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No sir I live in the Treasure Valley here in south western Idaho. Where we primarily rely on hydro (with some coal), which depending on what side of the salmon debate your on has been pretty good to us. Some of the lowest per capita carbon emissions of the top 100 metro areas in the states and fairly cheap power to boot. And every year when they request a rate adjustment is splashed all over the front pages and up for discussion. Exactly the kind of thing needed for services such as communications and internet. Seeing as how our whole economy is getting wrapped up and around such services it isn't prudent to let private corporations have such leverage...

Until, perhaps, your own. Indulge me for a minute, please...

Have you ever operated such an automobile? Have you ever considered that a car that did not shift, had no 'VROOM' sound, and wasn't powered by some beastly, powerful motor would just, well, suck?

People LIKE cars. Electric cars will need do more than go fast and cost less to be widely adopted. They need to be macho, sexy, and powerful.

Still not convinced? Look, then, at Harley Davidson adoption vs, say, the Honda Goldwing.

People LIKE their rumbly, loud, inefficient motorized vehicles. They like how they make them FEEL. They don't call it 'Americas love affair with the automobile' for nothing, you know.

Equip one with a vibration mechanism and a loudspeaker, and perhaps you'd see adoption go way up...

"News for nerds. Stuff that matters."

Since when do women matter? Now, browsers on the other hand...

This is a civil case. That means it isn't so easy to defend yourself. In a criminal case the standard is beyond a reasonable doubt. That is a fairly high standard because it means, just as it says there must be no reasonable doubt that you committed the crime for the jury to convict. That means that the prosecution actually has to prove their case, the defense needn't do anything at all if they don't. Also in a criminal trial, you get a lawyer, even if you can't afford one. Public defenders generally aren't as good as high paid lawyers, but they are lawyers none the less who can help you navigate the complexities of the legal system.

A civil case has a much lower standard, the preponderance of the evidence. More or less that means whoever has the more convincing argument. There can still be reasonable doubt, so long as one side seems to present better evidence, then they win. Also, you aren't given a lawyer, you have to pay for one yourself.

So even if you are innocent, paying the extortion money can be the easy out to take. It'd be real hard to mount a defense for $30,000, much less $3,000. Even if you do, they could still win.

That's the problem here. It isn't one of these "Oh you are innocent so you have nothing to worry about." No, you have a lot to worry about. Either you pay a ton of money to hire a lawyer to try to defend yourself, or you do it all by yourself and almost certainly lose just because you don't understand the legal system.

When I was in school, we were taught about Francis Cabot Lowell, who heroically copied machine plans in England to use in the US for textile mills.

England was so worried that their monopoly on their mill technology would be taken that they would search ships, cargo and passenger for hidden plans.

Fortunately for the US, Lowell memorized the plans and was able to build his own plants in the New World. His business was the beginning of the industrialization of the New World. Without which, the United States would have continued to be merely agrarian in nature. Does anyone know if they still teach this lesson in gradeschools, or was it killed when they started teaching kids to respect copyrights more?

Even sadder is that the DOE has no sense of embarrassment.

It's not an embarrassment for the DoE, it's an embarrassment for the Bush Administration and the Republican party in general- despite driving this country's yearly deficit deeper and deeper and pushing our total debt to record levels, they can't even fund worthwhile projects with it.

Of course, the Republican party's low appraisal of science probably has a lot to do with it- after all, what good is science that might change peoples' minds about something (FLIP FLOP FLIP FLOP) when there's Muslims to kill?

Can you imagine the difficulty of trying to create a library if they already didn't exist. Publishers, Authors, Printers, MPAA, RIAA... they would all try to sue you into oblivion for essentially 'giving away' what they rightfully own.

naming an act the "Public Order Act."

The next thing London will do is put up posters saying that you are secure beneath the watchful eyes.

Perhaps they thought Orwell was writing an instruction manual?

So just because there's a law against it, it's wrong?

In this day and age when most of the middle class doesn't give a fuck enough to vote with their dollars or otherwise, we techies do what we have to. If that means enabling everybody to steal from the big corporations that have been ripping everybody off for years, then so be it. I encourage everyone that I know to do the same.

Gamespy had a chat with Chris Perkins, story manager for Dungeons and Dragons R&D, at this year's Gen Con. Though Chris had no more details to offer Gamespy than he did for us at the event, the piece puts a lot of information all into one place on what we can expect from D&D Fourth Edition. "GameSpy: We've been reading a lot about talent trees in 4th Edition ... Christopher Perkins: Talent trees aren't unique to MMORPGs. Wizards has produced other games that use talent trees, such as the d20 Modern Roleplaying Game and the Star Wars Roleplaying Game Saga Edition. The theory of game design, regardless of platform, is constantly evolving. We've taken our gaming experiences over the past decade, as well as player feedback on the games and supplements we've produced in that time period, to build a system for character creation and advancement in 4th Edition that draws inspiration from numerous sources, but isn't exactly like anything that's been done before."

Home-made spherical speaker array made out of cheap IKEA parts (pics + directions)

skynex66 writes "Last year, the home sale market began to slow, causing many buyers to postpone buying hoping that prices would drop. In fact, in some areas and in some segments of the market, prices have declined. However, in high-demand markets like San Francisco, Austin and Seattle, prices increased compared to a year ago, particularly for upper-end properties."
http://officialestate.biz/2007/9/10/is-now-a-good-time-to-buy-a-home.htm