In Catholic Theology, the Immaculate Conception doesn't refer to the Virgin Birth of Jesus, but to the conception of Mary without original sin.

I guess it's possible that these baby boa constrictors are especially sinless, but you probably won't be able to decide on that issue by reading Biology Letters.

Over a century ago Edison was making sure Alternating Current was used in the Electric Chair, in order to make it seem more dangerous and associate it in people's minds with electrocution.

they dropped it and became YET *ANOTHER* rock station... a real waste, because there are already about 20 of those on my radio!

Where is that? Around here all the rock stations are turning to dance/hip-hop stations.

Agreed. I speak from experience. My first job was for a small company where the bosses loved cars and stuff that I considered "macho B.S.". Was I an elitist? Yes. But, I feel that my problems extended beyond "being the first on the chopping block". It was a fully unsatisfying experience, being the guy who just shows up, pulls his 8 hours, and leaves. I may not be ecstatic about every job I have, but fitting in is now a big requisite when I go on interviews.

(And I admit that I was a snob. I should have tried harder to fit in. You are preparing for the next few years of your life. Do you really want to half of every day alone in a cubicle? Or do you want some social interaction at the water cooler/lunch room/whatever?)

Is it wrong that I was hoping this didn't refer to the women's eyes?

Humans need a pressurised environment and a continuous supply of oxygen/food/water, and generally prefer to be returned to earth at some point.
Robots need none of this so can be sent with a lot less mass (cost) and dont need resupply or recovery. So even if they are less capable than humans, you can send more of them for the same cost and they can stay a lot longer.

So how do you get an accurate count of the people who want your product? You can't. Also, what do you mean by "want"? Are willing to try it for free? Are willing to pay for it?

It's rather obvious that the number of people who are willing to try something for free is far bigger than the number of people willing to pay money for it. Yet the industry's estimate compares the number of non-pirates who were willing to pay the asking price to the number of pirates who were willing to try it for free. It's comparing apples to oranges. It's a completely meaningless statistic.

But a hard upper bound is not the same as a meaningful estimate. The number of iPhone owners also gives an upper bound to the number of lost sales.

But more than that: the industry's logic that "anywhere between 0 and 80,000 == 80,000" is completely wrong, yet that is what they do: they don't claim that this is a (very loose) upper bound, they claim it's the number of lost sales. And that's a lie.

True, but which of the following two claims would you say is most likely:

A/B =~ (C+D)/(E+F)
E =~ 0

The industry is claiming the second one is true. TFA says the first is a more reasonable assumption. I'm inclined to agree with TFA.

Actually the Yen was a decimal currency but fractional coins were phased out after world war 2 because of hyper inflation. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yen

I'm waiting for the mandatory "Cauliflower with a frikin laser on it's head"

OK, cauliflower isn't a fruit but I couldn't think of a fruit that has a head

I agree with the solution to remove the driver, the car should drive itself. In the meantime the FCC should require all communication devices have a method to block usage within a small radius with the exception of 911 calls. Then cars (front seat only), schools (Kids spend more time texting during class than they do paying attention), federal buildings, and other locations can essentially disable the ability to use any communication device.

Carefully. And you?

Las Vegas has made card-counting a non-factor. Between high deck-count shoes, variant games with unfavorable rules ("Super Fun 21"), and early shuffle thresholds, even a player keeping a perfect count cannot create a significant edge. And the million people who show up to try their hand at it and fail far make up for the cost of the few who can eek something out anyway.

Before leaving the computer I just press WinKey+L.

Now, having to log in -again- when I return is slow and error-prone, especially while sipping coffee. The solution is obviously to use the same software to auto-login a soon as it detects the presence of a user.

Thanks for that info. Ok, so now I know that people who buy these cars are ... peculiar. And I shall avoid them.

I was purely going for the price aspect and not the contractual.