The worst is when you handle old code and think "Who programmed this garbage", only to realize you did years ago.

That's the bad part of growing as a programmer, you look back at your old code and see it as awful since you now know better. (It can also wind up making you think you're a horrible programmer because your old code looks so bad. It doesn't mean you ARE a horrible programmer, though, just that you are growing.)

I was the same way. When I started out in web developement, I'd stubbornly insist on building everything myself from scratch. Of course, this meant I was putting a ton of extra effort into each project when I could have been using pre-written components to speed up my development. In addition, my custom code was trickier to support. (Pre-written components from other sources that have hundreds of eyes looking at can be debugged a lot easier than custom code that has one or two pairs of eyes looking at it.) Not that pre-written is always the answer, but they should be considered, not dismissed out of hand.

"At my local library they have folded the Sci-Fi section in with the general fiction books. Which means I can no longer browse just Sci-Fi books. I am not sure why they did it, but what irks me a bit is that the Mystery section still remain separate."

That sounds mysterious. You should investigate.

It's probably the fault of some old guy who dresses as a monster or ghost and who'll get away with it if us meddling kids don't stop him.

I'll grab the Scooby Snacks.

Nuh uh! There are also compressed air cars - they only explosively decompress upon tank failure! ;)

I propose that we go back to foot-powered automobiles as shown in that documentary called The Flintstones. Bonus: We'll save energy by getting all sorts of trained animals to do things for us instead of powering machines to do them.

We already have "Free Speech Zones", I don't think it's paranoid to think that some future administration would want to curtail cell phone usage in a location. They could use the "justification" that cell phones can be used to set off terrorist bombs. Therefore, they are just protecting everyone by shutting off all phone access in an area. If you want to use your phone to upload a photo of an event, just go to the Free Speech Zone which still has access. All you need to do is drive five miles down main street, turn right and then drive ten miles down. Turn left and then drive fifteen miles down. There is a 5 foot by 5 foot pen surrounded by barbed wire with a security guard at the gate (for your protection, of course!). He'll let you in after a quick security check including but not limited to a mobile Rapiscan scanning and/or cavity search.

They would, however, be able to keep the story about what's happening in Ferguson, MO (for example) from ever trending on Twitter, simply by killing every phone talking to a particular tower.

Or they could just turn off the tower? That gives them the added benefit of deniability, they could claim the tower suffered a power outage or other technical fault.

Just make sure you imply that the tower's power failure was from looters/rioters going out of control. This way you also justify increased police "actions" to counter these law breakers.

My Kindle has a progress bar at the bottom that tells me what percentage of the book has been read already. If I'm halfway through, it'll say 50% on the bottom. It uses percentages rather than pages because, unlike a paper book, you can resize the font on an eBook to make it easier for you to read. Thus, what would have been a single page could turn into two pages.

Or, more specifically, it's a "white list" of what the government is allowed to do. If the government wants to do X and X isn't white listed in the Constitution, they can either not do X or try to amend the Constitution to allow X. (Or, in the real world, do X anyway as secretive as possible and hope the courts don't order them to stop.)

Even if one accepts a failure of security, the only "tightening of security" that would have made any difference today versus on 9/11 are the locked, reinforced cockpit doors. Had the planes had those on 9/11, the hijackers could have threatened or even killed all of the passengers/crew (except for the pilots), but the plane would have landed safely without crashing into any buildings.

We could roll back the "enhanced security" to pre-911 levels, keeping only those cockpit door improvements, and we'd be just as safe as we are right now.

I just tried setting up an actual lock screen (with a password) and sure enough there is an "Emergency Call" item now. (I could have sworn I had tried this in the past and hadn't seen one, but it's possible I overlooked it somehow.) For a test, I tried using my cell phone to call my work number and it said that this number wasn't an emergency number. My next question would be how would I specify certain allowed emergency numbers? (Beyond 911, obviously.) This way, if my child has my phone and needs to call a relative that they know the number of, they can without having to know my unlock code and thus having full access to the phone.

Ah. I could have sworn that when I set up proper locking mechanisms on the phone that there wasn't any option to call. I just tried it again, though, and there is an "Emergency Call" text. For a test, I tried using my cell phone to call my work number and it said that this number wasn't an emergency number. My next question would be how would I specify certain emergency numbers? (This way, if my child has my phone and needs to call a relative that they know the number of, they can without having to know my unlock code and thus having full access to the phone.)

It would really surprise me if the phone was required by law to be able to make emergency calls while locked since my Android phone doesn't seem to have this feature.

My house is just over 1400 square feet. To me a 2400 square foot house would be huge. If you're thinking that 2400 square feet is small, how big is your house?

I've been checking on my phone (Motorola Droid RAZR HD with Android 4.4.2 on Verizon Wireless) and can't find any Emergency Contacts feature. There's an "Owner Info" section where I can put text on the home screen, but that's limited in function. Would be best as a "If found, please call 555-1212" text, not as a "Click this to call 911 or selected contacts."

We ditched our landline years ago to save money. It was costing us way too much a month for the landline when we were almost never using it. We first switched our landline number to a dedicated mobile phone since it was cheaper than an actual landline. Then, we moved that to a Google Voice account ($40 one time fee). The first week of our going cell-only, my youngest son had a febrile seizure (one of many he's had) and we called 911 with our cell phones. The 911 call went flawlessly and they arrived just as rapidly as they had when we had a landline.