It should be noted that the officers checking bags at MBTA stations in Boston are NOT TSA agents, but officers of the MBTA Transit Police. They are performing similar work, but are police officers. Your choice here is to comply with the search, or state that you will not comply, and walk three blocks down to the next T station.

I'm not trying to whine here, but 3D viewing, no matter how it is accomplished, still requires that you view the imagine with two eyes. I only see with one eye, and cannot view 3D content in 3D with glasses or in a "sweet spot." I've never felt _that_ deprived before, but I am starting to get a little worried at the recent cultural interest in 3D. Anything that is designed for 3D looks like crap if you don't view it using both eyes. I hope that (good) content still remains available in 2D for those of us that cannot appreciate 3D.

Apparently Netflix is stuck on this side of the service (the on-demand shizz) due to the arcane Hollywood studio system that has contracts with cable, premium stations, and others that lock up the movies for literally decades leaving new service providers like Netflix with no options. See discussion here: http://slate.com/id/2216328/

Yes--911, or more precisely E911 is getting your geographic information along with your phone number. The FCC has mandated standards requiring various levels of geographic accuracy from the wireless providers. These providers can get your geographic information through "network" or "handset" methods. Network methods use tower information and triangulation to locate you. Handset methods, like on your phone, use some form of GPS to get your location. Neither method is very accurate, since accurate entails expensive upgrades for the carriers. Despite very serious public safety concerns, AT&T and Verizon continue to lobby against stricter standards. Current standards leave wiggle room for the carriers of about an 80 yard radius around your actual location. And that's a horizontal radius--the carriers have no method of determining what floor you are on in a building.

Give this guy a break and read his comment in the context of the thread. He was responding to :

This poster was clearly not suggesting that the Chinese find a cool product, steal it, and then update and innovate and use the community to develop new stuff. Instead, "open source" is being misused in place of "free". The poster's comment about Windows is that, much like open source linux, you can go online and easily find and download the latest version for free. In context, his meaning is pretty clear.

I use internal drives like this as backups for my server at work. After I run the backup, I put the drives back into the antistatic bag and store them in a safe deposit box in the vault at my bank. I have a piece of foam in the box so the drives don't sit directly on the metal box. The box costs ~$100 a year, and is a dry, safe, secure, off-premise storage location.

And she did not want to sue McDonalds for punitive damages, only to have them pay for the costs of her medical treatments. McD's refused to pay her medical bills (they offered $800), and so she was left with the choice of suing or being on the hook for the costs. Moreover, there were something like 700 previous cases of serious burns relating to McD's coffee, and McD's was aware of the safety issues. http://www.lectlaw.com/files/cur78.htm http://library.findlaw.com/1999/Nov/1/129862.html

This is exactly right. I fly coast to coast for work dozens of times per year and being able to do research, keep up with emails, and be otherwise productive is great. And my clients are more than happy to pay $13 to allow me to work for 5-6 hours, rather than sit there not working, but still billing.

I have an asterisk PBX at work, and have used my VPN to connect to the box using SIP and AIX from multiple Virgin flights (some full, some empty). All of the calls, through any configuration, were choppy (though the call remained connected). I think its a combination of latency, jitter, and the bandwidth that ruin the call quality. Although it was choppy, I could check my voicemail (download side) but voicemails that I left for others (upload side) were nearly incomprehensible. I was getting pings greater that the OP, despite getting slightly faster speeds.

Google is in a tough spot. Youtube has incredible market share in the video space, which gives Google the best chance to make money in that space if/when someone figures out a proper business model. As a GOOG shareholder, I would be pissed if they just gave up and surrendered this space (and its something like 90% market share) to competitors. If nothing else, YT can serve as a "loss leader" brand to keep folks in the fold. A proper business model should work too. How about $2 for a full length new release film? Won't work you say? People can get those films for free? Tell that to the iTunes store. Or check out Hulu. Higher quality video, targeted single commercials.

I'll be very curious to see how well the computer buzzes in--which proves very challenging for some Jeopardy contestants. There is a visual cue given to the contenstants (a light around the question board--you can't see it on the TV) which let's everyone know when it is ok to buzz in. If you buzz in too early, you get locked out for a few seconds, effectively ruining your chance of answering. I wonder how the computer will know when to buzz in (if its not taking the visual cue, will the show tell the computer electronically?) and whether it will have an unfair advantage of being able to buzz at exactly the right moment. Buzzer ability turns out to be a core part of J! success.