I thought the point of the charge was to make the "wooly" side-fibers of the strands wrap around the prey's limbs and/or the microscopic irregularities in the exoskeleton, tangling to it. "Tying" the fibers to the prey would have a similar binding effect to gluing them to it, without the need for glue, and lots of little fibers could make a very strong attachment.

(Stretching fibers made of long chains makes them stronger by aligning the chains along the direction of the stretch.)

Youtube just switched to HTML5 video by default, so perhaps we can uninstall Flash for good now!

But can it play "Badger Badger Badger"?

Why are they still using C to deal with network protocol? Is the performance so critical that it's worth all the troubles?

Also, because there's a lot of C code that has been in heavy use, and tested for correctness, for decades, suitable for reuse with substantial confidence that it's correct (though you check it anyhow...).

Let's see you find code like THAT for a language that hasn't been AROUND for decades. B-)

Why are they still using C to deal with network protocol?

For starters, because it's transparent. The "K&R compliant assembly laguage", as one of my former colleagues once characterized it, translates to object in a clearly understandable way (especially if you turn optimization down or off). Though it gives you more opportunities to create bugs, it makes it hard for the bugs to hide from inspection.

The "higher-level" the language, the more it takes over and inserts its own stuff between you and the metal, and the more opportunity for that to inject an invisible vulnerability - which you might have trouble removing even if you DO discover it.

Meanwhile, many of the things "higher-level" languages protect you from can also be detected and flagged by both modern C compilers and code examination tools - starting with the venerable "lint".

I can guarantee you that if the Govt. left it up to drivers to get the proper training and instruction on how to operate vehicles safely, people wouldn't do it.

Interesting claim - since it doen't work that way for guns.

Where the government requires training, most gun purchasers take the minimum required, then stop. Where it doesn't, most people start with the course recommended by the gun stores (which is far more comprehensive - and more focussed, with less time spent on political indoctrination B-) ) and also do substantially more range time, until they feel adequately competent. (Then there are those that get interested in shooting as a hobby...)

A similar effect is the reason police normally don't shoot at private ranges simultaneously with civilians. Most police are embarrassingly HORRIBLE shots and pistol-handlers - because they do only the minimum training and practice required by the department (which has lots of other stuff for them to do while they're being paid for their time), and almost never have to actually fire their gun during their work.

Ford F150 Lariat.

For the 5 1/2 ton towing capacity (which also translates to "won't blow the engine head gasket towing a loaded trailer up CA 88 like the van did" - turns out they designed that vehicle's engine with the cylinders too close together so this one pair had a very thin piece of gasket between them,..).

(No time to get the GVR before I have to get to work...)

I'm going on what the dealer told me. If I was led astray the cost of the vehicle has been a couple grand higher than it otherwise would have been.

Not bad, but I think Barb's was actually pretty good.

I dismissed them as neckbeards and accountants.

I'd argue/debate/discuss it with you, but I find it an issue for the history books. Besides, I think I'm stuck in meetings for five of the next eight hours :(

Beware BD-R LTH media, which use pretty much the same type of organic dyes as are normally used for CD-R and DVD-R as a cost-cutting measure. BD-R HTL uses phase change in an inorganic alloy to record bits, which will almost certainly outlast BD-R LTH media (and probably DVD-R and CD-R, too).

I've been using these for archival recently. (I'm almost out, too...was going to put in an order, but (1) they're currently out of stock and (2) their per-disc price may have gone up substantially since my last purchase. :-P Will need to double-check once they're shipping again, but my last order was about $27 for 25 discs, shipping included.)

Four inches five times does not mean you've got 20 inches.

No, it all came down to price, not multitasking. There was never an argument that CLI was better than a GUI except from neckbeards and bean counters. Average slobs knew the GUI was better. It took from 1984 until the early 90's for the hard to get cheap enough to tolerably run a GUI OS.

I think you mean the first two seasons of Sliders.

So a customer 'bought' a busted phone. Not getting updates is one of the downsides. Buy unlocked or from a different carrier.

Agreed, using a third party service when you know you are going to be subject to scrutiny from those in power is just dumb... but then I've come to expect that from WikiLeaks.

When I was in school long ago I found that from time to time a teacher might try to punish me for my attitude or behavior but not by lowering a value in such a way (if there was such a column on the report card), but by arbitrarily claiming I got 20% less on a given test than I really did scored. Once I discovered this occasional pattern I started to keep rather good records and not giving them an official reason on paper to punish me. Only once did this fail when I was so busy dealing with the demonstrable harassment of the professor that they gave me the lowest grade they could without garnering suspicion (though probably due to me he will likely never teach a college class again)

Julian Assuage would have been better off long ago if he married someone and put on a good enough show of being a committed husband, so much so that any allegations of rape or infidelity would seem like utter nonsense. Yes, some will say that the accusations were/are nonsense, but not weighed in comparison to who he is and presenters himself as a person they seem at a minimum plausible to the common person.