I hear what you are saying, but this seems like blaming the victim in a rape case. Sure, the reporter could have taken steps to ensure the safety of her records, but the fact that the government can abuse their power so completely makes any of the records keeping issues completely irrelevant. I mean if they were encrypted how much would it matter anyway? They could just lock her up until she handed over the keys - she is protecting a threat to national security and is therefore a terrorist.

Any speculation about "she should have encrypted her files" takes attention away from the bigger problems

I sometimes wonder if the US government is really that much worse than mine (Australia), or if my government is just better at keeping this stuff quiet...

Not quite. On the east code of Australia we have timezones for Queensland, New South Wales/Victoria, and Hobart. That's three timezones for approximately the same longitude. The reason is that DST makes no sense for Queensland, but does for NSW/Victoria/Hobart, but Hobart is far enough south that different start/stop times for DST are more appropriate there.

So even if you were at the south pole in the same longitude as the east coast of Australia, you wouldn't be in any of the Australian timezones. (unless Hobart is considered to extend all the way down to the south...)

A babel fish should be able to sort it out so we hear what you mean not what you wrote :)

Is the engine noise really that loud on most ICE cars? At the sort of speeds where getting hit by a car from behind is a possibility, isn't road noise loud enough? Unless it's windy or something, but if the wind is coming from the right direction you might not hear anything anyway. I put it to you that if you are out for a run and you have to hear a car to avoid being killed by it then maybe you should review a few things about your run...

In Australia the rule for any highway with a speed limit 80kph (~50mph) or faster is "keep left unless overtaking" (we drive on the left over here), although that rule is removed if traffic in all lanes is congested. Sometimes we have a "slow vehicles use left lane" on a steep climb so the trucks can sit left while they struggle up the hills.

Most people will try and avoid the left lane on multi-lane freeway's though, despite the above rule. Cars will exit and enter from the left so it makes good sense to keep out of that lane so incoming traffic can merge more easily. Also our freeways tend to add and remove the left lane quite frequently - "left lane ending" is a common sign to see, so keeping in the second-from-the-left lane is a good strategy (unless there are only two lanes so nobody can go around you to the right - then it's a stupid strategy). You get the odd tosser who does a lane change a minute, but most of the time they don't get in anyone's way, and don't usually have a hissy fit when someone is in the "wrong" lane. Myself, I just set the speed limiter to the posted speed and (mostly) focus on what's in front. If you get boxed in behind me for a few km then you are going to arrive at your destination a few seconds later - if that causes you stress then you might need to work on that - i'm not going to try and squeeze into that tiny gap on the left just for you. If the road is all clear though you won't be stuck behind me because i will be in one of the left lanes so you can easily go around.

I do remember getting very frustrated one night on the way home behind a car who decided to just sit in the right lane with nothing else on the road apart from the car we'd just overtaken. I flashed my lights, beeped my horn, nothing. My reaction surprised me because stuff like that doesn't normally bother me. I felt like overtaking on the left, moving into the right, and slamming on the brakes. I didn't though. I overtook on the left and went on my way, and told myself to keep my cool a little better next time.

What did you just see?

I basically stopped getting my hair cut at around 14, and had a pony tail from then until my late 20's. Then my hair started thinning on top - probably not noticeable to most but I could definitely tell there was less up there than there used to be. Then I got a crop of sebaceous cysts (i have very oily skin which is apparently a contributing factor). I got all those cut out, waited for the stitches to come out, then shaved it all down to a #2 clipper cut. No way I was going with the bald top and pony tail. I'm approaching 40 now and there isn't a lot left on top, although there is enough than when I do my regular cut with a #0.5 comb I definitely feel colder.

I don't think i'd bother with any sort of treatment to put more hair on top, and definitely would never muck around with drugs that tinker with testosterone levels, which I think is the currently available treatment.

I said "peppered", not "littered". I wasn't implying that it happens all the time, but it does happen. The case of helicobacter pylori is the one that springs to mind immediately.

And if you replace "cabals of scientists" with "big pharma funding cabals of scientists" you come up with a statement that is a bit OT, but is anything but pure rubbish ;)

openwrt puts that related/established rule first and it sucks. If I want an internet curfew I want it to take effect immediately, not when the current connection is finished. Same for an IP address that trips up the malware triggers. It has to stop and it has to stop now, not when the payload has finished downloading.

Yeah I guess a "quick howto" isn't quite going to cut it. I wonder if Linus would ever put his foot down and say "no docs = no patch accept".

I think the problem with "certain" in this case is when science makes you so certain that you will not consider any alternate theory. History is peppered with many examples of this.

Suppose you have a string of islands, call them A-E. Birds on adjacent +2 islands can interbreed with fertile offspring, but birds at either end of the string of islands cannot. By the standard definition you can argue that the birds living on A are a different species to the birds living on E, but birds on A and E can breed with C, so the birds living on C must therefore belong to both species.

Just because you have a clear cut _definition_, doesn't mean that applying that definition will get you clear cut results

This makes for interesting reading

Was the use of the word 'prey' instead of 'pray' deliberate?

I like how you edited out my joke so you make your point without looking like a dick. That was clever.

(Do you need the sarcasm pointed out to you or can you get it yourself?)