Bell had talked to Watson on the first ever phone call, in Boston, just after Bell had patented the telephone.

really? He patented it before ever testing it? Same shit, different millennium, eh?

It's a good thing Americans don't have tails or they'd usually be seen with them tucked between their legs, anytime air security is involved.

So they're buying a GPL test case in order to try to invalidate it with their army of lawyers and lobbyists to scuttle the Android alliance so they can FUD their way in with WinPhone 10, all while looking like an OLAP services enhancement?

"Surprises" get papers and Slashdot stories accepted. "We found some fish, pretty much as we expected" gets filed in the dustbin of history. Same scientific results either way.

The gag is that the seriously wealthy aren't worried about Obama's new tax policies, because they can afford a tax lawyer who can prove that they earn nothing.

If you haven't been paying attention for the past few millennia, the purpose of government is to transfer resources from the masses to the few. I know, they don't tell that to the masses in their indoctrination centers, but if you look at all available evidence, it's pretty clear.

Sure, they throw a few bones to the dogs to make sure they don't turn on their owners, but look at every available trend and analyze the data.

Let's just enforce existing laws and get dangerous drivers off the road.

Correct.

THERE IS NO RIGHT TO DRIVE.

Stop acting brainwashed. The Right to Travel is a fundamental human right. Go check out the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that your government probably signed on to if you don't believe me. It does not mean that humans have a right to crawl through the muddy forests to get from place to place - it means all humans have the fundamental right to travel in the common manner of a society. Whether that's a donkey cart or an SUV with DVD Entertainment System or an Airbus A340.

There are even places where automobile travel is the only allowed method of travel - we have an area around here where the local road was taken over for an Interstate and the only way in or out is an exit.

If you are a dangerous driver you can and should be taken off the road.

Correct. There's a mechanism for that.

No person shall ... be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law

The Right to Travel is a fundamental liberty and we have a way to deal with taking away liberties for the protection of society. It doesn't require parroting some bullshit statist rhetoric your phys ed. teacher told you in high school.

Now your insurance company - they ought to have a lot to say about your competency as a driver. Sadly, they almost never do, except in aggregate, such as very high insurance rates in MA where the passing grade on a DMV test is 60%. You ought to be able to save $400 a year if you score 95% or better, but no ... that wouldn't be _fair_. Regulators gotta regulate, whether it does harm or not, so everybody pays high rates and the incentives to improve are eliminated.

Long before those things ever existed people weren't buying SkyMall's useless, overpriced crap.

Obviously false, since people don't stay in a business for decades just to piss away money.

However, the economy is the worst it's been in 60 years (vis-a-vis age-discounted labor participation rates) and so there's just less of a pool of money to waste.

Skymall took some cream off the top but we're down to whole milk now.

Smartphones might have helped it along, but there are people posting here about reading the catalog for entertainment because they couldn't figure out how to bring a book with them on the airplane. Those people aren't planning ahead on their phones either.

And if anyone thinks they should be, let them and their loved ones be the first victims, for "their cause".

That's certainly a risk. Not a huge one, but a real one. One in a million is not zero.

This is why freedom requires courage and bravery, and an acceptance of personal responsibility. To be sure, such concepts are anathema to many individuals.

Then perhaps the rest of us in the world can then live better lives.

You mean to say 'safer' lives. A life without freedom is never better for people who value it.

It may be that we'll all be happiest if people who do not value freedom separate themselves from those who do. If only there were a Natural Rights Republic somewhere that the freedom-loving people could flock to ... maybe China will take those who want a centrally-planned society.

which due to tachyon flux has evolved into a catch-phrase spewing mascot with the power to float just out of reach.

How many tabs did you take?

Don't get confused by the marketdroids calling this 'hollographic'. It's nice stereo, but it's stereo. Holograms require no headgear.

Words having distinct meanings is a useful feature of language.

nominating for AC first-post hall of fame.

The problem there is 'policy' not 'science'.

I like the IETF model: "We reject kings, presidents, and voting. We believe in rough consensus and running code".

Oh, but nothing large-scale and important could ever be accomplished without Democracy ...

Reminds me of the Indiana Pi Bill. It's not even that the Indiana Rep. felt strongly that Pi equals 3.2, but he was unqualified to understand the subject, but had no problem passing a law based on 'expert' testimony.

Classic Dunning-Kruger all over town.

And inducement to break a contract is a crime in most jurisdictions, doubly so with color of law. The lawsuits should be fun.

Tried it again recently, and I was able to add a four-minute video from my phone, cut out a chunk, add a transition and a fade-in and fade out, and took me less than half an hour.

It's true, that would have taken me five minutes in iMovie in 2000, but at least it didn't crash, which is what happened every previous time I've tried that.