I believe the most common solution is a covered box with fairly high side.

I volunteer at a cat rescue and sanctuary where the cats roam freely, and we use giant totes (>25 gal) in our main area filled about 1/4-1/3 of the way up. We still have some spill over because there are so many cats (mainly when they jump out, not from digging), but it's a sprinkling instead of a beach. High sides are a good way to go.

Our smaller rooms use normal litter boxes, but again only filled about 1/3 of the way. Still not much spill over, but that could be because they're mostly kittens and don't have as much digging power. Most people that suffer from litter going all over are filling it too high, so it may be as simple as just putting less litter in the box at a time.

The cover, however, might not help. The adoption counselors recommend against covered boxes: while it might seem useful to humans (between extra protection against spilling and odor filters that can be put in the top) it isn't that enticing to cats (I can't remember exactly why.)

Agreed. That's why I just roll my eyes whenever they say the unemployment has dropped another .1%, because that can mean plenty of stuff aside from people getting work with a livable wage.

I wish they would focus instead on A) % employed and B) % "viably" employed, meaning they have a single job that puts their income above the poverty level in their area (so regions would be on similar standing). There should be a statement whenever they release these that employment (viable or otherwise) will never hit 100% because there are those who have retired, stay-at-home parent where a second income is unnecessary, or are mentally/physically incapable of working.

I think I got my points across, but in case anyone is confused, some corrections I should have made before hitting submit:

mostly they receive government benefits in an attempt to help them maintain some stable life despite not being able to work.

in convincing people that socialism is not a synonym for communism or evil

This is why we will soon be looking at hordes of citizens of zero economic value.

Not only do we already have "zero economic value" citizens, we have negative-economic value citizens. Consider those who are mentally and/or physically incapable of working today; do we just toss them out on the street? Sadly, sometimes; but mostly they receive government benefits in an attempt to help them maintain some stable life despite being able to work. They can only take and never give, except perhaps as research subjects for scientists.

The only way we will survive the Autonomy Age (where robots do the vast majority of necessary work, with little or no human interaction) intact is by giving up this stupid idea that people are defined by their productivity, especially when the productivity of many well-off people is essentially zilch, such as marketers, HR, CxOs, and a plethora of middle-men (but they don't take food stamps so are ignored.)

This will probably approach something like socialism, if not socialism itself, but we (people the world over, but especially Americans) have a huge hurdle to get over in convincing people that socialism is a synonym for communism or evil, and that taxes on obscenely large amounts of income is not only a necessity, but not evil. I personally look forward to a future where people are guaranteed a Minimum Standard of Living (not necessarily income; there are likely more efficient methods than handing out cash) and those who want to and can do work are able to do so for a higher Standard while the rest are able to just enjoy the long-term fruits of humanity, namely the arts, literature, and random cat videos.

(I think this will require an efficient and reliable male contraceptive medication to help reduce the birth rate even further, but that's a different subject.)

Even if the third parties were the ones doing the charging, T-Mobile was the enabler. From the fine article:

T-Mobile let third parties continue billing its subscribers for services they never approved, even when as many as half the people getting billed for a service had complained to T-Mobile, said Travis LeBlanc, the FCC’s enforcement chief. The carrier had a policy of investigating any service with a complaint rate higher than 15 percent, yet it let many of those companies keep putting their charges on T-Mobile bills, he said. T-Mobile got a 35 percent cut of the third-party charges, according to the FCC.

T-Mobile can certainly go after these companies to recoup their losses if the companies broke contract, but something tells me the contract had a few holes that T-Mobile didn't mind the companies using...

If 4chan can be hackers on steroids and blow up vans, then imagine what an entire country of hackers can do!

You know, this sounds a lot like a problem with another "independent" 4-letter government agency having financial difficulties...

"Fundamentalist" christianity is actually very peaceful.

Matthew, Chapter 10 (NIV), Jesus commanding the Twelve Apostles to spread the word about the Kingdom of Heaven:

16 "I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves.
21 "Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child; children will rebel against their parents and have them put to death.
34 "Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.
35 For I have come to turn "'a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law--
36 a man's enemies will be the members of his own household.'

Sure, these days Fundamentalist Christians are relatively peaceful, having found that social pressure and legislation is easier and safer than violence, but any who want to can easily find verses to support their own holy war, some from Jesus himself.

When I started at an engineering university, part of our "orientation" week (before classes actually began) included a required math test to see which math class we would start out in. Most did the usual Calc I, some did well enough to jump straight to Calc II, and unfortunately large number had to take a Remedial Math class before moving on to Calc I.

Could the same be done for basic computer science courses?

It also works against small inventors; the minute they stop making something a large company will ramp up production and claim the smaller company/person forfeited patent protection. If they were forced to stop making it due to supply issues, which could be controlled by the larger company, they become easy picking.

If you say "completely stop" then the company will maintain an extremely small line that makes one pill/day and sells it to an employee or just throws it away. If you say a minimum number then it could push out small players. Giving a delay of X days has the same problem. I don't know how you'd make a rule that wouldn't have loopholes so large that the big companies just walk right through them.

I support the idea, but a basic rule/law won't work. Rather, a party that can show a vested interest--such as a patent troll target or a competing manufacturer--should be able to apply to a patent judge for invalidation of a patent due to lack of use after a minimum time since the patent was granted has passed. Require a wait of, say, a year so someone can't be awarded a patent and then the next day have to defend their low manufacturing in court.

The judge could then look at multiple factors in deciding whether or not to invalidate, including:
- size of company vs size of output
- size of demand
- importance of patent
- reliance of company on producing patented item
The judge could also rule that manufacturing has to increase a certain amount by a certain date, or the patent is invalid. The company whose patent is being reviewed could present evidence of supply tampering, extraordinary events (warehouse caught on fire, sudden regional instability where the product is manufactured, etc.), or other things that would affect production that would allow them to keep the patent.

Not that this lacks its own pratfalls, but looking at "abandoned" patents on a case-by-case basis is better than trying to write some generic law. Plus, most companies that would have their patent invalidated by a law would fight it in court anyway, so this just fast-tracks the process.

A bit OT, but you reminded me of a similar claim by Kate Mulgrew (aka The Worst Captain) over the geocentrist documentary The Principle.

Not only is the vast majority worthless (though various people might disagree on what qualifies as worthless), much of it is *repeated* worthlessness. There are these seemingly-large network of sites whose only purpose is to take content from other places and re-post it. Most use WordPress or something similar, and surround it with ads (I call these "tri-ad" sites). Not a single lick of original content. Then they go and infest StumbleUpon's Humor category; they use multiple domain names to get around the ability of users to block a domain.

I would be extremely happy for a web where most of the content comes form subscriptions; my only problem is that micro-payments never really took off, and there are some sites I would happily pay 50c/visit for but not $5/mo.

What other country has the power and will? Not the UN, since the US is a permanent member of the security council and gets a veto on anything. (Plus, all they would do is send a strongly-worded Resolution.)

What American with the power to act has the will? Both parties are more-or-less happy with the various powers built up by the federal government over the past century; while they will cry to the media about it, neither party will take serious action to remove any of the powers or charge someone (standing or retired) because they don't want to set precedent against their future, more powerful self. (Most politicians in Congress suffer from a form of "Temporarily Embarrassed Millionaire", which I call "Temporarily Embarrassed President".)

Certainly, no action will be taken by American people in general. Near 2/3 of those who could have done something this past election instead did nothing. Of the 1/3 that did vote, a majority of them (district/state wise, if not raw voter wise) decided the "other" guys would somehow fix things. 90%+ of the rest stuck with our two party system, as though "their" guys had done a superb job.

The uncertainty comes from what you mean by "protect citizens".

It doesn't even have to be that specific: the uncertainty can come from what you mean by "citizens". At one point in our nation's history there were humans who were born and lived here but not regarded as "citizens", and it could well happen again. By saying that the government is there to protect "citizens", and the government gets to define "citizens", a loophole is created. So even if "protecting citizens" was a valid, generic reason (and I agree with you, it is not), it's still problematic.

This is why many of our founding documents refer to "the people" in many places rather than "countrymen" or "citizens".

What's more, I believe that there have been studies showing that a gentle hand will get better results than a firm first. If you can show the person that they have a lot to gain, rather than something to lose, and treat them nice they are far more likely to divulge information (be it by slipping up or by confessing). Plus, the propaganda probably makes us out to be hellspawn demons, so if we turn out to be quite pleasant people after we capture them it will make them question other things they've been told about what they are doing.

Aggression puts people on the defensive, so they're more likely to fight against whatever it is you want to accomplish.

Can't back these words right now, though, as the Google is flooded with posts about the CIA torture reveal and it's harder to look for relevant information.