And there, in a nutshell, is why many commuters like the idea of an electric assisted bike.

Expertise in any subject area that is likely to come up in a trial will almost certainly get you excluded from the Jury pool.

Of note, he was executed in Texas. Evidence that someone didn't commit the crime they were convicted of is not a reason not to overturn an execution in Texas. After all, he was probably guilty of something else, right?

I don't brake at every green light, but I do sometimes wait a half a second or two when the light turns green to make sure that the dumbasses have finished running the red light, rather than just jump on the gas and get t-boned. Are you the type that is in the car behind me laying on the horn 0.01 milliseconds after the light turns green, or indignant that I don't make a left turn in the path of an oncoming cement truck?

You've obviously got lots of experience and observation under your belt. And, you're obviously 100% right. I've convinced myself that terrorism is a left-wing thing, because try as hard as I can, I just can't find any examples of right-wing terrorism!

Actually, it's more like a "cytokine storm" than anaphylactic shock. The response is toxic, and builds on itself in positive feedback loop.

Add in sitting in Houston for 16 hours for "mechanical problems" on the connecting flight, and lose my luggage, and you've got a deal.

Are you sure we're not? I haven't seen a published genomics paper in years that doesn't have the raw data accessible in some form. It's a requirement for most major journals, as well as from most funding sources. If you want to publish, you release the data.

I agree with you that every moron thinks they can analyze the climate data better than the entire field of climatologists. Relatively few people think they understand particle physics better than the people at CERN; but somehow everyone thinks they're an expert on climate change after reading a few headlines that they instinctively disagree with (although they don't actually understand). Science is rarely a good spectator sport.

Some of them, yes, were certainly the "best and brightest". The problem isn't with the personnel in the military that are operating this technology, it's with the corrupt procurement system. These systems were designed and built by the big defense contractors, and they were paid handsomely to do so. There's no incentive for them to be cost-effective, or to go above the minimum requirements. Heck, if they don't meet the minimum requirements they'll get a new contract to fix their mistakes in a few years. These systems take so long to get in place that they're outdated by the time they hit the ground. And the way they are designed, spec'd, and implemented means that simple updates take years and billions of dollars.

There's about a million possible reasons why tree-ring observations don't seem to work for relatively recent data. It's possible that newly formed tree rings change somewhat in the 30 or 40 years after they are initially formed until they reach a "stable" form. It's possible that the substantial increases in CO2 in the atmosphere in recent years has altered the way that tree rings form.

All measurement methods have their anomalies. MRI scans are a great way to look at the structure of the brain, but they have substantial distortions, that change from machine to machine. Some of these have to do with the type of machine, and some distortions are due to things like the earth's magnetic field or the building that houses the machine. Those have to be corrected for, and it's standard practice. And, scans of young children don't give the same results, because the brain structures haven't matured, so it's difficult if not impossible to distinguish many brain structures. That doesn't mean it's not a useful method, but one does need to keep the limitations and difficulties of each measuring methodology in mind.

There are very accurate temperature measurements recorded for many places dating back to the late 1700s, recorded using a thermometer. If the tree rings for those areas match very well for the 150 years prior to 1960, but begin to diverge after that, it wouldn't be that outrageous to suggest that the inability to use them as a measurement proxy for recent times is just a limitation of the system.

It would be nice to have perfect measurements for everything. However, for those of us in the real world, all measurements have errors and limitations, and we have to adapt for these. Simply dumping uncorrected, uncalibrated, or inaccurate measurements into the pool of data does not make things clearer.

I'm not sure what reply their lawyers will come up with, but I believe the original draft of the reply reads:

Dearest FCC:

Why are we screwing our customers? Because we hate our customers, and we really like money. Go away.

Love, Verizon.

Doing things just to be a bastard is, well, dickish. If you're going to fuck up people's work, just say "No, I can't help you".

However, I'm all for the "extra time" part. It works for co-workers that have "learned helplessness" as well. If you jump immediately to help them, it's easier for them to never learn. If you make them wait, and wait long enough it causes some inconvenience, it makes taking steps to becoming self-sufficient a more attractive option.

So, I'm all for the "Hey, sure, I'll show you how to do that, but it will have to wait until after my business trip. How does a week from tuesday work for you?" option.

She's a smart kid, that's true. But she couldn't read more than about half a dozen words at that point. She still can't get through a DVD menu that she hasn't seen before, because there aren't 'standard icons' to start the movie. I'd bet if I handed you a new consumer device that you'd never used before, and the interface was in a language you couldn't read, that you'd find it a bit difficult to navigate. You might, by trial and error, be able to get things to work after some effort. My point was that she had movies running within a minute, not by banging on buttons until something magically happened.

Exactly. I bought an ipod touch for "entertainment" on a cross country flight with my kids. My just-turned-five year old had it up and running, pulling up movies and playing the games that I put on there with no help, except for showing her how to turn it on and telling her to "touch the screen". That's why people buy an iPhone/iPod, and that's why they're cooler than the LG whatever or the Zune.

For the non-technical crowd, that simplicity -- simple but still usable devices -- makes Apple stuff "cool". Microsoft has never even remotely approached that level.