I managed the computers for a Canadian university dept., including the development and operation of a system that collected $4M a year from students for the board portion of their room and board.

Cash pickups were done by Campus Cowboys.

One day, after they had left, I noticed a tennis-ball-can sized container of pepper spray had been left behind. At this time (about 20 years ago) the police and security agencies were not yet in full Gestapo mode, so it was a bit of a surprise. Or at least how big the can was was.

Called up their HQ and asked them "Do you guys use pepper spray?"

A mixture of stammering and silence followed.

After a while I said "Well, you guys left your pepper spray behind at [our location]"

They were unusually prompt in their arrival a few minutes later.

May I suggest a more generic name that doesn't have to be changed every five minutes?

Physically Interacting Massive Particles

The name will probably be shortened at some point.

I don't think they have much hope with the younger generation.

So true. Our teenagers are now completely uninterested in anything on TV, recorded or otherwise. Their transition to YouTube is complete.

As early as the 1670s, Newton used the idea of aether to help match observations to strict mechanical rules of his physics.

"The motion of light was a long standing investigation in physics for hundreds of years before the 20th century."

Ether theorists: Newton, Robert Boyle, Christiaan Huygens, Faraday, Lorentz, James Clerk Maxwell, Poincare...

It is noteworthy that, despite it being impossible to prove a negative, the ether has supposedly been disproven. So why does Wikipedia add a question mark to that section's title?

It was highly honorable of his logical conscience that Newton decided to create absolute space. He could just as well have called the absolute space the "rigid ether". - Albert Einstein

My own theory of the ether, gravity and QM.

Troll much?

Windows 8 is much faster than Windows 7. I love it for its speed of boot-up, and shutdown -- just what I want for a laptop I frequently have to start and stop.

General speed limits in Germany are set by the federal government. All limits are multiples of 5 km/h. There are two default speed limits: 50 km/h (31 mph) inside built-up areas and 100 km/h (62 mph) outside built-up areas. While parts of the autobahns and many other freeway-style highways have a posted limits up to 130 km/h (81 mph) based on accident experience, congestion and other facts, many rural sections have no general speed limit. The German Highway Code (StraÃYenverkehrs-Ordnung) section on speed begins with the requirement which may be rendered in English:

Any person driving a vehicle may only drive so fast that the car is under control. Speeds must be adapted to the road, traffic, visibility and weather conditions as well as the personal skills and characteristics of the vehicle and load.

This requirement applies to all roads, and is similar to the "reasonable speed" legal obligation levied in other nations.

Speed limits are enforced with a small tolerance. Driving merely 3 km/h (2 mph) or faster above the posted or implied speed limit is considered a punishable infraction in Germany.

I'll take the American approach any day.