This reminds me of the Friends episode where Monica has to make recipes for a chocloate substitute - Mockolate.

They need to remember what happened to Digg. Sites like this can lose almost all of their users in the blink of an eye.

"...and aren't exactly long lived" Model airplane glow plug engines exist in two states - not broken in yet, and slap worn out. There is no middle ground....

I dunno about the whole country, but in the two big cities I'm familiar with the TV situation, Dallas and Houston, the TV stations all have their broadcast antennas located at more or less the same location, so you don't have to change the antenna aim to change the channel.

Clearly you've never driven in Boston...I had a summer job there driving a patient transport van for the Boston State Hospital (a mental asylum), and I always felt like the lunatics I was driving around in the van weren't a patch on the maniacs driving the other cars.

He's not blaming the victim, he's quoting a Roling Stones song lyric. Jeez....woooshhhh

They say in the future, airliners will no longer have a pilot and a copilot. Instead, there will be just a pilot and a dog. The dog is there to bite the pilot if he tries to mess with any of the controls.

It goes back to the origins of radio. Originally, it was all amateurs messing arouind. Then, as it became more useful and of interest to companies and governments, amateur radio types were quick to restrict themselves as harmless and non-competitive to these interests, in order to keep from being squashed as nuisances. I think it ought to be more like licensing of pilots - those licensed at the lowest skill levels can't charge for flying and can only fly for personal gain under strict rules. As pilots progress in skill levels, they can perform a wider range of flying for hire. Something similar could be done for radio operations. As it is, it took decades to get legal permission to use a radio link to order a pizza.

Can't swear? You clearly haven't spent much time listening to 20 meters, or, at least in my part of the country, 80 meters. Sailors could learn a thing or two about swearing by listening in....

Never get into a car with a carjacker. People who do that wind up at the secondary crime scene, where the homicide (yours) takes place. Run away if you can, fight if you must, but don't get in the car.

Not exactly true. Thalidomide does indeed have two mirror image isomers,. and there is some research to indicate that indeed only one of these isomers causes damage. BUT - thalidomide undergoes racemization in the human blood stream - that is, even if you start only with "good" thalidomide in your drug, it will be metabolized into a mix of good and bad in the bloodstream - so, even if you only ingest the "good twin", you wind up with the damage causing "bad twin" in your body anyway.

I'd like a smart rifle, like the one in Vernor Vinge's Bobble series, that lets you designate several targets in the scope, and then, when given the command to fire via trigger pull, actually fires when the barrel is properly aligned to hit the designated target or targets - you mark the targets, then pull the trigger and wave the weapon in their general direction.

BTW - October Sky is an anagram for "Rocket Boys".

There is water at the bottom of the ocean!

That's right, comrade. Come the Revolution, the proles will get what we on the Central Committee decide they get.