Oblig: http://theoatmeal.com/comics/c_word

The National Science Olympiad gets a good chunk of my charitable donations. They do a lot to promote science education and I had a great time competing when I was in high school.

Posting to undo accidental moderation. It was slightly trollish, but I'd meant to mod Funny.

In fact, every major famine in the 20th Century was caused NOT by major crop failures, but by deliberate political policy or the effects of war.

Was the Dust Bowl not a 'major famine'...?

Oh, someone came up with a solution to *that* problem...

Brilliant! Count me in.

Who knows? A small list could include current or potential employers, advertisers/profilers, law enforcement, stalkers, and anyone else who could possibly be interested in your for the rest of your life. Perhaps a poster will want to run for public office in 30 years, only to have something they wrote come back to haunt them. Just look at what happens during congressional vetting of presidential appointees now, and imagine how bad it will be when these people come from a generation where much of their correspondence is available through either public research or rubber-stamped warrants...

I'd imagine more people are posting AC because the internet is becoming a less friendly place. If you use the same handle for long enough in enough places then it becomes easier and easier to track your username back to your RL identity. With everything on the internet being logged and mined in more and more ways I can completely understand the desire to not be subjected to a permanent archive of your comments that could be used against you at some point in the future.

Mods occasionally rate a funny post as something else to boost that person's karma rating, since Funny doesn't give a karma boost.

...or at least that's how it used to work, something might have been tweaked in the moderation system since that was true.

Sometimes the police are the rapists, or the rapist is a prominent member of the community who targets a vulnerable person and makes them think that nobody would ever believe them if they spoke out. Many victims are not comfortable speaking out until months or years after the attack, when some of the details may have faded from memory and could make their testimony difficult to use in court when a jury is expecting CSI like details. If the rape victim does decide to testify and makes it through all of the hurdles of convincing a prosecutor to press charges, then they have to deal with a defense attorney who will do everything possible to slander his or her character and convince the jury that the sex was consensual and that 'it was all just a misunderstanding'. If anything, "nightmare" is an understatement.

What if you can't remember the name of what it is that you want to launch? Perhaps a seldom played game or occasionally used utility? I used to like grouping programs by function so I could find them in a menu structure... windows key+name is useful but it is not always the best method.

Have you come across information clearing house? I've been looking for reliable, independent news media for a while and while I've found a few good sources I like I'm kind of on the fence about this guy. He is very open about what he does and why he does it, and he manages to dig up a lot of well-cited stories that I wouldn't hear about elsewhere. The editorial bias is thick, but he's upfront about it and seems to provide a good service simply because he's passionate about it.

Thoughts?

I voted for competent and clean but not beautiful, mostly because I am very out of practice. I've seen MIL-SPEC mentioned a few times in this thread, so I figured people might be curious about the military standards for soldering. In the USAF we used TO 00-25-234, and it covered all of the basics for learning good soldering techniques.

On a slightly different topic, what do you think of butane-powered soldering irons? I saw one for the first time a few days ago and my pal seemed quite pleased with it... are they generally regarded as better than corded or battery powered?

The mirror they maintain at is yet another reason to get involved with your local pirate party. There website indicates that they can use assistance from UK residents who want to help with:

IT Team - Code
IT Team - Other
Campaigns - Design
Campaigns - Content
Campaigns - Local
Campaigns - Events
Campaigns - Candidates
Campaigns - Coordination
Campaigns - Newsletter
Treasury - Finance
Secretariat - Administration
Press - Pressteam
Leadership - Policy

I don't understand the headline.

How does the fact that Canada is a global leader in music sales imply that they are not a "pirate nation"? Has any credible study shown that one would expect that to be the case? The studies and surveys that come to mind all indicate that those who pirate the most media also spend the most...