My first election after I turned 18 (Genesee County, Michigan 2003) was the first time they used optical scan here. It's an excellent system for its accountability. You get most of the benefits of a digital system (easier tabulation of votes/easy to tell when someone spoils a ballot) and the re-countability of paper ballots all in one system. The only issue is the paper waste and that can be alleviated by recycling the paper ballots after a set amount of time (I hope they keep them for at least two years but I don't know how long they do).

Each year the competition is different but, this year the primary goal is to move two foot diameter balls into either a low goal for one point or a seven foot high goal for 10 points. All with a robot that isn't allowed to be more than five feet tall. There are ways to work with the teams on your alliance to score more points per ball as well as a 62 inch tall truss at mid field to shoot over for an additional 10 points. Even though I work with a high school team every year (FIRE Team #0322), some years the scoring is...interesting to try to explain. Here is an animation created by FIRST to explain this years game. It'll probably do a better job than I can.

A federal judge recently ruled that the FAA has no authority over "small unmanned aircraft." Which effectively kills the FAA's regulations that said commercial drone use in the US was illegal. As far as liability in case of death is concerned, it'll probably be handled similarly to any other accident. If it is determined that malice, negligence, or recklessness is involved then there will probably be jail time. If it's just an unfortunate and/or unavoidable accident then probably not.

There is one potential issue. I only found it when I was using a smaller regional ISP while I dealt with a billing dispute with Charter. If your ISP uses extreme levels of NAT and is used primarily by tech-savvy people (those who would be likely to use Google DNS in the first place). It may look to Google like a single IP address is hammering their DNS servers with queries and they may block that particular public IP address. I got that one explained to me by the president of that small ISP about a year ago when I asked why my DNS queries weren't going through and ended up being escalated to the top.

Legally speaking, every male American citizen between the ages of 17-45 who is not an active duty member of the armed forces and every female member of the National Guard is a member of the 'militia of the United States' by federal law (10 USC 311). That militia is formed for the purpose of draft selection but, it's still a militia set up by federal law and if that doesn't meet the requirements for "A well regulated Militia" then I don't know what does. I, being a 28 year old male citizen of the United States, therefore consider myself to be a member of the well regulated militia of the United States and therefore have the right to bear arms. Even if I have not to this point chosen to exercise that particular right.

You do know that only treason, murder, and (in a few states) child rape are punishable by the death penalty in the United States, right? Keeping these people locked up for life is also an excellent way to prevent re-offending. In fact, it's cheaper to keep them locked up than it is to execute them in most cases.

The problem with your statement is the fact that, until a certain point in gestation when the fetus is capable of living unsupported by its host, a fetus is simply a parasite living off of said host for a number of months until birth. I can't bring myself to grant the full rights of personhood to a being who literally draws all of its oxygen, water, and food (not to mention waste processing) from another living being without giving its host a say in whether or not she wishes to remain a victim of parasitism. Now before anyone posts trying to 'remind' me that I was the same way, yes, I was also a parasite in my mothers body for a significant fraction of a year. She chose to allow me to remain there, causing all sorts of physiological issues, until I was done gestating. That was her choice and I don't want others to be denied theirs.

Strictly speaking, the center of the observable universe is wherever the observer happens to be at that moment.

Everything isn't available in the Netflix 'Instant Queue' to be streamed. Therefore, some things require optical disc's by mail.

Yes, it makes sense to pay up your pension fund in advance...not 75 years in advance though! By paying into your pension fund 75 years in advance, you are funding the pensions of employees who haven't even been born yet. I can see requiring that the next 25 years worth of pensions are funded in advance but 75 years is insanity and for most businesses would be completely untenable.

Doesn't Verizon use SIM cards for their 4G LTE service?

O_O Michigan's vehicle registration is ad valorem too, and for vehicles initially registered in 2012, the base rate was between $33 and $148. It even declines 10% every year for the first five and the 5-year-old rate is the one for the life of the vehicle from there on out. That means that if you bought a new $10,000 car it'd cost you $33 to register last year and a $100,000 car would still only cost $148. That $436 registration fee is a very good example of the vast differences in cost of living in this country.

Thank heavens for living in Michigan, a state without emissions tests of any kind. As long as I have basic auto insurance and pay my annual registration fee (linked to the MSRP of the vehicle when new), I get a new registration sticker for my license plate ^_^

I read your comment and have been trying to understand what the issue is. This plane has flown at night before. It collects more solar energy during daytime flight than it uses for power and stores the remainder in batteries for use during nighttime flight. Even if it couldn't, this aircraft is quite slow so, it wouldn't outrun the sun in an east-to-west flight.

What focus group agenda? I was actually swept into a focus group for that idiotic movie Welcome to Mooseport back in 2003. I was at the mall down in Daytona Beach, Florida and my roommate and I were asked to join a focus group watching clips from the movie and giving our opinions on them. Many of these groups are just made up of random people in shopping centers and other public places. I don't see where an 'agenda' could be gleaned from that.