Instructions:
Purchase at least a half dozen children's full body Halloween costumes (ie spiderman, darth vader, princess, tigger, ladybug, robot, etc).
Set a small table on your front step, porch, or main sidewalk.
On table, place bowl of candy, and large visible sign reading "CANDY"
Take costumes above, stuff them realistically with pillows/towels/other clothing, lay them strategically on ground around table, and douse area with lots of (fake?) blood.
Hide around corner with large (fake?) axe.

You can figure out the rest.

Atlas companies have used copyright traps before.. Just add a couple fake towns on your map, and if you find another company selling a map with those towns, you know you can sue them for copying your map.

Could a company add a fake time zone to a list of time zones, name it something funny (creative), and claim copyright infringement when it appears in a database? Since really, it's not a fact at all, the made up entry was... art?

Personally, I keep my primary backup in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying 'Beware of the Leopard.'

This works quite well.

However, in the event of the destruction of the Earth, this solution seems somewhat.. inadequate. So I believe you would be well served to set up an auxiliary backup system on an interplanetary satellite, or on the moon, and probably also on another not-too-conspicuous planet within our solar system, and just to be safe, one more in another solar system in this (or another) galaxy. (I recommend Ursa Minor Beta.) You don't want a localized catastrophe to eliminate all your files and backups in one fell swoop.

And every few days just swing by the backup sites to be sure there hasn't been any data degradation.

that AEONITY.COM link is NSFW dammit

Unprecedented? Isn't this pretty well the way we discover all extra-solar planets? Through star wobble? Unless we're lucky enough to line up for a full on occlusion?

I mean, I guess in this case it's "planet wobble". But FTFA: "Interestingly, planets in our solar system have been detected through a similar method."

So uh... unprecedented?

So the spleen is the seat of emotions after all?

http://altmedicine.about.com/cs/anxietydepression/a/EmotionsTCM.htm

Then forget the Zoloft, gimme my strawberry-banana yogursicle.

Rather than bringing up a small screenshot of each site, Google, just give me some personalized filtering options, please.

And it doesn't need to be complicated, it just need a single checkbox/radio button set like this:

[_] Do not filter my results
[X] Delete all results from domain experts-exchange.com

I once programmed for and was an admin on a mud that actually had some functions / mini-games which used 'aggregation over an interval' and 'sending the status periodically' (ansiblemoo.org) The code was written this way partly to save bandwidth, but also to just keep that part of the game orderly and fair for all players, regardless of connection speed. It meant not spamming the players every second with soon out-dated information, and the delay also meant that players couldn't simply hammer their keyboard into victory. I think this effectively covers the patent... The code in question was first completed in 1995... or something like that - before my time (and the patent's) - and other similar code was written from 1996 through 2002/2003.

Is it just a coincidence that 675,000 == 22,500 * 30 == 750 * 30 * 30? or was it a mistake, or was it intentional?

If we assume that the judge told them that the minimum penalty per song was $750, and there were 30 songs infringed, bringing us to minimum damages of $22,500... what happened next:

a) they coincidentally decided to punish him by awarding 30x the minimum judgment -- a nice round number (bigger than 10 but less than 50)

b) or they misunderstood the judge's instructions -- they thought that $22,500 was the minimum per song, and so actually awarded the minimum they thought possible -- 30 * 22,500 = $675,000

c) or lastly, they intentionally chose that since he pirated n=30 songs, they would punish him at n^2 * 750... In other words, they chose to punish him exponentially in relation to his crime(s).

As far as I see it, if it's a) that seems a rather arbitrary number, and arbitrarily wide range of punishment for a simple act which harms no one. If it was b) then this sounds like some kind of mistrial or jury reboot.. and if it was c) well... exponential damages sounds like cruel and unusual punishment to me. How does $675,000 fit the crime?

uhm.

that was really weird.

atheists are all bad people, eh? and people who have university educations are full of anger and hate? what?

.. huh?

The flashbacks were what made everything else in the finale resonate. Sure, we've watched these characters for four years, but you can forget a large part of who they are in that long a time. The flashbacks remind you of their personalities and history and relationships and how they've changed (or not changed) since then, as they go their separate ways.

So very important.

So.. 'pugilism' is a problem, but space battles are a-okay.

What?

(well it's true, Star Trek was all about the space battles, -- all the plot regarding culture, religion, politics, and back story -- what a waste)

It probably goes without saying -- Spoilers.

While I was rather disappointed in two of the last 4 episodes (both involving the return of Ellen, first on the basestar with Cavil, and then her return to Galactica) I can see now why that setup was necessary for the finale--I just wish they had plotted it out better.

Ellen, who we thought was a different, decent person, after resurrection, turns out to be her same old drunken jealous trouble causing self when in sight of Saul. Pure soap opera stuff. And then the subplot with Adama suddenly giving Baltar a bunch of guns just cause he asked for them? Who wrote that? And how every 8 minutes we got to see Adama walking around in the bowels of his broken down ship with the same unhappy grimace-- poor repetitive direction/editing. And I'm sorry, John Hodgman is great-- but cast in that role, in what ought to have been a pretty serious scene-it was hard to watch.

So, those things, real bad. They all could have been re-written or removed very easily. That's what I would have done differently.

But the finale? -- Damn near perfect. Action was great-- special effects were amazing, emotionally touching and tear-enducing, -- and yes, thankfully, it WAS about the characters.

Yes, I know, not everything was answered/ tied down perfectly. But who wants that?

I loved how, after essentially being bottled up on their ships for 4 or 5 years (with the exception of that chilly gray New Caprica settlement) they finally get to 'an Earth' and find their future wide open. In a way it's paradise, but not-- Roslin still dies, Chief's gonna go off and be a hermit apparently, Anders has become one with the universe, and.. surprisingly Helo DIDN'T DIE. Nothing is set. They're just free. After all that prophecy and pre-destination, things are now much less complicated. Everyone got their own destiny to forge.

Loose ends don't need tying if everyone is happy to just walk away from them.

As for Kara - yes, she disappeared and someone complained that it was never explained. Well, sure, it wasn't 'explained', but is there any other explanation? There isn't. She truly was an angel. Someone or some "God" (he doesn't like that name), sent her back to deliver mankind to a new home. That IS what happened.

I have no problem with that. I'm not a religious person in the slightest, but its weird how sci-fi can be full of aliens and "The Force" but some how the idea of God gets people up in arms. --- See, I -would- have had a problem if they explicitly put ol God up on the screen (oh look, Starbuck's dad was the piano player! and the piano player was God! and/or also Daniel! and/or Bob Dylan!!!??) and explained why each and every step along the way happened as it did. That would be idiotic, almost as idiotic as giving someone a midichlorian scan. (Jar-Jar was bad, but that one line, "His readings are off the chart!" was the moment in the prequels that brought down the original trilogy. Frak.)

Seriously, life is full of loose ends. You try to tie it all up and explain everything, that would be awful. Instead I got to watch the best couple hours of TV.. ever.

can someone, anyone, please mod this moron down? obvious troll is obvious...