That's what I thought until my son started using those "specialized" pieces to make all kinds of wacky inventions. Most of those "specific" pieces fall into two categories:
- A regular piece with different coloring or embossed printing to match the character.
- A standard mechanical engineering piece that you've just never seen before.

I am a software guy with little mechanical knowledge, but as I read the Lego Technic Builders Guide I now see many of those "specialized" pieces actually look like nicely-finished versions of standard Technic bricks.

If you only built your Legos one time then you missed the point. Even the ones were kids are like "oh this is awesome I'm never taking it apart" ultimately wind up disassembled and part of something else.

Check out my follow-up post. Reading the article further, the only person who said anything about wiretapping was the principal.

While I don't want this change, I am glad that someone is actually talking about this. Everyone else either wants to ignore the constitution, or reinterpret it in their favor. No one ever talks about amending it any more. Even when that is clearly what is necessary to proceed.

This problem extends to issues beyond gun control. Politicians are constantly weasel-wording laws to avoid constitutional issues. Instead, if we really want the government to be able to take images of us through our clothes at airports, read our email, detain suspected terrorists indefinitely without charges, grant copyrights that extend nearly forever, allow same-sex couples to marry, establish a national healthcare system, regulate marijuana, etc... then we should amend the constitution to say these things. Instead, we just pass the laws anyway, then spend decades fighting over them.

This increases my desire to make a faux Google Glass. It would look just like one, except when someone asks if they can try it, it squirts water in their eye when they put it on.

"Ok glass take a picture"
*splort*
*laughter*

So, if something has been published 1000 times in works of fiction, can I still get a patent on it if I write it up in a thoughtful way and define specific details that are only hinted at in the work of fiction? Ex: Contact lenses with cameras aren't new, but maybe nobody ever described how the camera tracks eye movement to adjust the image or focus. Does including such detail make it patentable?

I tried to visit the link but it didn't work for me. Since the Supreme Court ruled on this last year, and since the article shows that the police didn't actually make any claims of wiretapping (only the principal did), and since the DOJ has repeatedly asserted that this kind of recording is okay, I don't think that statute could really apply. By "electronic or oral" they probably mean "bits of data or sound" but they still meant something that was transmitted.

You provided a population-energy ratio. I would love to know what pollution-energy ratio, and a GDP per capita/energy ratio. Do you have a source I can peruse?

Actually, I'm reading this article with a critical eye now, and I realize that the police never said anything about wiretapping. Only the principal did:

The "group" is the principal and a police officer. So who forced him to delete it?

So the school principal made him delete it. Probably because it embarrassed the school.

So the officer says that the principal is the one who thought he had a wiretapping incident.

The only mention about the officer is the statement that the officer agreed, and it isn't a quote from anyone.

This further indicates that it was the school trying to hide their shame:

Probably to pressure him into thinking it was all his fault.

So what legal trouble did he actually get it?

No mention as to why that was. But the "magistrate" said nothing about wiretapping.

Now, the doozy:

So the officer claims he wasn't even there for the recording!

Now it sounds like the principal pressured a student into a cover-up of his own teacher's discipline failures, and destroyed evidence in an investigation! Wow, I would *love* to see the ACLU get involved in this one!

Stop posting about wiretapping laws when this wasn't a phone conversation! This is such an obvious flaw in the entire story I'm not sure if I believe it at all.

In the wake of Heartbleed, one might think that this would be talking about array bounds checking or buffer overflow mitigation. No. It is talking about web site frameworks.

First of all: this is not measuring the security of the programming language. This is measuring the security of the OS infrastructure and toolchains. Notice C/C++ is not on the list, since it is hardly ever used for creating web sites.

What the heck is a slot?

Any summary where Perl scores the best must be deeply questioned. I doubt this is an apples-to-apples comparison. Surely these Perl sites are not doing nearly as much as the sites written in other languages.

How close to mainstream will 3D printers become?

I've talked to makers who predict everyone will have a 3D printer in their home. I've heard other opinions that 3D printing will become a common hobby like building model railroads, astronomy, or programming. Yet others believe it is a fad and it will return to being a tool for professional engineers only. What do you think?

According to http://lhcb-public.web.cern.ch...
"It is therefore a four quark state or a two-quark plus two-antiquark state."

It's fine that they use the "alternative circuit" as you say. Just not the homeopathic one. There are plenty of herbal remedies that aren't thoroughly debunked garbage like homeopathy.

That is not correct: you have confused herbal medicines with homeopathic medicines.

Zinc is not homeopathic. Things that contain Zinc are not homeopathic. And Zicam doesn't even contain Zinc anymore.

All homeopathy is bullshit and contains mostly water. If it does not contain mostly water (or some other inert filler) then it isn't homeopathic. That's the definition of homeopathic. And things that don't get FDA approval are called herbal medicines, not homeopathic medicines.

The reason homeopathic medicines are selling well is because people have been led to believe that non-FDA approved herbal medicine = homeopathic. That's not true. There's plenty of herbal supplements that do not claim to cure any disease, that don't need FDA approval, that are not homeopathic.