This hits the nail on the head exactly. In past years, there have been multiple (apparently serious) proposals in the UK to move to year-round DST. People seriously want to change their clocks so that it no longer matches an obvious and unmissable astrological phenomenon that they see every day.

Nobody ever seems to point out that this is functionally identical to just getting up an hour earlier every day. Instead, it seems that people would genuinely prefer to still get up an hour earlier anyway, but deliberately set their clocks wrong to pretend that they're not getting up earlier. There's some bizarre mental contortions going on there.

I can't say I'm opposed to this.

The circumstances that led to me getting a bit squished at 15 months old aren't exactly uncommon, bad parenting, or negligence. I obviously have no recollection of the events, but, to make a long story short, my father was driving and was certain - had, in fact, visually confirmed less than 60 seconds earlier - that I was in the backyard playing with my siblings and other neighborhood kids under my mother's supervision and far away from the driveway.

Well, apparently, I was a sneaky little bugger back then. I got away and managed to get away and end up right behind the car. He hopped in the car, turned it on, and was pulling out to go to the store. I was obviously too short to be seen from the driver's seat, regardless of whether he checked over his shoulder or in the mirror (he states, of course, that he did, and he would've had to to get out of the driveway). He didn't hear a "thunk" as he knocked me over, but quickly realized he'd run over something and hopped out of the car to see his 15 month old son screaming in an awful lot of pain.

A lighting fast ride to the hospital later, it was discovered that my injuries were serious, but not life-threatening. The accident had broken my hip in two places. Thanks to being only 15 months old, I quickly recovered and was back to walking in a few months. I suffer no ill effects whatsoever now, and x-rays from two years after the accident couldn't find any damage.

Granted, all of the above happened back in the 80's, when cars were quite different. However, my injuries could have easily been far, far worse. A few inches would be the difference between having a funny story to tell people and being in a wheelchair the rest of my life - or dead. I imagine most of these injuries and deaths involve small children, who either die before they hit elementary school or often have to live with some rather severe injuries the rest of their lives.

As you can imagine, I'm pretty careful now about backing out of my own driveway, especially now that I've got a family of my own. A camera would at least let me quickly and easily see things that I just can't see from the driver's seat. It'll be a while before I buy a car new enough to have one, of course, but it's good to know these are coming down in price.

I tend to lean toward the libertarian side on a great many things... but I'm OK with this.

My employer provides a "smart" phone - a BlackBerry Bold. It's... terrible for anything other than very light browsing and, of course, its core business functions (not that it performs many of these terribly well, either, but that's for another post). The phone's best feature, by far, is that it's free. And, as I have a free smart phone with the basic necessities, I'd rather not shell out my own cash just to have a second phone to carry around. In my case, an extra $75/month+ is a lot to pay for a better interface and some additional capability.

Enter the iPod Touch. For $300 and no monthly bill, I get access to all of the apps I wanted, a pocketable device I can use anywhere there's WiFi, a lot of music, a few videos, a decent point 'n shoot camera, etc.

It's not that I haven't considered tablets; I like my Nexus 7 a lot, but the iPod Touch is far more portable.

Well, as a Mormon and generally conservative-ish Linux user, my response is *yawn*.

A liberal Atheist attacks a conservative candidate and his religious beliefs during a major election cycle.

Boy.

Didn't see that one coming.

Oddly, it doesn't seem to affect my ability to use of Linux. Huh.

It looks like my Windows and OS X machines may have been developed, at least in some part, by people with beliefs similar to those of Mr. Trovalds. Those seem to keep working, too. Weird.

I guess the main feeling I have on the matter is one of disappointment. I expected much more sophistication out of Mr. Torvalds' arguments rather than bringing up what was quite clearly a joke (granted, one delivered with Romeny's android tendencies) and making this a point of argument. Of course, it's not like the Romney campaign doesn't deserve such attacks given its ridiculous focus on the "you didn't build that" line (sorry, Romney - while Obama was inelegant, I believe his intent was pretty clear, and it wasn't to say that business owners did not "build" their businesses).

Mr. Torvalds doesn't come across as the brilliant man he is - he looks just like any other partisan. An unhealthy portion of the American population already seems to be basing its vote in this election on stupid little soundbites. I hate to think that someone who I otherwise have great respect for would go for such a cheap shot.

I realize the issue here is alerts regarding terrorism, but the broader issue is the Emergency Alert System.

If a message ever did go out on the EAS as it stands today, I'd probably never know about it. I don't have cable TV and very rarely watch any TV over the air (thank you, Netflix, Hulu Plus, and Amazon video). I don't listen to the radio unless I happen to be in the car and without my iPod. I spend far more time on Facebook on any given day than I do plugged into any medium which uses the EAS - and I really don't spend much time at all on Facebook. Reverse 911 is a step in the right direction but I frequently leave my phone on vibrate or silent in the evenings.

While there are certainly opportunities for abuse, this is a step in the right direction. But a fairly small one.

Loitering aircraft like this can have a lot of uses. A close cousin of my wife did a great deal of his graduate work on the use of unmanned aircraft for the purpose of fire spotting. The idea was to keep a small fleet of cheap, low maintenance, long-life aircraft over areas that experienced frequent forest fires in the summer months. The quicker you spot the blaze, the easier it is to fix, and a few cheap UAVs outfitted with sensors (the version they were working on actually didn't require any human interaction) is a lot cheaper and potentially more effective than manning ranger stations.

Where all the posters are above average... or Chewbacca, apparently.

I've lived (not backpacked, lived) in South America for about two and a half years - the slums on the outskirts of Buenos Aires for two years, a couple of months in Lima and three months in a nice spot in Santiago.

The IT issues have been covered well enough. Here are a few additional ideas:

- Ditch the nice, expensive backpack and luggage. Go to the Army surplus store and buy your luggage there. Or something like this for walking around and day to day use. Avoid military emblems, but definitely go for that "beat to hell" look. Big expensive North Face bags draw the eyes of thieves. Dusty old rucksacks don't. The same goes for looking like a walking, talking North Face commercial with your clothing.
- Learn the language. Spanish and Portuguese are the obvious two. Know the basics, and be sure you can ask directions.
- Check visa requirements for each country and register with the State Department to receive travel and security updates on each country. These are immensely useful for avoiding difficult situations.
- Understand what the embassy can do for you. If you get arrested, mugged, or run into most problems overseas, the answer is "not much".
- Be VERY careful with taxis. "Express" kidnappings are quite common through most of South America - haggle for taxis and always, always use a service if you can, just to be on the safe side. Most major shopping centers and many big commercial bus stops have their own services. They cost about double what others charge, but it's worth it to avoid getting robbed.
- Ignore touts and always make your lodging arrangements in advance.
- Keep your eyes open and, if you can, travel in a group.

Have a lot of fun and do me a favor - walk down 9 de Julio while eating a good Havana alfajor ;-)

I have never met or even heard of anyone who uses Second Life, with the exception of journalists who seem to think it's the best example of an MMO to report on online gaming with.

I don't think the main point of the outrage is that he lost his job, but rather that the journalist in question violated his website's own privacy rules and then gloated about getting the guy in trouble. I'd simply expect better from a journalist (although, in retrospect, with people like UK tabloid journalists and Fox News I'm not sure why), and I think that violating someone's privacy and then gloating about it is outrageous.

I do hope they fire this journalist, but I somehow doubt it.

Aside from the fact that adequate grounds exist for military jurisdiction based on the Pentagon portion of the attack - and the fact that the act KSM is most likely to be charged with conspiracy, which certainly occurred outside of the U.S. - the analysis is far more complex if one has a basic understanding of criminal procedure. The very high standard of proof required to convict in a criminal court, and the complexity of the rules of evidence - particularly when considering the difficulty of trying a conspiracy charge. Hell, as a law student, I spent untold hours just looking at hearsay and its numerous exceptions. Not to mention the issue of evidence extracted during and after water boarding sessions and other interrogation

I obviously haven't seen the prosecution's evidence in full, but if this were a more traditional criminal charge, I'd wager that they would have one hell of a tough row to hoe. Keep in mind that, if the law is applied as it should be, a jury may only consider evidence that has been admitted before the Court. If vital bits of evidence are excluded--a scenario that is certainly feasible--can the prosecutors successfully prove the elements of the crime KSM is charged with? If not, in a real trial, he would have to be let free.

Of course, this isn't going to be a real trial.

Assume that KSM is acquitted. There is obviously no chance he'll ever be released, nor could he be released onto U.S. territory at all, of course, under the Immigration and Naturalization Act. A real criminal trial would carry with it the vagaries and risks associated with any criminal trial, no matter how "air tight" a case is (e.g., O.J. Simpson), and the possibility of an acquittal and release.

I fear what we have here with the upcoming KSM trial is more of a show trial. The conviction, execution, and virtually pre-determined, or at least that is how Obama is treating it in statements to the press (as a lawyer and former law professor, he should know better, as he acknowledged with his subsequent ass covering).

Aside from some of the more obvious questions (Why a criminal trial for only this handful? Why are military tribunals "good enough" for the rest? Why has Obama shifted support from the military tribunals he once supported specifically for KSM to the civilian courts? How will classified evidence be handled? Will KSM truly be given full access to all the evidence against him, including names of informants?) are the more larger concerns. Why a show trial for this person? Why now? Will show trials become the norm for the particularly loathsome among us? For those it is more politically convenient for the president to try via show trial? Is this the direction we would like to go in?

If this were to be a real trial, it would be a demonstration of the Obama administration's willingness to take unacceptable risks on national security, particularly since a much friendlier venue is allowed under law and some of the trickier, thornier aspects of the law can be avoided. Instead, it may prove to be a perversion of the criminal justice system, which has rules that are much better established and protect every single American citizen. Why open the door to show trials?

poppycock, any attempt to label an audio format as poorer because it uses 'discrete bits' (aka a digital distribution) rather than an analogue format is just deluded, and misrepresents the science of audio

Everything's hated by someone, and I'm fairly sure the Lisbon Treaty doesn't give the EU "carte blanche". I freely admit I know relatively little about the Lisbon Treaty, but I do know that unjustified hyperbole isn't going to help your argument.

Granted, and definitely interesting, but you could only get out the amount of energy the black-hole has stored in angular momentum. For a microscopic black-hole this would be insignificant.

Short answer: because the escape velocity is greater than the speed of light inside the Schwartzschild radius, matter cannot travel outwards, but also cannot stay stationary (to prove this properly you need some fairly complex general relativity). Because of this it can only head towards the centre of mass, so the matter all converges on a single point. As the escape velocity only increases as one gets closer to the centre, this forces all the matter into a single point of spacetime, the singularity.

This is, at least, what general relativity tells us. However, it's impossible to know for sure, as one of the properties of black-holes is that it is considered impossible for information to escape the event horizon.