As a Resident of this F'd up state I can tell you about it.

Initially, if caught on camera, you are sent a citation for ~$158, with no way to fight it in court.

Next, as we are all taught in Driver's Ed. if you find yourself unable to slow down to a stop at an intersection safely, it is safer to maintain your rate of speed and go through the light.

Next if you're not driving the car and someone else is (say a friend), because the car is registered to you, an individual, you receive the citation, NOT the driver.

Clearly red light camera are designed as money makers. If it was truly meant for safety, then you could go before a judge and argue the citation in court. Only recently can people begin to fight the citation.

I understand clearly that driving is NOT a right, but a privilege, but now I see our local / state governments treating everyone as if they were a criminal. Red light cameras remove the "Innocent Until Proven Guilty" aspect of our legal system. The burden of proof is on the camera, but since so many argued (originally), "...you can't ticket me if you didn't see me do it..." argument that our local govts. twisted the laws to suit their money making needs.

If they truly were installed for safety (as claimed), then people would be able to address the citations in traffic court. I have personally seen some positive results at one intersection. But shortening yellow lights, negates all of the positive results that people complained about originally, it's dangerous at that intersection. Now this will introduce more fender benders and accidents and way more red light violations.

/clap /clap /clap
It's nice to learn that someone looked at curiosity in a common sense fashion rather than the typical spank-down people get for being smart enough to figure things our for themselves.

.... some a$$hat took a photo of me, posted it on the web and didn't ask for my permission. Now it's potentially orphaned, and Wham I'm the face on the ads for selling selling A$$ cream for Joe Schmoe over in the UK and I can't stop it? /facepalm

But with that logic, if one person makes a purchase, then it stays copyrighted, there is nothing stopping the industry from buying the work of art from itself.

Here is a site to a scientist,Robert Krampf, that I saw in person once. It was the best science show I ever saw, and definitely the most entertaining.
Maybe reach out to him through his site and see if he can recommend some good science books.

http://thehappyscientist.com/

I like animals, I really do, but since our government agencies won't allow human volunteers prior to other means of testing, Research facilities are in a No Win situation. They use animals of various kinds to perform tests upon so the world has modern medicine that saves human lives. So they will tend to use those type of animals that the world has an abundance of, mice rats and more. The researchers also use those animals that are most closely related to human for more specific testing. Researchers must have strong constitutions, for I would suspect that many like animals and do their best to not let their personal views on animal testing influence the stringent research they are doing.

Do these protesters really believe that through animal testing they have learned how to save other animals, not just people?
Do these protesters realize that without this type of research, that they may force a delay in modern medicine by years, some of this medicine will likely be used to save themselves or someone they love dearly?
Do these protesters ever go after the insecticide companies or companies that make poison strictly for killing animals that are pests?
Do these same protester protect every species, such as roaches, ants, and stinging bugs?

If they have ever owned one pet or put an animal to sleep because they care or ever gotten a pet for their child who "wanted one" or though that a cute pet would make someone happy, then the hypocrisy is just laughable.

If you want to protest testing against animals petition your government to allow humans to volunteer for being the research test subjects, and when none come forward (after a set amount of time) then researchers can use animals. Talk to your politicians, change the laws.

I do not code or develop code any more, but I'm great for finding bugs in code which irks my developers to no end. But conversely, they really like when I test their code, especially when they want to have bugs found. I know how to recall what I did when creating my bug report. I almost never report something as a bug until I can repeat the issue and then I usually re-create the issue two more times to ensure I recall just how I got to that bugged state. I document step by step instructions and follow it up with screen shots. If weird occurrences are also observed, I note those as well. I also try to note down what version of software I am running, because that also helps to narrow down an issue.

While all of the info I provide doesn't always help in debugging all code, it certainly simplifies the process by the developer to figure out what's wrong and where it's taking place. In essence, my good testing and regurgitation of information help cut down debugging efforts by a large percent.

God knows it's better than "I clicked a button and the program blew up".

Who says "No Thanks" to a meal that they didn't have to pay for? Any college student will tell you the best meal they had was "free" not because of the food quality, but because it was free. I'm assuming Google just has a cafeteria that employees can just walk into and get a meal or two during any given day while they are working, and that this is an every day occurrence. I can honestly say, I'm a tad jealous, but I see that as a perk of working for that company. If the IRS is going to tax lunches, CEOs across the nation will have to start paying taxes for their elaborate lunches. But wait, so would every college student who didn't pay taxes on food they ate. Oh and what about all those free day care services some places offer or exercise room, shouldn't those perks be taxable also? Wouldn't this then also impact me going over to a friends house and receiving a meal from a party? I didn't pay for it so I wasn't taxed on it.

This is a slippery slope, and one that if pushed as taxable then it opens up a whole new can of worms. If Google is paying the taxes on the food and upon purchasing the food for giving away, wouldn't taxing the employees be double - taxation?

I'd love it if I could reap such awesome benefits, but I do not begrudge a Google employee from enjoying the perks of working for Google. I'm happy to learn that a company that large is still so generous to their employees.

The thing about taxes is that we are all being double taxed.

If you receive a paycheck you pay x% to federal, state (sometimes), city (sometimes), but I haven't been to a city yet that does charge sales tax. This is a tax on money you're already been taxed on. Then if I want to set up an IRA or a Ross IRA with my remaining funds from my pay check, I'll be taxed again. So I have to wonder how many of these "super rich" are all hiding wealth to not pay taxes at all, or how many are hiding what they are worth so they aren't taxed additionally for being successful in business?

I'm not justifying tax evasion, but just a different perspective on the super wealthy. I know that if I was super wealthy, I would be miffed, to say the least, if I had to pay more taxes on my hard earned money simply because I was successful, and this is assuming all taxes were paid within legal guidelines. After seeing what is happening in other countries, I would want to hide how much I own and am worth too.

At this point, if you want to get rid of the hateful attitude of the low/middle income folks against the wealthy/super rich income folks, make all taxes flat taxes. And all government spend budgets must always 15% lower then the projected incomes that way a government is ready in the event of a short fall in those projected income $s. Get rid of extreme salaries and if you offer any sort of pension plan, it should be set up to you get out what was put into it. When $ runs out, it's done. I'm all for people making a lot of $ but not when they are tax payer paid extreme salaries.

Legal fees should be charged back against the salaries of our leadership that enact laws in haste that are repealed within x years.

Close all legal loopholes on taxes and simplify the tax code structure to make it easy to pay taxes.

Or get rid of all income tax and only create a consumption tax.

And government leaders who want to take a vacation have to pay for their vacation from their own pockets (this includes the cost of Airforce One and all of the secret service folks that go to protect them.) Watch how few vacations they take then.

The super rich can only hide their wealth because our governments have set things up so that they can.

I understand the convenience of a Laptop and at it's core it is very functional, but in my vision of the world, a laptop is an extension of the paradigm of tethering people.

Before you bitch at me for this, read me out. This thought line is from a work perspective. When companies started sending people home with pagers and putting people on-call 24/7, they were being paid extra for going above and beyond. But companies saw a way to sell extra hours to the work force through "convenience".
          Pager: You can just call the number (sometimes work) if you receive a page and help resolve an issue with a quick discussion rather than drive into work and get overtime pay.
          Cell Phone: Can page you and you can be anywhere when you call the number back, or can be called directly, again quick discussion rather than drive into work and get overtime pay.
          Laptops: Once you have a reason to, you can quickly connect with work and fix an issue and not have to drive into work and get overtime pay, and you can conveniently work from home if you need to for an emergency.
          Smart Phones: You can work and talk at the same time and improve the amount feedback, oh and it's small so you can take it with you where ever you go.

Each of these devices over time have become more and more invasive on the personal / private time away from work. Work has tethered you and you are their lap-dog all in the name of convenience.

Then when people used the convenience to benefit themselves, companies generally say, oh no, you are abusing the convenience.....

So I detest the Laptops because I see it as a long line of convenience tools that just tether you more.

When the end of the work day comes, I put the laptop away secured at work and walk away. My time away from work is my time away from technology and I try to enjoy the rest of the world.

Yes, I can always turn off the phone, or close the laptop, but there is nothing better than hearing, "we couldn't reach you" for true freedom.

Based on my above ramblings, I might be in need of a vacation . ;)

I've read, heard about a lot of recent DoS attacks lately, from banks to power grids to government agencies and now to phone lines. I've seen my share of things that are systematically done to break something down, so I see all these attacks (some successful) as a strategic way for those who want to hurt us to prepare for the big hit. Just like corporations that are considered "Too Big to Fail", I think our US infrastructure has been built this way also. The more we interconnect to make things easier to manage, the more vulnerable we make ourselves.

/clap /clap /clap

Nice!

I see what you did there.

.... Apple is one of the most popular brands ever and that's because it re-invented itself. Dell has a shot at re-branding itself with the right leadership.

I hope they do and are successful once again.