The GP doesn't mean continuous as in "365 days a year", but rather "year after year after year." Because different plants have different nutritional requirements, and because certain crops can actually help replenish nutrients that other plants need (for example, soybean roots harbor symbiotic bacteria that actually add nitrogen to soil), crop rotation has been practiced for thousands of years as a way to increase yields and prevent soil depletion. The same is true of allowing a field to lie fallow, which is the practice of not planting a crop but instead allowing weeds or whatever else to grow for a season or two, then plowing them under before plating the crop you actually want. Typically, it's not uncommon to have higher yields in the long run if you allow your fields to lie fallow every so often versus growing the same crops every single year.

There's a difference between being given ownership of a copyrighted work, and being granted a license to it. If you read the new terms closely, you'll see that you (the user) still own the copyright to the photos, but are giving Instagram/Facebook the rights to distribute your works and to make a profit from them without giving you a cut. They aren't claiming that the images are their property, just that you have given them a royalty-free license to use them however they want to. Essentially you are granting them rights without giving up any of yours; in other words, you could still sell prints of your work or license it to other parties.

Because refresh rate (usually reported in Hz) is different from frame rate (fps). To quote Wikipedia:

Now, the above is probably referring to older film projectors. While I don't know much about cinema projection technology, I have heard that most of the digital equipment used by movie theaters is designed to project at 24 fps, but that the specification for the hardware/software currently used by most theaters calls for it to be capable of 48. (source:DCI) So, 48 fps is not really a "new thing" but is simply an extension of current hardware capabilities. Also, the way I understand conversion technology, when converting to a format for display on a TV it is much easier to use tricks like 3:2 pulldown and interlacing to convert from 24 or 48 fps to the NTSC (60 Hz) or PAL (50 Hz) standards (some sources are sped up from 24 to 25 fps during conversion to PAL) than it is to convert 50 fps to something that can be shown on NTSC equipment. Perhaps someone with more experience in this field could shed some light on this?

I'm curious where you get this and what exactly the distinction is, because I've driven all over North America (50 states, 8 provinces, and Mexico) and have never seen this in the US. In the States, the only signs I've ever noticed are ones that state "speed limit n", while similar signs in Canada use the word "maximum". I've always assumed this was simply a difference in word choice. I've seen cities such as Atlanta which set a "minimum" speed limit on certain roads, so I wonder if posting a maximum speed (separate from a "speed limit") is something done within a specific region? Or perhaps you are referring to the black-on-yellow advisory signs... the ones usually posted on ramps or near curves which list a speed lower than the legal limit at which most vehicles should be able to safely negotiate the curve? I've never heard of someone getting ticketed for driving between the advisory speed (yellow sign) and the speed limit (white sign), but I have heard of people being cited for "driving too fast for conditions" when involved in single vehicle accidents while driving below the speed limit in rain or fog.

Fixed that for you ;-)

Then the terrorists have won. This is exactly what they've set out to achieve.

(By the way, I nearly lost a family member on 9/11)

not too long ago, a "trail view" project was undertaken and marketed by Nature Valley (as in the granola bar). Granted, their implementation isn't as slick as Google Maps and it hasn't been updated in a while.

Yeah, you know, that handheld device you use to browse Facebook.

Not exactly. It's been a while since I took a statistics course (actually, several) but it's understood that people are VERY poor at faking truly random data. For example, in the case above most respondents would almost consistently choose the wrong answer or the CowboyNeal option instead of the correct answer, which they should occasionally do if they are trying to submit a genuinely random response. Thus any data poisoning by individuals would tend to favor the less popular responses.

I'm at the other end of the state (rural east TN) and my driving test back in the mid 90's was the same as the one in the GP's post... minus the parallel parking.

Yes, I am a college professor.

Paraphrasing does not free you from plagiarism; paraphrasing without attributing the source is plagiarism.

You can legitimately create a work consisting mostly of (properly cited) paraphrases and quotes, while completely avoiding personal opinion or analysis. This is called a literature review, and there are times when they are completely appropriate (in the introduction to a graduate thesis, for example). Where plagiarism comes into play is when you state or imply that an idea is your own without properly crediting the author from whom you obtained the idea. It's not a question of identical wording, but of the idea expressed by the words. You can rewrite a sentence so that it doesn't contain a single word found in the original, and still be guilty of plagiarism.

When I evaluate student essays and reports, I'm not only judging your ability to find and summarize relevant information from other sources, but also your success at analyzing, interpreting, and responding to the information using your own creative thinking skills. To pass off someone's analysis of the issue as your own without clearly identifying it as such is indeed plagiarism... all you've done is performed a literature review, but left out the citations.

If only I had a mod point. As someone who lives in the US but travels abroad, I understand where you're coming from. We in the states have a habit of exporting the worst of our bad practices (McDonalds, anyone?) and privacy intrusions to countries who are all too happy to adopt them minus the fleeting oversight and alternatives that we still get to enjoy here. For example, I've heard that more than a few countries (though I don't recall which) are in the process of implementing the scanners minus the option of a pat down - either you get scanned or you don't fly. I guarantee that TSA would strip away our options in a heartbeat if there weren't a significant percentage of people who would raise a fuss too loud to be ignored (I'm not talking about Joe Passenger, but people with more clout such as airline employees and a few politicians). Even now we have limited options - opt out, write to our representatives - but rest assured there are still those of us who are doing what we can to stand up for our privacy. Hopefully if enough stories like this one get publicized, public opinion will swing in the direction of respecting the privacy and dignity of those of us who just want to exercise our right to travel.

Not sure if your good ol' boy was talking about E85 or that "up to 10% ethanol" blend that most stations sell, but my personal experience with E85 is that you either end up paying slightly more per mile versus regular gasoline, or it's a wash (depending on the current gasoline price).

Several years ago I took a few cross-country business trips in a rented "FlexFuel" Chevy HHR- definitely not my vehicle of choice, but it's what they paid for. I obtained a list of E85 stations along my route (turns out they are exceptionally rare in some regions) and did a little cost analysis with the E85 versus the usual 87 octane (10% ethanol) gasoline. Looking back at my mileage logs, I estimated about 34 MPG with regular gas and 25 MPG with E85. However, the price difference between the two fuels wasn't great enough to make up for the reduced fuel economy, and E85 actually ended up being about 5% MORE expensive per mile at the time.

My most interesting E85 experience was back in the summer of 2008, when Georgia and the Carolinas were faced with fuel shortages and price hikes. Regular gasoline- when you could find it- was about $4.60 per gallon and most stations were sold out. I happened to be attending a conference in the region and had ended up with an E85 rental car. I printed out a list of stations and had no trouble finding fuel wherever I went... and it averaged about $2.80-3.00. A number of people actually got stranded at the conference when every station in the county, and every station in the next county, ran out of gas. Some folks resorted to waiting for hours in lines dozens of vehicles deep when delivery trucks finally came through with fuel; however, I found that there was always plenty of E85 to spare even after the regular gasoline sold out.

TFA doesn't explicitly state how many paying customers the site had (at least 20), or how much the paid service cost, but obviously there's a small niche there.

You or I may not see the need to use a website to design a letter from Santa because we're probably more adept at using our own tools to accomplish the task. I can easily fire up a word processor, find a template and a few clipart images, and create a Santa letter in just a few minutes. Most "average" computer users I know would probably need an hour or so to get it right. The developer of the site was hoping that they could tap into the niche of people who feel that a few bucks (or whatever the cost was) is worth the time saved by using a website to accomplish the task.

Many of my family members are into sendout cards, which follow a similar business model: you create greeting cards on a website using premade templates to which you add your own text or pictures, then pay a few dollars to have the company print and mail them for you. Sure, they could buy the glossy paper, envelopes, and stamps and do the same thing for about the same price using tools they have in the home, but they find it worth paying for the convenience.

Unfortunately it seems that this developer slightly missed the mark and ran afoul of the fact that there is a significant overlap between the following subsets of users:
1. Those who want to use an online template rather than a word processor
2. Those who are too cheap to pay a few bucks for a product that (I'm assuming here) saves them time
3. Those who are too lazy to read the FAQ before firing off an email to a developer
4. Those who habitually mark emails as spam, even if they are in response to #3

You MUST be new here...

Here in America, the "think of the children" card trumps any notion of rationality or common sense within our legal system or in public opinion in general...