From what I've read, UK banks will say "the correct PIN was used, so you must have been negligent and written it down somehow, the Chip and PIN system itself is unbreakable". Here in Norway we have had a PIN-based system since the 1980s, and in the beginning, Norwegian banks took the same stance (correct PIN used - customer automatically at fault), but time has shown that this is not true, as shown by skimming frauds where criminals read a customer's PIN using stealthily mounted cameras. Another approach is for the criminals to watch people typing in their PINs using binoculars and then pickpocket them. It's clear that stories coming out such as the exploit where a stolen card can be used without knowing the correct PIN must be really bad for the banks, since it breaks their "the system is perfectly secure, it must be your fault" line of argumentation.

Knowing that you legally had the right of way isn't much of a consolation when you're sitting in a wheelchair.

I wonder what part of Firefox's functionality will be arbitrarily changed this time? I always delay upgrading until they cut off security updates for the old version, and every time I finally upgrade there is some part of the application that works differently, and I need to google some arcane config setting to put it back the way I like it.

Yeah, this is one of my pet peeves with Firefox as well. Everytime I upgrade, some default setting is changed, such as the behaviour of the tab close buttons, the location bar etc., and then I have to spend time tweaking settings in order to get things back the way I want it. It has gone so far that I put off upgrading Firefox until they stop putting out security patches for the old version. It was the same when upgrading to Thunderbird 3, and judging by the Mozilla forums, I'm not the only one experiencing this. Maintaining consistency is definitely important for the "non-geeky" users, and it seems that at least some open-source development teams do not get this.

Seriously, "Moblin", "Maemo" and "Meego" sound like characters in some cheesy science fiction or fantasy film.

What is superfluous with referring to a Domain Name System server?

DOS already used the slash for command line switches (similar to - in Unix), and this was borrowed from CP/M. Since they did not want to break compatibility, they had to find another path separator, and adopted the backslash for this purpose. Modern versions of Windows now accept forward slashes as path separators, but on the command line you will have to enclose a forward-slash-separated path in quotation marks, in order to avoid it being parsed as command-line switches.

Actually, I imagine they would be doing a PCR assay looking for the SRY gene on the Y chromosome, which is what gets things going in the male direction during foetal development. This would have a greater chance of detecting any abnormalities since in some rare cases, the SRY gene can end up on the X chromosome, giving an XX male. This would not be detected by a karyotype, but would show up on a PCR assay. Also, PCR is heavily automatised and probably easier to do than a karyotype, which involves a lot of human work. There are also other conditions that could cause something to go wrong, such as being a XY male with some defect in testosterone synthesis/sensitivity. Anyways, if she has the SRY gene, then that is a pretty strong indicator that her genes intended for her to be a man, but that something happened during foetal development to make things go another way.

Of course that's one option, a better one would be to enable free competition between cellphone carriers. Here in Europe, if I think I pay too much for text messages, I can change to a provider that charges me less, and keep my number and handset. Apparently, that is not possible in the US due to anticompetitive practices of locking down phones and requiring customers to get a new phone number if they change carriers.

Of course, it's possible here too to enter a contract where I get a cheap phone in exchange for being locked to that provider for a year, but once the locking period expires I am free to change to another carrier.

It's interesting that Europe, which is chided as "socialist" by US inhabitants, actually has a more free market in this regard than the US itself.

Does it display ponies as well when it glows pink?

And then, since the goldsmith knows that all of his customers won't come and reclaim their gold all at the same time, he can lend out some of the gold in his vault to people who want to buy houses, and earn interest. Profit!

Another reason why women will not accept this is that if a couple relies on the woman taking the pill, she is free to surreptitiously stop taking it if she wants a baby and the man does not. Once she is pregnant, the man has no rights whatsoever and will have to pay child support. If many men start using this male contraceptive, women will lose this possibility to become pregnant against the man's consent.

Here in Norway, the defendant in a criminal trial is allowed to lie in court, whereas all other witnesses must tell the truth under penalty of perjury. But of course, if it is exposed that the defendant has lied, this will hurt his credibility and the court may then choose to disregard his testimony. How is that in the US? Is the defendant allowed to lie? Or can he just refuse to answer questions?