden of proof on you because you forgot to carry the one, 'cause you were just worried about eating a fucking fish, and you couldn't even cook the fish 'cause you needed a permit for an open flame. Then the Health Department is going to start asking you a lot of questions about where are you going to dump the scales and the guts. 'This is not a sanitary environment', and ladies and gentlemen if you get sick of it all at the end of the day... not even legal to kill yourself in this country. Thanks again, John Ashcroft, you weird bible addict, can't even handle your own drug. You were born free, you got fucked out of half of it, and you wave a flag celebrating it. [audience member]: Hey, don't hold back! [Doug]: You got an argument? [a.m.] No, keep goin'! ... The only true freedom you find, is when you realize and come to terms with the fact that you are completely and unapologetically fucked, and then you are free to float around the system.

When I was visiting in Italy, we watched a parody of Fear Factor where people had to eat american fast food. A bit overdone, but still funny.

Good point sir!

On another note though, there may be some ambiguity. Some relatives visited from Luxembourg, and I recall at one family dinner we made a big deal about the produce being pesticide free, and the meat being free of artificial hormones, etc. When we explained the term was "organic", our guests spat out their food and all reached for their wine simultaneously, as they exclaimed "you grow all your food in shit?". As it turns out, they use the term "biologique" or maybe "organic-biologique". Very amusing dinner conversation.

Slightly off-topic, but as this technology becomes more practical in terms of day-to-day use (ie: it actually helps a physically disabled person significantly, and is well beyond the proof-of-concept and various stages of cost analysis and FCC regulations), would it be possible that people could find these solutions being awarded in court cases?

I've noted a number of car accidents in North America over the years as they pop up in small-time newspapers, and a few months later the defendant is lucky to get $200,000 in compensation for a drunk driver killing the victim's kid and putting the victim in a wheelchair or worse for life. But wait, $200k, isn't that a lot? Not when your friend who just died was a chemical engineer pulling in almost the same per year for his family, who now has no income.

What if this technology can repair the physical damage to one's own body, but it costs, say $1,500,000. Is it possible for the judge to say "repair the damage you did". For loss of life, this is a very messy issue that pulls in ethics, epistemological debates, legal debates, limitations of liability, etc. But let's just consider the case of a drunk driver who can't claim the "alcoholism made me do it" defense. Would it be right, ethical, legal, or even possible to garnish their wages until they die of old age or kill themselves (and have first dibs at life insurance) so they can repair the damage done from one person being too cheap to call a cab when plastered? I think it would be very fitting.

"The defendant claims that the stress and guilt of this incident will affect him for the rest of his/her life". Well, here's a way to be sure of it while letting them retain their personal freedom to go about their day without being behind bars. Even better if the drunk is a sociopath or just selfish and reckless.

While I agree with you on the note of Linux being more secure than Windows in most scenarios, an important thing to take into consideration is that most casual Linux users possess what would be considered administrator or power-user level knowledge of using a computer, while most casual Windows users are not quite that knowledgeable.

More to the point, there are still Linux applications that leave files sitting around in places like the swap partition, or keep copies in the local present working directory (PWD), cache credentials in the $home folder (ie: ~/), and so on. I'm guessing you're referring to certain versions of Knoppix that are designed for security in your post. Good point. There are versions that load everything into RAM, and even clobber the contents of RAM when you shut down so you don't have to worry about people leaving the machine running or deep-freezing the physical RAM chips. As for physical disk access, it only touches an encrypted drive or container, and you can even have it force a dismount and cleanup after X minutes of operation, in case someone steals your laptop and decides to keep it running. I'm not quite that paranoid... yet.

If it is broadcasting or in discoverable BT mode, no point; it will be found with simple sniffer tools.

I would agree though, that if the physical medium were secured, it would be a good strategy. Until they start punching holes in the wall, when they notice a WIFI accessible NAS device, though.

When one crosses the border to the USA from Canada, the US has a policy in place where they can tear the car to shreds on suspicion of drugs, and leave it that way. They don't even have to fix it or put it back together either, and one has no legal recourse. No wonder I haven't visited the country (despite some of my favorite bars being there) since the 90's. If they can go that far, it wouldn't be a stretch to imagine the authorities ripping holes in the wall and tearing apart beds, couches, the ceiling, etc.

You make a very good point.

With respect to your question, no; one cannot use two virtual OSes on a single drive concurrently.

Not to be critical, but I think people should avoid the "I'm not doing anything illegal" statement, because there are plenty of legitimate reasons for encrypting personal data. Maybe the RIAA/MPAA serve their "John Doe" lawsuit papers to force a settlement because they have enough money to drown me in legal fees because someone on my subnet was downloading torrents, and the MPAA/RIAA lacks the ability to distinguish users since we share a common gateway. I don't download MP3's illegally, yet the RIAA/MPAA is legally (yet unjustly) allowed to bully me into paying them, despite my not having done anything at all wrong or illegal. Maybe I have some intimate pictures of my girlfriend on the hard drive they demand. Nothing wrong with that (please, to all cynical readers, leave your baggage and immoral, deontological excuse for ethics, at the door), but I fail to see why they should be privy to that information.

This is a serious, legit, real-world example.