Further, it's Daylight Saving(no s) Time, intended to mean we're "saving daylight", rather than incurring "savings" during daylight hours as AC seems to say. This is itself a misnomer, since no daylight is actually saved, but it sounds better than "daylight shifting time"--presumably to the people who like daylight.

By Jove, you're right. "Lasts" is used only in the third-person singular form of the verb. Admittedly, it was only in passing that I stumbled on the title AS a native speaker--maybe I just don't believe "beer's it" so I reassigned bacteria--until I read your comment. Reconstructed with a suitable pronoun, the problem is clear: "They...lasts" is wrong, vs. "They...last", which is correct. Reference

OT digression follows.

Seeing that someone else posted before I got around to replying, you already had your answer, but I kept at it because their* comment makes me think of an even different approach: As a native speaker I wouldn't necessarily read as carefully as a non-native, who's learned the semantics of the language from a different tack. I discovered this when I took foreign-language classes and attempted to deconstruct friend's sentences in those languages; they looked at me both as if I were insane (who cares about this "accusative" vs. "nominative" stuff? It either sounds right to us or it doesn't!). My friends were arguing for "just talk/write and we'll refine", which was an excellent point: the classes to which I'd been exposed taught me an "unnatural" analytical precision, pegging me as a non-native speaker. Native speakers and writers look at word forms (and by that, I mean shapes, not usages), while non-natives tend to take apart what others take as a whole (BAD SHAPES IS ONE REASON WHY ALL CAPS IS ANNOYING: IT FORCES US TO READ LETTERS AND NOT WORDS -- note the clumsy start you should have here as you switch to reading a regular sentence). Unfortunately, I see accepting these grammatical nuances as necessary for integration--and many of them are learned (for example: "known since eight years" is a dead giveaway for foreigners, vs. "known for eight years"). You noticed the object confusion perhaps because you're paying more attention to structure, but I didn't because I'm quickly reading the shape of the sentence. Without your interjection, I would have accepted the title as-is and thought nothing more of it.

Following, I both support and disagree with Anonymous Coward. While I can easily find assertions that the causal sense of "since" is almost as common as the temporal (so a moot point), I agree in the sense that "because" more often defines a causal relationship. The question "Why can you only speculate?" is what leads: "Because I am not a native speaker", while the strict sense of "since" leans towards time: "Since the 1990's...", "It's been 3 months since...", etc. However, I flatly disagree when it comes down to what everyone uses. I hear/use "since" (even: "as") in place of "because" all the time...and this dictionary (and several of its notes) agrees.

* Note: My singular use of "they" is disputed, but after reading an excellent writeup I tend to choose that over the haughty "one", the clumsy "his or her", or indirections like "a person".

Skipping right past whether something can be "more correct" or not--I'll meet those of you who wish to discuss it on the 'inflatable hover fort' at David Mitchell's Soap Box--I felt it might be useful to add to AthanasiusKircher's comment on "sinked" as a "relatively minor historical dialect form". I agree, with the caveat that it's still useful to know, as uncommon (or, dated) usage can still be prominent. In Iowa City, Iowa, the Old Capitol Building sports a plaque just to the right of the west entrance (about halfway down the page, the 1840's plaque is partially visible behind the rightmost pillar). The building is a popular place to study for UIA students, so one afternoon I also found myself there, thought it quaint that the plaque had such a "glaring" grammatical error, then corrected myself with a dictionary later. While trying to find a picture of the plaque--in vain--I discovered that it's not difficult to find other references to that "-ed" vs. "-t" construct from the time (everything from Masonic texts to new settler's constructions). Having been born several generations too late (and not grammar's bitch for the most part), I couldn't possibly comment on the dialect's influence...but they did put it on a rather important building for the time.

Still, I'm definitely not arguing for anything other than, e.g., swim/swam/swum. "Swimmed", to me, just sounds wrong--and in support of your BS call, it would appear the BBC agrees.

Clicking through, it appears that Mr. Conroy lets his personal feelings on morality override the legal system, which sets a precedent for tricky problems. From the wikipedia article you linked:

"Conroy and his wife, Paula Benson, have a daughter born in November 2006 with the assistance of an egg donor and a surrogate mother, both friends of the Conroys. The procedures were performed in New South Wales instead of their home state Victoria, where altruistic surrogacy is banned."

So, if I understand that right, if you DO come from, e.g., Japan, where your actions were legal, into Australia (yes, ignorance of the law is no excuse, that's not my point), you'll be held to a different standard by a man who went somewhere else to make what he wanted to do legal. Perhaps it's more an issue of federal (country) vs. state (territory) governments, but to me that seems like a fine line; furthermore, if he returned to his home state, aren't there usually laws for crossing a border in the commission of a crime?

In any case, while it once was, it appears to no longer be criminalised, on Feb 21, 2010. Oh, well that's okay then, right?

Counterproductive, but perhaps for another reason. The NYT ran an article on Dec 13th that indicated that AT&T's network is *better* than Verizon's, it's the iPhone's hardware that's the problem.

"Roger Entner, senior vice president for telecommunications research at Nielsen, said the iPhone’s “air interface,” the electronics in the phone that connect it to the cell towers, had shortcomings that “affect both voice and data.” He said that in the eyes of the consumer, “the iPhone has the nimbus of infallibility, ergo, it’s AT&T’s fault.” AT&T does not publicly defend itself because it will not criticize Apple under any circumstances, he said. AT&T and Apple both declined to comment on Mr. Entner’s assessments." and "The data seem incontrovertible: AT&T, while meeting 4,000 percent growth in data use, has acquitted itself quite nicely. But the company is saddled with an awful public image as the perennial laggard."

So...if I read the summary right...against a little article in the NYT...the plan is to attack AT&T with the exact devices that *cause* the problem, thereby proving that..I'm sorry...that seems an awful lot like stomping on the ground to teach it a lesson because you slipped on an ice patch.

Seriously, I skimmed through most of these comments and the responses seem to range from virtual machines to Linux, to separate accounts, to tell them to stuff themselves. Except, the author point out the desire to be polite and friendly, while at the same time apparently unwilling to go the Linux route. Isn't a VM or separate account just an extension of the latter? In other words, why should the author have to go to ANY lengths to accommodate these requests--when the real desire is to politely back off and not fulfill them? Handing over your personal laptop--no matter what your technical proficiency--is still handing over your personal laptop. One direct approach I might try is to talk to the school administrators about the problem and present it as an issue of the laptops not being within easy reach of the classroom(s). If they balk at this, you might--assuming your instructor has noticed the problem too--ask your teacher to submit a request to reserve the computer every day at class time, or make a formal request to block your PC at the firewall, but only during classtime. To put this another way, put in 15 minutes of elbow grease that puts a lot more work on them, and they'll come up with a solution you might not have considered. Further, you're no longer responsible for fulfilling the requests--which is the ultimate issue. In the end, it sounds like a big part of the issue is Internet access. You can always take the passive approach, too. Regardless of your laptop's OS--you can use a scheduled task to stop your network card 5 minutes into class (just in case you forgot something yourself), then start it up again just after class. You can just explain you're having problems with your networking...and when you want something off the Internet, big deal, you can call the super too. Besides...maybe when they discover you're no longer at their convenience, the class finds that someone has a smartphone.

Not true. Physical access to the machine is giving away your data, and BIOS passwords are easily circumvented. Ignoring Kevin Mitnick's example some time ago of accessing a locked laptop by simply plugging in a USB drive, in the time someone uses it in a classroom setting, it's not likely to be an issue. Not intending to imply you said something you didn't, I'm loathe to let this be mis-read to mean that separate accounts/even BitLocker applies to "leaving it with someone for any length of time," out of your sight.

That doesn't stop some people. I had a female roommate--and her Austrian boyfriend didn't understand why I didn't just "move out", so...--it can be a dominance thing to use/borrow other people's stuff. (I'll answer the author directly below)

"You're clicking too hard?" Clearly someone misunderstood this article. Though, if you're clicking the mice running around your apartment--especially to the point of repetitive strain injury--I think you have other issues to sort out.