What would that mean for this?
https://www.xkcd.com/938/

You ever see a guy walking around a grocery store with a block of wood that is his shopping list? He works in construction. You use what you have. In my case, that is cardboard. It's everywhere!

But it's kind of hard to measure my electrical usage, when I don't have access to the box, and while I do try to cut down rather than using more and more, but at the end of the month, I don't pay the bill. My landlord does. So in this case, I really cannot vote. None of the options presented are applicable.

Doesn't change my answer (30-60), but by omitting the term "devices" in the poll tells me there are two legitimate ways to answer this:

I have a dual monitor setup, both are 20" widescreen display devices. 20 + 20 is obviously 40, but diagonally across the entire display is only 36".

I honestly haven't done the math here, but I suspect certain combinations of displays could in fact cause a discrepancy wide enough to (for example) answer 30-60" if measured the first way, but 15-30" in the other.

LCARS. Yes, talking to a computer would be weird, but could also be awesome!

I say...

Bounce a graviton particle beam off the main deflector dish, that's the way we do things lad, we're making shit up as we wish. The Klingons and the Romulans pose no threat to us, 'cause if we find we're in a bind, we just make some shit up.

Sorry, but every comment I've read in this thread makes me think of that song (admittedly, I have only read a few)...

Okay, I'll bite, because I haven't noticed anybody making this point yet:

You are correct, they got exactly the legislation they wanted. But their problem now has nothing to do with the internet being big, like a fleet of trucks moving around the world. Youtube does them a *huge* favor by making it relatively *easy* to find infringing content. So what they want now is to not have to spend their own money to defend the "rights" they claim to have, but more importantly, my second point is that:

The DMCA is *exactly* what they wanted. It is not a blanket law that they expected would cover all of their best wishes. It was vague, sure, but the more vague a law, the more that can work to your advantage; if you can get the law passed, and hire enough good lawyers to defend your cause, you can generally get it interpreted however you want, and set precedents for future litigation.

But even in a "worst of all cases scenario," barring the rejection of the DMCA, if the bill passes, it is a *foot in the door.* The door has been opened, they put their right foot in, and are gearing up to put their left one in too.

I believe it was Francis Schaeffer who said "what was unthinkable yesterday is thinkable today... and commonplace tomorrow." I don't believe the DMCA was intended to be a silver bullet, but merely as close to it as one could get. You get your foot in the door, and it gets a whole lot harder to close the door. The proverbial horse is leaving the barn.

While this is a very good point to raise, and I might have done well to consider it when I finally broke down and got a mobile phone, my thought process ran a little differently:

I searched through "reviews" of various mobile service providers, and who would have guessed that the vast majority of reviews are strongly negative? What this taught me is that there are some categories of services and goods for which most people, for the most part, are ambivalent.

I would not generally think to myself how much I love my utility companies (although admittedly, I really have no choice regarding their selection anyway). But my ISP? I have choices on that one, and I can tell you from personal experience, just like a phone service provider, either they do what I want, in which case, congratulations to them, they did what I expected them to do and I am not angry -OR- they do not do what I want in which case I am going to be all kinds of fired up and angry with them and voice my opinion to whoever will listen.

According to those ratios, only 1 in 3 customers love verizon. The other two obviously hate verizon. But it does not consider the relatively large segment of their customer base who do not *care* about verizon enough to rant about it online. The most vocal group is always going to be the people who are extremely displeased.

Seriously, my experience reading reviews taught me that while a lot of people do have certain preferences for their mobile phone service provider, for the most part, everybody hates every provider they are not currently paying, and in a lot of cases, also hate the provider they are.

Moral of the story? Just as filtering out negative reviews will not help your customers (you listening, newegg?) find what they want, if you really want to figure out which provider is the "best," you have to understand that most people do not feel strongly enough to say anything at all. Which means that for the most part, any of these companies are actually doing a pretty good job.

Disclaimer: My service is provided by T-Mobile right now, and am not at all dissatisfied with it, and while I can think of ways to improve my experience, I really do not ever think I would say to anybody that I love (or even like) T-Mobile. They do what I expect them to do, therefore I do not hate them.

Unfortunately, I rather like Mayhem and Burzum, so this might constitute a performance of these works, around these parts. Oh, and I do work the graveyard shift, so I *am* up all night, but you're welcome to share some tunes with me in the daytime, too. ;)

Okay, fair enough question to ask. But there is a stipulation that you want to avoid "creationist museums" is exactly the same as an avid follower of fox news refusing to accept the BBC as a valid authority for no reason other than "I don't believe that."

As for me? I expose myself to every input, at every venue I possibly can. Whether I disagree with the source is another matter, but *ignoring* the source is tantamount to saying that "I have made up my mind, and I believe your opinions are of utter disinterest."

Personally, I may not agree with the person I am talking to/hearing from, but "communication" is worthless if you choose to ignore the other person/people.

Communication is little more than the exchange of ideas, and lots of ideas are ones with which you will disagree. However, by ignoring this input, you are no better than those who do the same. You have already made up your mind, I do not think that being brainwashed is a legitimate fear. Be the bigger man. That's all I have to say about that.

I consider three miles to be "walking distance." takes about 45 minutes, lots of people drive longer than that to get to work.

I live 1.7 miles from work, takes me about 25 minutes to get there on foot. And anything that I cannot carry home with me on a bus/taxi/what-have-you, is something I can order online and have delivered to my doorstep. I do not need a car for anything.

Obviously, my situation can change, but it is not a fair comparison. My problem with word is not that I do not print many documents, it is that Word has so many features that nobody I know will ever use more than 10-20% of them. Seriously, in the world of word processors, you probably don't need most of the crap that's in Word. Embrace, extend, extinguish. Word is the emacs of word processors.

(N.B., I actually use emacs -- which easily has thousands of features I will never use)

It has been said by others in this thread, but my oldest brother (of 8 siblings I have), is a nuclear technician, served on the Enterprise. Nuclear reactors are ALWAYS in critical condition. Without criticality, you have no reactor. "Going critical" is a Hollywood term, and smacks of ignorance that LWATCDR highlights. Critical is normal operation, super critical is a bad thing, ranging from meltdown to a mushroom cloud from an atomic bomb.

Slashdot is a news aggregator? Funny, I don't think I've ever actually seen news linked from it. Sure, there are links, but I don't ever really click on them. That might explain something.

(I'm obviously not new here, that is to say ; -- Also, I generally avoid the comments section and ONLY read TFA.)

Funny thing, I have one of those bookmarklet things or whatever they are called nowadays. I just type 'find [search terms]' in the URL bar, even though there is a perfectly serviceable google search entry just on the right hand side of it. It is a habit I started before FireFox had that as a default, as far as I am aware, and just one that i have kept to this day.

Could be because I am lazy, and do not want to have to click on that search box, or do not care to learn what keyboard shortcut will take me to it directly -- ^L focuses the URL bar, and selects all of the text in it. Ready to type and go.

Lots of places (like mine) offer a financial incentive of a few dollars to respond to the pedestal giving that warning "BEEP" sound. However, there are rules to follow as well. Do not chase a customer. Do not accuse a customer. Do not follow a customer out of the building. And under no circumstances, ever imply that the beeping is a result of theft. Even if the person openly stealing stuff, offer to deactivate the tag that set off the alarm and let them go.

This is like a lock on your front door - it serves only to keep honest people honest.

The thing I think is actually funny is that the employee door is also a fire exit; and that alarm goes off all the time. So if there is ever a fire, nobody will look up or care.