Seumas you have no idea how much I agree with you on this one.

Last time a similar story was posted (couldn't find the link), somebody brought up that autism/aspergers as being the new "chic" diagnosis....it has everything a parents wants, an excuse to justify their child's behavioral issues as a manifestation of a disability which allows them to absolve themselves of any parenting failures with a label that's associated with high intelligence.

To the GP, as the parent of a severely autistic child this isn't at all reprehensible, providing autistic individuals with any kind of vocational/technical training is doing them, and their family/caregiver, a huge service. We just hope that Rachel will have an opportunity like this some day.

I took the extra large web image and decided to draw some lines to connect large (12 pixel or more), bright (50% luminous) objects together. The point was to try to find large regions of relatively dark sky in the image. Why? The original deep field images were taken upon "black" sky to see what really long exposures could find. Now with the ultra deep field images, it's plenty clear that most "black" sky has lots of galaxies visible. So, in the future, it'd probably be a good idea to take an ultra deep field image of a "black" part of the ultra deep field image just to see how deep the rabbit hole goes.

Besides, the images are pretty.

Hubble UDF Infrared with lines connecting large, bright objects

The same as above, but with the large, bright objects colored to better differentiate what counts as "large, bright objects"

PS - I used two slightly different, slowish python scripts to do the actual drawing. I'll post them as well, if anyone is interested.

How about those iPhone worms?

sudo is a command. Not an account. Besides, if the user account has a poor password, then chances are that one of these is true:
a) The user and root accounts have the same password.
b) The root account has a different but similarly insecure password.
c) The user made a file with the root password:
    i) The file has mode 660, so all you need is the user's password
    ii) The file has mode 666, so all you need is nobody access.
d) The user somehow managed to get /bin/bash (or something similar) setuid (mode 4755).

They used state of the art simulation software, of course.

The PS3 used to be able to rip Bluray DVDs merely by using dd. I assume that Sony put a stop to that, however.

So how often do you download a package from somewhere, unpack it, and go line by line through the source to make sure it's safe before installing it on your box? Probably not very often, because that would be a huge pain and even most Linux users won't be able to understand the code well enough to make a good judgment. On a server box, you'll likely stick to production repositories direct from your vendor, so the risk of malware is low, but I'm sure most people have downloaded packages from third parties for their desktop systems and run them without being absolutely sure they were safe. With Linux, you can get away with this because none of the malware writers care enough about Linux to port their software to it, but they certainly would if it gained significant market share.

Well, yes, but how important is the choice of metal when you're not actually dueling to the death?

That would be all well and good if the application of law was actually clearly dictated to solve a problem.

However, if you've ever watched a court case involving a victim (or a victim's family), especially one with a jury and ESPECIALLY one involving the media, the closing statement is always hinged on "help the victim feel that justice was done". And inevitably, the jury decision hinges strongly on the victim (and family) on the stand, crying about how they won't ever feel whole until this crazy man is locked up forever.

On the macro and philosophical level the justice system may be about solving a problem, but on the micro psychological level, it's about revenge and retribution.

While I don't necessarily disagree with you, I just want to make sure you understand that when you consider both sides.

The device should be fused internally at an appropriate amperage(i.e. just a bit more than it is expected to draw at maximum load; but less than the current that would render it unsafe).

If it isn't, your next of kin can use the life insurance money to buy a better one.

The new controller for mature games would need to have force feedback and be waterproof and washable.

That's a pretty good analogy. And, taking it further, IQ has no capability whatsoever of measuring the effectiveness of recursive comedy.