,,,pedophilia laws are the last bastion of the bureaucratic tyrant.

No amount or type of punishment is too severe or too long, and none of your so-called "rights" should be allowed to stand in the way of such noble efforts.

First off, I never realized that so many people here weren't familiar with the practice of clipping a pet birds flight feathers to prevent them from flying. Get a grip--it isn't painful and isn't even permanent, as the wing feathers do occasionally shed & regrow. If you really want to get worked up over something, go look up why the judges at dog shows always fondle the male dogs' testicles.

Second, Andrew must not have heard the old saying about show business--"never work with kids or animals". . . .
Sorry Andrew.
While the 'autonomous docking mode' is technically impressive, it's much more intriguing to watch the bird drive the thing around. Maybe using tank treads would improve the car a bit--for the bird driver, that is. Make it more stable over rough spots at least.

The store I work at sells some brand of special dietary bread, gluten-free maybe? I forget the brand-name at the moment.... It has a shelf life of three months of something like that.

It isn't even placed with the other bread. It is shelved in one of the dry-goods aisles. We call it the 'zombie bread'.

The reason that you need college for so many jobs in the USA is, , , -they require it.

The reason they require it is because, , , -of a 1972 Supreme Court case, Griggs vs. Duke Power.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griggs_v._Duke_Power_Co.

In summary, what Griggs decided was that if an employer gave ability tests to applicants and the ability tests resulted in racial discrimination, then the company was liable for willfully committing racial discrimination, even if they could show that it was not intentional.

As a result of this case, companies in the USA began to give up doing their own ability testing of applicants, , , and just simply raise the educational requirements instead. "I'm sorry Mr Smith, your resume is excellent but all our cook positions at Burger World require at least a Bachelor's in burger flipping."

In the mean time, US schools began to raise their tuition (as they became the essential gateway into many jobs) and at the same time many began to engage in race-norming (in order to avoid allegations that they were discriminating!) so lower-scoring ethnic applicants were allotted scores that were not justified.


...So now you have US companies that can't do testing on their own (due to the legal hazard) and they raise degree requirements and still complain about idiot graduates, because now college indicates less than it ever did about an applicant's true abilities.

In another chapter, the same book says that "Flush toilet users easily cheat, tell lies, forget promises, they are dishonest and tell bad words, steal, fight and turn to violence and commit sex crimes". ;)

Why bother even buying Viagra now? It's going to come in maple syrup anyway.

In unrelated news, Hooter's will now be open for breakfast....

This was has been my favorite keyboard of all time. ...

I would agree; it is currently my favorite also. The last time I found some new ones on closeout (a few years back) I bought five of them. I am on the last one, and since then I have come to have another slightly-used one also. Beyond that, lies only suffering and despair....

I love the ergo-aspects, and would be disappointed to have to go without them. There hasn't been any other comparable-price keyboard built the same. The subsequent Microsoft Natural models have less-ergo-shape and more useless/special keys. I may try the $$$ Kinesys full-bizarro model next.

By the by, somewhere online there is an article from Reason magazine that explores the early history of the Dvorak keyboard layout. In short,,,,, it's bullshit.
The main studies that show it is "superior" were the ones conducted by Dvorak himself, when he was trying to sell the patent to the US Navy.
They were not impressed, and no separate studies ever done have made the claims that Dvorak did with his obviously-rigged testing methods.

Yea I don't get it either....?

Military contractors would spend $250K because there would be $250K to spend. (-I am not in that industry, but know something of how it works-)

There's cheap RC planes already from normal methods, but the best (lightest, strongest) ones are still fiber-oriented composites,,,, that 3D printing still can't do.

Just a school blowing smoke I suppose.

about this subject (historical propaganda retouching) is titled "The Commisar Vanishes". New copies are a bit pricey but lots of example photo pairs are online.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Commissar-Vanishes-Falsification-Photographs/dp/0805052941

The difference between "hobbyist grade" and "professional grade" is a huge chasm of cash.
The place that I got my (ancient) Tektronix analog oscilloscope (for $200) also does all kinds of high-end equipment repair and calibration. The digital oscilloscopes they use cost $25K each.

...Exactly. People talking too loud on their phones may be annoying, but at least none of them have tried to poke my eye out (at least, not since they got rid of the phones with the little antennas...).

Random thoughts...
...Why the USA has lots of roads is because of fiat currency. The interstates came later--but the USA began building lots of roads in the WPA projects during the 1930's, after the 1929 stock market crash,,,, which was used to justify the change to fiat currency. When gold=money the govt couldn't just pull a bunch of it out of a hat to get people to do whatever they wanted. After they could just print money on paper, they could--and one thing they decided to do was build roads, because the roads would in turn encourage all sorts of other consumption. Like the proliferation of cars. "The oil companies" didn't really have much to do with this in particular; it was the wealthiest people in the nation that made these decisions, and they also happened to run a lot of the oil companies. ...And this doesn't mean that gold money is superior or not, it has pros and cons,,,, but for various reasons debating that now is rather pointless.

...So now that the US can print money and is always causing inflation by doing so, the govt has to keep pushing ever-greater amounts of money into circulation. So now, they DO NOT look for the cheapest ways to do anything (interstate highways costing $2-$7 mil per mile?). There is no point. The money needs to be spent into circulation for it to do any good. The solutions usually proposed very often are not greatly concerned about overall efficiency. The more money they require further down the line, all the better.

...The govt also isn't trying to turn profits on everything they do, since doing so would be counter-productive. It would mean that overall they took more money OUT of the economy than they had put in, and since they are the creators of money, that's exactly what they aren't supposed to do. Anyone arguing that public transit "fails" because it doesn't turn a profit, does not understand this particular circumstance. Public transit fails for other reasons, but losing money isn't one of them.

...Mass-transit is not advanced transit, sorry. The practical problems that exist with it can't really be solved. There is the peak-issue problem (busy during rush hours but much-less-used at other times) and the accessibility problem (more stops=more accessible transit, but slower transit times,,, resulting in lower utilization). The most-ideal transportation would be that which starts wherever you are and ends at whatever destination you choose, and can be used at any time you want but doesn't waste energy when you aren't using it. Cars could stand a lot of improvement--but they are much closer to that than any trains or buses are. An IHPVA/Battle Mountain style vehicle with a ~1 HP engine can cost only a couple thousand dollars, can hold one person and cruise at 50+ MPH while getting ~200 MPG--except that current laws do not allow such vehicles. There is no exotic technologies required, at all. One particularly outstanding example: http://thekneeslider.com/archives/2010/01/21/do-it-yourself-214-mpg-motorcycle-project/

... You should consider the $14000 + the cost of the original honda civic as the total cost of the finished vehicle. ...

I agree.... So much so, that I looked up the MSRP of a 1996 Honda Civic.
This site-- http://www.cars.com/honda/civic/1996/
shows a low-end of $10,350 and a high of $16,480....

So converting this car increased its cost roughly 2 to 2.5 times, and cut its range from 330~440 miles, down to 30 miles.

This is the reason car companies wouldn't build these things until the govt paid them to....


I am fully supportive of improving transportation efficiency, but electric cars just aren't it--and aren't going to be it as long as there's still oil left in the ground.
The ONLY form of electric transportation that is in significant use around the world is trains, and the reason is because they are fed from overhead lines and so are free from the technical limitations of storage batteries.

Hundreds of millions of tires go from fresh, deep tread with the tiny mold fingers to terrifyingly bald and that volume difference goes... where? ...

I have no cite--but have read that much of it ends up as tire dust, which (now in most US cities) is the main ingredient of smog.

The article claimed that this was the problem with trying to increase air quality by enforcing lower standards of tailpipe emissions--the two main factors left are tire dust, and diesel-engined vehicles. Tire dust isn't being addressed at all, and diesel-engined vehicles aren't held to the same emissions standards as gasoline-powered vehicles.

...So all that raising EPA emissions on gasoline vehicles is doing is making people buy new cars for no real benefit--other than stimulating a dying economy a bit longer. (along with airbags [$2500+ per car], and ethanol-cut fuel [10% of the fuel you buy now is nothing])

In a past article asking why kids are still carrying around heavy bookbags when all their books would fit onto a 2gb USB drive, I mentioned that the textbook companies actively refuse to publish e-book versions. They are fighting this every step of the way, and they have methods that the entertainment industry can only dream of.