I actually read some of the complaint. Surprisingly, it has nothing to do with the fact that they only offer unencrypted WiFi. It's the fact that they actually lied to consumers, saying they use "industry standard practices" to protect customers' privacy, but actually do nothing of the sort. In fact, their level of incompetence seems impressive.

Here are some of the salient details from the giant list of Wyndham security screwups (ellipses and emphases mine)

a. failed to use ... firewalls
b. allowed ... storage of payment card information in clear readable text;
...
d. ... permitted Wyndham-branded hotels to connect insecure servers to the ... network, including servers using outdated operating systems that could not receive security updates or to address known security vulnerabilities;
e. allowed ... well-known default user IDs and passwords ... easily available to hackers through simple Internet searches;
f. ... did not require the use of complex passwords for to ... property management systems ... Defendants used the phrase “micros” as both the user ID and the password;
g. failed to adequately inventory computers connected to the ... network;
h. failed to ... conduct security investigations;
i. failed to ... monitor ... network for malware used in a previous intrusion; and
j. failed to adequately restrict third-party vendors’ access to ... property management systems ...

There is a protocol for that now: it's called WebSockets. Sure, the protocol will be useful for other stuff too, but I can definitely see UI being one major use.

So, once WebSockets support starts to gain traction with developers (browser makers are already doing a pretty good job of supporting the draft specs), mark my words: the UI frameworks will come. I'd start building it now if I had the time.

I very much doubt that Canon law and Vatican law have anything to do with one another. Canon law governs the Church and all Catholics, not the Vatican state. The Church is distinct from and exists independent of the Vatican state, although it is physically seated there.

Now, the Vatican state law may or may not reference Canon law; I wouldn't know.

This is such a load of rubbish, it's a crying shame that you got modded to +5 Insightful.

You can think what you will about the usefulness of confession, but you should find out what you're talking about before you show off your ignorance.

The fact of the matter is that if we Catholics had anything to fear after going to confession, we wouldn't do it. We're not as dumb as you seem to think.

You see, priests are not allowed to act on specific information they receive in confession in any way, so they don't. I have zero fear after I've gone to confession that the priest will reveal my sins to anyone. In fact, he's not even allowed to mention my own sins to me outside of confession. For that reason, most priests actively try to forget everything they've heard in the confessional.

But just in case you're uncomfortable (bearing your soul can be embarrassing), there's almost always an option to go to confession with a screen between you and the priest. You and the priest can't even see each other. So, unless you know the priest really well, he's going to have no idea who you are.

And, in conclusion: if a priest ever did break the seal of confession, his bishop would basically crush him to dust.

In my experience, yuppie guys in the 25-35 range love analog wristwatches, and it has nothing to do with having a "novelty from a bygone era." Being in that demographic myself, I think it's ultimately about being a manly man. (And frankly, I think the analog wristwatch is a quintessentially manly sort of thing.)

What man doesn't like a simple accessory that is both functional and stylish? I love having an analog wristwatch because I know what time it is no matter where I go, and I don't have to look around like an idiot wondering where the clock is. I look in the same place every time, and I get the answer every time in half a second flat (no fumbling around with my smartphone required).

Furthermore, having an analog wristwatch says to the people around you, "I want to be taken seriously." As a professional, I think that's an important message to send, and you just can't send that message while wearing your Timex Ironman.

Besides, every girl's crazy about a sharp-dressed man, and wearing a classy watch makes a man look extra sharp.

Yes, it's a dirty, rotten tactic, but I believe there's a provision in the law that prevents jerks like them from succeeding. It's called Equitable Estoppel.

So, IPventure should be estopped from suing Fujitsu and Lenovo because of their prior inaction.

I used to give my boxes human names that I liked (like "Peter" and "Vincent"), but lately I've decided to start naming them after whiskeys. I started with "wild-turkey". Next up:
crown-royal
bulleitt
knob-creek

The summary misquotes the original article as about drinking and polygamy. The original is about drinking and polygyny. The difference being that "polygamy" is having multiple spouses, while "polygyny" is having multiple wives. Contrast with "polyandry", which is having multiple husbands.

--Baile

Of course, I would be remiss not to mention Firebug Lite for all those who can't upgrade to IE8.

For many intents and purposes, TTS *is* the same as an audiobook. Nobody really believes that TTS is actually copyright infringement; not even the folks in the book industry. They just know that eBook + TTS will compete with their audiobook offerings for the people who like to, say, listen to a book while they drive. Crying "copyright infringement!" is just the most convenient tool at their disposal to protect their bottom line. Now, I'm not saying that I'd be satisfied with a robotic voice croaking out the text of my book, but when faced with a choice between re-buying your content in audiobook format and letting HAL read to you for no additional cost, a lot of people will put up with HAL.

If you haven't tried Opera, I highly recommend you give it a spin. It's a great browser and it's worth using for regular browsing; even better than Firefox, in my opinion. Firefox's extensions still give it the edge for web development, but Opera is quite close. Here are my favorite features Opera has over Firefox:
A sexy default look. I think Opera generally looks much sleeker, and the smooth-scrolling is worlds better (parabolic instead of linear, I think). It's a tiny aesthetic change that makes a big difference in ease of use (I don't lose my place) and feel of the app.
Speed dial. You've got your top nine right there in front of you.
The Wand. It's a huge time-saver if you have multiple logins for a site. Just click the username you need to use, and Opera submits the form with the creds you picked. It's faster and less clunky than the dropdown that Firefox uses.
The Trash bin. It lets you pick any recently closed page; you don't have to Ctrl-Shift-T through all the tabs you just closed to find the right one.
Quick search. Firefox has inline search too, but Opera simultaneously highlights *all* occurrences of the search text as you type.
And finally...
Dragonfly, the Opera javascript debugger. This baby is impressive. It's much easier to use than Venkman and rivals Firebug. The script window lets you pick any loaded script (inline scripts have their own entry!). The DOM tab (which is less spastic than Firebug's) lets you inspect all of your elements in folding-tree style. The Styles pane with then show you the explicit and computed styles on the element. Fantastic.
So give Opera a try. You might find a thing or three that you like.