No, but money changing hands (commerce) impacts whether it is "commercial", and requires a commercial license.

"Impacts", perhaps. But it's not definitive. Especially in California.

For instance: I bought a pickup truck, to use as a tow vehicle for my camper and my wife's boat. Then I discovered that CA requires pickup trucks to be tagged with a (VERY pricey) commercial license, regardless of whether they're used for business. (You CAN petition to tag a particular pickup truck as a personal vehicle - but are then subject to being issued a very pricey ticket if you are ever caught carrying anything in the truck bed - even if it's personal belongings or groceries, and regardless of whether you're being paid to do it. (Since part of the POINT of having a pickup truck is to carry stuff home from the store this would substantially reduce its utility.)

The one upside is that I get to park for short times in loading zones.

If we aren't going to require commercial licenses for commercial driving, then why even have them at all?

And if we ARE going to require them for clearly personal, non-commercial vehicles that happen to be "trucks", why NOT impose this requirement on putatively commercial vehicles that happen to be cars as well?

The real answer to your question is "because the state wants the tax money, and the legislators and bureaucrats will seek it in any way that doesn't threaten their reelection, reappointment, or election to higher office" - in the most jerrymandered state in the Union. The Uber case is one where an appraent public outcry arose, bringing the bureaucrats' actions, and public outcry about them, to the attention of elected officials.

The full form of the so-called "Chinese curse" is: "May you live in interesting times and come to the attention of people in high places."

I won't put it past /. submitters or editors, but why can't the very intelligent, accuracy-blessed computer coders out there, at least, understand this? If you're not doing any science, then it can't be "computer science."

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How about a network stack and wifi or 3/4G in a cartridge (and access to endless games from da klowd)? Silly, when you can now probably fit a few supercomputers with all the trimmings in a cartridge that size.

Nothing I can find above this thread started by AC is even relevant to the story.

To their credit, Scalise's press guy did fess up that it was true, and explained what he was doing there, IIRC, running workshops on being more tolerant (I could be completely wrong, and the press guy could be lying, but no one is talking about this).

Also, its amazing how much of Republican movement is complete negative, unhelpful garbage, putting sticks in the spokes of Democratic movement just because the Dems thought up something good and tried to get it done. Elected Democrats seem to focus on trying to do something, while elected Republicans seem to be obsessed trying to prevent them. The Dems are weak because they get tripped up over the Republicans BS. And when something like this comes up, Dems serving Republicans their own medicine, the Republicans go ape shit. US politics is like slapstick comedy. The absurdity of it all is no more clear once its recognized that the vast majority of those voting Republican are voting against their own political and economic interests. If you make less than $250K/yr, why are you hurting yourself, your family, and your chances of ever reaching that income by voting against your own personal economic interests? Not that all Republicans are dumb, far from it, but without these morons voting agaisnt their interest, there would be no Republican Party.

My cousin explained it well (if I can remember this right). Say there is only $100 and 100 people. Democrats want to give 5 guys $5, and distribute the remaing $75 to the other 90. The Republicans want to give 1 guy $99, and distribute the remaing dollar to the other 99.

I'm anxious to see what the new Republican Congress actually positively accomplishes, new stuff, as opposed to how much time they spend tearing down what was accomplished by the anemic previously Democratic Congress.

I've been unpartisan, independent my entire adult life. I see nothing compelling from either party to lead me to take sides. One side is a bully, the other side is bullied. Both sides, for these reasons, offend me.

More importantly, as opposed to the unarmed, gun owners are far more likely to shoot someone, intentionally, unintentionally, justly, unjustly, or otherwise. For some reason, it seems that individual gun owners always disagree with this obvious fact, because "they know" their weapon better than anyone else. I'll shut up when they stop shooting people.

But at what expense? I'm serious and not just torking you around.

I think you're missing the point of /.ers coming up with possible solutions. These aren't criminal minds sharing how to do crime. They're compulsive puzzle solvers, and there is no puzzle greater than, no solution more elusive than defeating the well-run FBI investigation. Perhaps they really want to help the FBI be even more effective and irresistable. This pursuit is no different than penetration testing, nor the ability of the logical and clever to come up with solutions for problems in fields which they have absolutely no experience or insight. Let them look for that whistle in their box of cereal, and lets not attempt to disway from nor even verbally punish for hypothetical crime. On second thought, naw, I changed my mind. Stop thinking about that right now!

A journalist ALWAYS needs to write something that is SOMEHOW different from what the reader believes. (If he's just reinforcing what the reader believes, why should a reader bother reading his output?)"

Actually, studies have shown that people tend to read authors and publications that tell them they are right. Echo-chambers existed long before the internet. So, while you ask why a reader would read that which reinforces his beliefs, the reality is he does.

Echo-chamber yes. But needs some difference, also yes. Even an echo-chamber medium is about giving the reader some new aspect to consider, new argument to use, etc. It may be primarily reinforcing, but it also adds or tweaks aspects to deepen the conviction and/or warp it into slightly better conformity with the common ideology of the journalist's in-group.

So I don't think there's really any conflict between our claims.

The trick to the Betteridge law is that when a journalist writes a headline as a question, the question is suggesting what most people find improbable; and the improbable rarely happens.

There's some of that. But that's more about choice of subject matter. A journalist ALWAYS needs to write something that is SOMEHOW different from what the reader believes. (If he's just reinforcing what the reader believes, why should a reader bother reading his output?)

The real trick that leads to qusetion-headlines (that are almost always implying something that's wrong) is different.

When a journalist writes a juicy headline as a question, it's because he couldn't find evidence to support the conjecture, but wants to run it anyway.

Usually this is because he guessed wrong. The deadline is approaching, he's got to publish SOMETHING to stay employed, and he just wasted a bunch of time researching something that didn't pan out. Oops! So he runs his orignnal conjecture and the workup he did on it before finding out that it was either wrong (usual) or maybe right but couldn't be supported in the time available (rarely). He just phrases the headline as a speculation rather than an assertion.

That way his credibility isn't wrecked for the future, he gets to publish something, it's interesting and plausible (even though probably totally bogus), and in those rare cases where it WAS right he's scooped his competitors. However it comes out it's a win for the journalist - though it's a bunch of noise for the readers.

No, it is not. Expecting an antenna to be useful without power is absurd

No, it does not. Solar is proven technology. And when a rocket fails to make it to space and explodes, it doesn't spread Plutonium all over Florida.

When will the nuke-nutters stop trying to bankrupt economies with nonsensical dreams of nuclear power being a panacea, when it is the most expensive power source that humans have ever conceived and accordingly has never been even remotely economically viable?

I don't see what the problem is. Its isn't brain surgery.

That's just great, right in the middle of the game. If this messes with the broadcast, they're gonna have some pissed off sports fans that day I can tell you.

I think the more offensive uses of it was recently depicted in the movie "Kill the Messenger:" alleged drug dealer is arrested, and all his possessions, including his house, is confiscated; prosecution fails to convict drug dealer, yet the forfeiture is never returned. In this instance we have the benefit of knowing they were not innocent, so we don't care as much. Except that innocent, truly innocent people are tried and some are convicted and some acquitted, and their property is forfeit and never returned. The problem is not that shady people are getting shafted, the problem is that people found not guilty never see their property again if it was forfeit. This is sort of in line with going against Blackstone's ratio.

Considering even today, only about 13% of power globally is nuclear generated, and it is not clear we will still be generating nuclear fission power in 100 years, or any more than we are now, I agree. Though its easy to trace the bombs' effects in the future, the incandescent light bulb had a far greater impact on society and the population explosion, and industrialization of that time had greater impact on the environment.

Then again, an argument could be made that the fulcrum for the advancement of our species occured with the invention/introduction of true perspective in art, which isn't even technology.