Good point. Bags of crap have a very good use in the garden. Music files on the other hand aren't good for much of anything.

Someone correct me, but I think you have to symlink to link to another drive. (not hardlink)

I don't see this as a huge problem. Not particularly invasive. If you don't like U2, don't click on the cloud. If you have things set in a particular way, it might download automatically, but you can now "delete" things directly from your phone (as against the way that it used to be where you needed to do everything from iTunes); so again, not too big of a deal. OTOH, it shows up as an entry in your list of albums, which could become annoying if this were to become any sort of standard practice, but only because at some point it makes it harder to find the items which you want to be there.

In this way it isn't too much different from the new Amazon Prime Music app, which lists all the "free" streamed albums offered through Amazon Prime membership. It becomes hard to browse for something I am interested in because there are so many things that I am NOT interested in. That being said, I can't complain too much as I haven't paid for any of them (I paid for the prime membership for other reasons) and it is occasionally nice when I want to hear something that haven't thought to purchase outright. Search works well, just browsing not-so-much, and even then sometimes one _wants_ to browse through things unknown to find something new.

Mechanical engineer and former seat-mechanism engineer here to correct one small error. From all of the flights that I have ever been on, the tray angle is not affected by the recline of the seat, because the tray is attached (and its angle set) at the bottom of the seat, well below the pivot point of the recliner mechanism. What does happen is that the distance between the tray and the alcove in which the tray stores decreases a bit, resulting in potential damage to a laptop which has been "improperly" wedged between the two. (stay calm... I put the quotes there to indicate that I don't really mean that there is an improper location. However, one should be aware of the issue and be careful in how you position your equipment.)

Now, I will also add that, personally, I try to avoid doing any work while on the airplane (in coach). If my employer wants me to do work, then they can pay for first class, where I can have a (closer to) ergonomic workspace. (ergonimic workstations are required by OSHA etc. after all) My job for those hours is to allow myself to be transported in space to a different point on the globe, and I try to make the best of that by doing some pleasure reading. If necessary, I will earn some comp-time once I get to the hotel, where I usually have a desk of some kind to do work; I redeem it unofficially elsewhere on the trip, or officially on another day after I return home.

Myself, I find it rude when people try to conduct business in the airplane. Reading a document quietly is one thing, holding a meeting on the cell-phone (prior to takeoff or after landing) or insisting that everyone else treat the cabin as their office-space is another thing all-together. It's also a bad idea if you have any sort of proprietary or otherwise sensitive material (legal, financial, HR-related, etc.) as you never know who might be reading over your shoulder. (Me! Well, not really... But it makes me have to try to avert my eyes to politely not see what you are rudely putting almost directly in front of my face.)

I've been on more than one flight where my seat was broken such that I couldn't NOT recline. (or to avoid the double negative, the seat would ONLY recline, as it would not stay latched in the upright position). This was annoying, as I wanted to read and actually wanted the more upright position.

While I don't always recline, I don't find it "rude", and am not insulted / offended / bothered when the person in front of me does so. When I do recline, it is often only to the center of the travel of the recliner (which isn't very far to begin with).

What I find annoying is the FMVSS 202A requirements for car head-restraints that are further forward than the original 202 regulation. This was implemented to reduce the travel of your head in an impact, but is only necessary IMHO because many people recline their driver's-seats so much that the headrestraints are less effective. In contrast, I prefer to sit more upright; as a result, the 202A head-restraints are actually forcing my head forward and down. (This has been somewhat alieveated by the development of active head-restraints which only come forward in the case of a crash. Yeaa, more pyrotechnics right behind my noggin. Just what I wanted.)

I've been on a few flights where the seat foam was so worn out that sitting on a board would have been preferable. At least it would have been consistantly flat, instead of havng pressure points from the structure underneath.

A bit off-topic, but the eye-for-an-eye statement was not indended as a recommended sentence, but rather as a limitation. It was to keep things from escalating as in, "you injured me therefore I am going to kill you in retrubution." The eye-for-an-eye meant that you could only retaliate to the extent that you were harmed, and no more.

I'd have to look to see where the eye/eye statement first appears in the Bible (I only remember the New Testament refutation of it), but remember that the Hebrews spent quite a bit of time under Babylonian rule. So there was a lot of opportunity for each culture to absorb various aspects of the other.

My wife worked for the local Bell Telco, as an outside plant engineer, when she was in college. According to her, the workers would first consult the maps to know approximately where the services were, but they would use the two-pieces-of-wire style of dousing-rods to determine exactly where to dig. Of course there is all sort of bias possible in that you already know the approximate location, but the ones digging the holes claimed they dug more successfully when using the rods (as against having to dig twice because the cable wasn't exactly where you thought it was). And in that case, even if it wasn't actually doing anything and was only as good as a best guess within the mapped area, there was little time lost trying it.

My grandmother would do the same thing (for family anyhow). Might have been luck of course, but when my aunt bought property on the top of a ridge in North Carolina, Grandma witched the well positions. The well driller, who was a local, was suprised to find a "river of water" at an unusually shallow depth for the area. Point being that Grandma was NOT a local, yet she was able to find the water.

The interesting thing is that she could make it work for another person too. When my brother bought property, she witched some well locations. She used a Y shaped stick (but not held the way that you usually see on stupid movies). When my sister-in-law tried to do it nothing would happen, but if Grandma put her hand on sister-in-law's back, the stick would twist strongly in Sis's hands in the same places. Now, before someone else says it, yes, there is all sort of non-double-blind bias, etc. which could come into play here, even unconciously. But Sis (who didn't believe in it before) said she was suprised at the force with which the stick seemed to "want" to move in her hands, and Grandma wasn't holding Sis's arms or doing anything which could have affected Sis's grip.

If you really want to send a "telegram", but don't need reliable (i.e. guaranteed) delivery. You can still have your message sent by Morse Code, internationally, and it is free!

You just have to find your friendly neighborhood Amateur Radio operator. The main Ham radio organization in the US is called the ARRL, Amateur Radio Relay League, because they do exactly that, relay telegram style messages around the country and world, just for the fun of it.

OK, the ARRL does a bit more than that. They also lobby congress, manage the exams, etc., but that is the basis of their name.

Reminds me of a story. A construction company which paid its workers in cash got in trouble with the IRS because the teller, behind the window, was counting out the workers gross pay, then counting back the amount of withholding etc. to reach the net pay amount. The problem is that apparently it is illegal for the worker to ever actually see the money which is withheld. The presumption being that it makes the amount of tax being taken seem much more "real" than the "abstract" numbers which show up on a pay-stub.

On a possibly related note, U.S. Gov't employees are now required to use Direct Deposit. (ok, there may be some exceptions to that.)

From a engineering test background (vs. a pure experimental science backgorund), sometimes it is better not to know too much about the topic which you are about to test, that way you don't bias the results. Or if you might know too much, then you get someone else (your intern?) to actually perform the test.

There is also the aspect of having documentatable proof of what was previously just an anecdotal statement. So the scientist may have talked to a farm/ranch worker. In fact that may be how the researcher got the idea to study in the first place. The "discovery" is really just that this is now a provable statement of fact.

But when is the situation ever rebalanced? or more correctly, who gets to say that it is rebalanced? (particularly given that there are significant parties who have a vested interest in the rebalancing never being considered complete.) Doesn't the preferential treatment for the wronged individuals tend to perpetuate the problem, even if it is at some lower level than the initial problem?

It is somewhat like having a cast on a broken limb. The cast strengthens (by restraining) the limb so that it can heal, but if you never take the cast off, you still don't have use of the limb, and eventually you lose use of it due to atrophy.

You are about 20 years (or more) late.

Long story made short: I was on the review/selection board for a college of engineering summer-camp program. If you were a white male, your application wasn't even considered.

So what does your company have against the west side of India?