You, sir, have the finest licensing agreement that I have ever seen in the introduction of your book. I was genuinely moved.

Thank you for the good chuckle, NewYorkCountryLawyer. I'm curious: where on the timeline of events does this 2008 disclosure form fall? Is that before or after some of the atrocious monetary awards given out by the courts? In other words, will the RIAA see greater collection in the future, based on more recent court cases setting precedent for amounts to be awarded to the RIAA?

Personally, I'm hopeful that the extension API is a unified API that appears in both Safari and Mobile Safari. My only complaint with my iPhone is the lack of an AdBlock extension. The web looks so ugly and loads so slowly without one!

The Prime Minister is not elected directly, he's simply the head of the party that got the most seats.

To clarify further, the prime minister can actually be any person at all (it's constitutionally questionable whether the prime minister even need be a Canadian citizen over 18 years of age). The Canadian system of government is very different from the American system, and few Canadians know how our system actually works (thanks to bombardment of American media and their electoral system).

The head of state is the Queen of Canada, Elizabeth II, who is also the Queen of England. Her duties are carried out by the Queen's representative in Canada, the Governor General (currently Michaëlle Jean), who is appointed by the Queen on the advice of the prime minister.

When elections are called in Canada (which happens every five years, or sooner if the government loses the confidence of the house), Canadians go to the polls and elect 308 representatives to the House of Commons -- one representative from each riding in the country, in a first-past-the-poll vote. While there are some independent members elected to the house, typically the members come from one of the four major political parties: the Conservatives (right-of-centre), the Liberals (central), the New Democratic Party (left-of-centre), or the Bloc Québécois (a Quebec-interest-only party). The Green Party (left-of-centre) has also nearly elected some members to the house, and briefly held a house seat after one member crossed the floor.

Once the 308 members have been elected to the house, the Governor General chooses someone to be the prime minister. That person will form a government by choosing people (here, I mean anyone he or she pleases from the general population) to be their ministers.

The newly formed government, with the prime minister chosen by the Governor General and ministers chosen by the prime minister, then faces a vote of confidence by the house. Here is where the elected representatives of Canada have their say: do they have confidence in the abilities of the newly formed government to lead the country? If they say no, the Governor General must either find a new prime minister and government that could hold the confidence of the house, or dissolve parliament and call a new election to find 308 new representatives.

So, in practice, in order to ensure that the chosen prime minister and government will have the confidence of the house, the Governor General will appoint the leader of the party with the most seats in parliament as the prime minister. But, with all that said, it's important to note that our system is very, very different from the American system in which a president is elected.

But, like the parent said: if you want to be a drunk who revels in causing problems for the police while they're trying to do their job (problems that you have the constitutional right to cause, yes, but problems nonetheless), expect problems in return.

Sorry to self-reply, but I want to expand on this statement. It should be noted that, in a number of states, the person wouldn't even have the right to refuse to present ID. Because of the 911 call and accusation of assault, the police officer's dealings with the group of drunks would have qualified as a Terry stop. In 24 states, there are Stop and Identify statutes, which allow police to demand identification during a Terry stop.

Washington is not one of those states, so the police officer did not have the authority to hold anyone for failing to provide identification. But, I just wanted to add to my above post, noting that the constitutionality of the actions taken in this case is not uniform across the entire US, before some Slashdotter got a creative idea about what to do next time they're dealing with a police officer.

They said they can no longer be obtained. They didn't say they were destroyed.

To play devil's advocate: how many people have called customer service somewhere to try to request something or get something done, only to be told that it can't be done (despite you knowing that it can be)? The letter he got back stating that it was past the 90-day retention period was probably sent by some drone at a desk, doing what happens every time I'm on the phone with customer service anywhere. Yes, it's possible that this was part of a police cover-up, and that possibility should certainly be investigated. But, I wouldn't jump to that conclusion.

[T]his is a good lesson for those /.ers who maintain that you don't have to show a cop your ID in the U.S. when asked [...]. That may *technically* be true, but it can still cost you a weekend in jail and a $3500 legal bill if you actually pull that shit with a real cop.

To expand on what the parent said: the police officer was dealing with a large group of drunks. Someone had called 911, claiming that they were assaulted by this group of drunks. The police officers were trying to round up everyone involved, figure out who was who, and figure out what happened (basic police work). Yes, the officer overstepped his constitutional bounds by detaining someone for not providing identification. But, like the parent said: if you want to be a drunk who revels in causing problems for the police while they're trying to do their job (problems that you have the constitutional right to cause, yes, but problems nonetheless), expect problems in return.

I posted this response to the wrong story!!

...yet got modded insightful. Kudos, sir!

CBC story about Air Canada having to provide nut-free zones on account of allergies...

...and another CBC story about Air Canada allowing pets in their cabins starting in July. Err...

[...] but any damages that involve flights departs from Canadian airports that resulting from failures in whatever aviation safety system Canada may choose to implement will then be paid from randomly seized Canadian assets in the U.S.?

I have a heck of a lot more faith in Canadian airport security than in American airport security! There are some little differences, e.g., we aren't required to take such ridiculous steps as taking our shoes off. But the one biggest difference: our security personnel are calm, collected, and doing their job well.

Case in point: I recently traveled through Philadelphia. Airport security there was a gong show. All of the TSA personnel were in what looked like panic mode -- running around, not standing in one place for more than two seconds, trying to direct a multitude of people and their baggage at once. Contrast this with YVR, YEG, YYC, YYZ, or any of the other Canadian airports I've been through (and for comparison, YYZ is much busier than PHL). All of the personnel at security screenings are standing in one place, directing people in an orderly fashion. Everyone clearly has a single, specific job to do, and they are giving their full attention to doing it.

You can invent all the crazy policies you want about people not standing up for the last hour of a flight, etc. But, one necessary component of security screenings is having well-organized screening areas. When such simple things as that are neglected (for whatever reason), you're doing everything wrong. So I'd think twice before assuming Canadian airport security has much to learn at all from US airport security.

With that many tries she should have been able to choose random answers and still pass the test with a 60% a long time ago

Nope, not if she chooses randomly for each question, each time she writes the test. Assume that for each of the 100 questions, there are four possible answers, only one of which is correct. So, you have a 25% chance of getting each question correct and a 75% chance of getting each question wrong, each time a random test-taker writes the exam.

The odds of passing a test are: the sum from c=60 to 100 of getting c questions correct.

The chances of getting c questions correct is (100 choose c) * (1/4)^c * (3/4)^(100-c).

Summing up from c=60 to 100, you are left with a probability of 0.1326834674 * 10^(-12) of passing the test, if you take it truly at random each time you write it. Basically, if you wrote the test truly at random, you would expect to have to take the test 7,536,733,998,027 times before passing. So, really, she did quite well ;)

And it assumes that an outing at the park -- or even hours spent playing a video game -- can be just as valuable a teaching resource as Hooked on Phonics.

That's veree well sed. I jest don't think it had the meening the awthor intended.

[O]ne question remains: will there be enough spectrum to support all this wireless communication?

Duh. All nerds know that holographic telepresence will utilize a rapidly fluctuating portion of the subspace band!

(Not to mention, they're pretty good at hiding the fact they didn't RTFA!)

Of course it never repeats - we kind of knew that already.

You're absolutely right: pi is irrational, and as such, there won't be any repeats. However, that doesn't mean there isn't a pattern. For example, 0.12112111211112111112... is irrational, but there's a clear pattern that you could extend to an infinite number of digits. Does such a pattern exist once you get to a certain number of digits in pi? We don't know.

I know. Thanks, FiendFreed!

Doctors recommended growth hormone therapy early in Brooke's life, but the treatment produced no results. Howard Greenberg recalled the follow-up visit to the endocrinologist. "We took her back in six months, and the doctor looked at us and said, 'Why didn't you give Brooke the growth hormones?' And I said, 'We gave Brooke the growth hormones. We gave her everything you told us to do.' And Brooke didn't put on a pound, an ounce; she didn't grow an inch."

So clearly an HGH deficiency isn't the (only) issue, it's that her HGH receptors don't respond to the hormone. But, to the best of my knowledge, that wouldn't account for a lack of mental development. This sounds like a combination of many factors coming together.

I'll have to take a look to see if there's anything written from a medical perspective (e.g., a journal paper) on this case. It could be interesting to hear what the doctors have to say, as opposed to what ABC News reports the poor mother has to say (projecting her wishes onto her daughter: thinking she's a rebellious teenager when really she's just an infant).