Where "something useful" defined as "looking for porn."

There is still the option to send the forms by mail.

That might make sense if the men only got 15 weeks, and that didn't start until one week after the birth.

Doing science is about making mistakes, but her mistake wasn't anything to do with science.

Her mistake was creating an explosion on school property, during school hours, without any supervision, and without any school employee even being aware of her intent to create said explosion.

It's been about eight years since I graduated high school, and back then, it was basic procedure for anything potentially dangerous to find a teacher willing to supervise the experiment or do it for you, then explain the risks of the experiment and list the safety precautions used to the principal, then get her to sign off on it, then get a parent/guardian to sign off on it.

Sure, it was annoying to go through all those steps, but the more often we followed the rules, the more often we proved ourselves to be trustworthy, the more we were trusted, and the more often we were told yes.

Also, if you watch Mythbusters, it really isn't all that different from what professional experimenters have to go through when doing something dangerous.

Albertans love burning oil so much that their two professional sports teams are called the Oilers and the Flames.

Horseshit.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdhwTXwhA4c

Professor: It works! It works!

*car drives into hangar, stops, and passengers get out*

President: Professor?
Professor: You should not be here! This is private property!

*Professor turns around*

Professor: Mr. President! I'm so sorry.
President: Ah, good evening professor. This is Major Agnew. Major Agnew, Professor.
Professor: Mr. President, this is indeed an honor. I had no idea.
President: Well, our country has been pouring a lot of money into this secret research of yours. I thought we should find out what we've been paying for.
Professor: Indeed. It so happens you are here just in time. Mr. President, Major Agnew, I do not think you will be disappointed. Behold then! The Giant Death Ray!

*dramatic unveiling, Professor turns device on on*

President: Well I'll be!
Agnew: Professor, is that a laser?
Professor: Yes, Major Agnew, the Giant Death Ray is indeed a laser. And now perhaps you'll be so good as to place this simple tin of peaches into the path of my laser's beam.
Agnew: What!?
President: Do it, Major.
Professor: Please.

*Grimacing, Agnew places the tin of peaches in front of the laser*

*beep*

Professor: Gentlemen, the price of those peaches has just been ascertained electronically, and stored in the information banks of my Giant Death Ray. And thank you. Any questions.
Agnew: Well, one question obviously leaps to mind, Professor... uh... Professor...?
Professor: Death.
Agnew: ...Professor Death, is why on Earth you elected to name this contraption of yours the Giant Death R- oh I see.
President: Professor Death.
Professor: Mr. President.
President: I have a question. This laser of yours...
Professor: Death Ray, yes.
President: If you were to increase the intensity of its beam...
Professor: Yes, intensity, yes.
President: Could your Death Ray not also be used to...
Professor: Perform delicate eye surgery!? Yes!
President: No, what I'm asking Professor, is might this Death Ray not also have some, well, military application?
Professor: Giant Death Ray? A military application?
President: Yes.
Professor: Oh, yes, of course. A military application. Yes, I, why, I'll just go check.

*Professor grabs hammer, and starts pounding on the Giant Death Ray*

Professor: No!
Agnew: Professor Death!
President: Professor Death, you're destroying it!
Professor: Forgive me Mr. President, but I am a man of science not of war! I intended the Giant Death Ray to be used for good, not evil!

Of course the tablet market isn't dying. It could possibly be described as a bubble at the moment, but that doesn't mean that that sales are going to disappear within the next five years.

The issue is more that tablets are essentially as powerful as they'll need to be for the next five years, if not longer. They're designed to be highly portable devices that can access the internet and be used as ebook readers, but are large enough to be easier to read from than a smartphone. Aside from the people who need to have the new shiny, most people who own or are thinking of buying a tablet will only upgrade when it can no longer handle their needs, much like Windows XP computers.

As far as I can tell, this is another "[X] on the internet!" story.

He's not on HBO because the Renaissance fair crowd is a very small segment of society.

Your average person doesn't find mildly rude poems to be that funny.

And, yes, I did say mildly rude. Not "some of the most obscene NSFW and hilarious comedy I've seen in a long while." There is more obscene, NSFW, and hilarious period comedy in Blackadder - a prime time TV show that first aired 30 years ago this June - than in the clips that I've been able to find of him. We live in an era where "offensive" comedians turn to necrophilia jokes to shock audiences because pedophilia, incest, and rape jokes aren't seen as being all that shocking anymore. A sonnet about a knothole that looks like a vagina is the work of your average high school drama club member, not your average professional comedian.

This guy is exactly where he belongs; doing niche fairs.

I know that you're just making a joke, but it irks me when people laugh at the US for spending millions of dollars developing a pen that can be used in space.

The real story being that Paul Fisher (owner of Fisher) invented the pen on his own, then sold it to both the US and Russian space programs. Both programs preferred the pens to the risk of broken pencils or pencil shavings floating into crucial equipment.

Hold up for a second there.

I'm pretty sure that the "prohibitively expensive" part is the bigger obstacle.

Even if the printers were free and the software was perfectly consumer-friendly, the cost of maintenance, materials, design time, and printing time would still be steep for something made from cheap plastic.