And not just the "ink" nonsense, but also the bit about the thermistor causing the device to self-destruct. The point of the thermistor is to *prevent* the thing from self-destructing and starting a fire. Clothes dryers also have thermistors in them to prevent the dryer (in the case of clogged dryer venting) from overheating and potentially igniting any lint that builds up inside.

Groupon itself suffers no risk thanks to its business model. The clients, on the other hand, end up providing their services at 75% off (50% off from the client, plus Groupon takes half of the remaining 50%). In addition, the client gains no real benefit; the majority of any new customers they may get are stingy coupon-clippers who generally refuse to pay normal price for anything. In some service-based businesses, this may even include people who simply refuse to pay for the service done.

I think politicians should first consider "Hmm... would I apply this law to 'people' like Ford? Or Universal? Or Bank of America?" If the answer is no, then the law is, in all likelihood, unjust. Granted, they'll probably enact it anyway, knowing it's unjust but, you know... baby steps. :)

I thought the whole country was supposed to be a free speech zone.

I remember reading a blurb in a book some time ago about some university actually trying this out with a room full of monkeys. After three days, all they had typed was several pages filled with the letter "s". I suspect that, when using real monkeys, even an oracle would throw up her hands. :)

"Aspiritech has hired and trained seven recruits with Asperger's syndrome."

I thought everybody had Asperger's these days.

As soon as I read the summary, I immediately pictured guys in rooms with their arms outstretched, running around in circles going,"NEEEEEEEERRRRR" and making other plane flying/shooting/bombing sounds. :)

This conduct on the part of the science community is pretty non-scientific, IMHO. If you have doubts, attempt to reproduce the original results. In doing so, you will either reproduce them and if not, you may stumble upon scientific proof of precisely why the original experiment is flawed. If the original research stands to overturn a century of accepted theory, then you had *better* bloody well attempt to verify or contradict the original research using the *scientific method* instead of using 100 years of possibly flawed theory as a shield against new knowledge and insight. Personal attacks? Are you kidding me? Are these people children?

Carl Sagan is turning in his grave.

...my brother keeps coming over to have me print out flyers because it looks better on my colour laser than on his inkjet. So I had to vote 101-500. : \

If I believed the world was going to end, I wouldn't take the bet simply because a) I wouldn't feel the need to prove my belief; "they" will find out soon enough, and b) what the hell am I supposed to do with $50? The world's ending.

Well, Steven Harper's working very, very hard on it but it's not finished yet. We're going to be called Canada 2: The US-ening. :)

Sorry, off-topic. I know. Berate me as necessary.

I remember going to the video arcade long ago and seeing Virtua Fighter for the first time. My thoughts then were:

- "The control response is terrible and the characters look *awful*! This looks *terrible* compared to 2D games!" (Samurai Showdown was right next to it).
- "What a cheesy gimmick."

After a while, the hardware got better and the issues became how to deal with the camera (they tried their best with Mario 64). Now it seems 2D has been relegated mostly to casual and web-based games (and even those are starting to go 3D).

I find myself thinking the same things about stereoscopic movies and TV now. I have no idea at this point if history will repeat itself or if stereoscopic will continue to be treated like a gimmick. Some video game mechanics work much better in 3D; I can't think of any aspect of movies that is improved by making them stereoscopic.

...or were they... set loose?

It's autonomous. It just has no life goals and robot conventions just make it sleepy. Waking it up just makes it grouchy.

I don't pretend to know anything about the effects of daily trips to space on the upper atmosphere. Perhaps it's not much different than the effects of all the airplanes already in the sky every day. Anyone have smarts on this?