Not to mention the following, "This may be the Achilles heel of forensics is that getting external cooperation is difficult at best, and often impossible."

I have no idea where to start with parent's post, but I'll just deal with this.

The string of characters ".9999..." *means* the limit of (9/10 + 9/100 + ... 9/10^n) as n tends to infinity. The partial (finite) sums form a sequence that indeed converges to a number, which is defined to be the limit of the series, and that number is 1... the value of the given sum. What does "converge" to 1 mean? It means you can get arbitrarily close to 1 by going out sufficiently far in the series.

Also, I'd be curious to know what you think the result of (1 - .999...) would be.

If being offensive (for whatever reason and to whomever) is part of what determines that which shouldn't be considered "free speech", then "free speech" isn't very valuable.

What about the environmental trade-offs inherent in spending time considering this sort of environmental impact versus spending time considering more significant environmental and conservational issues?

While I certainly agree with the sentiments of those who've complained, I don't really want yet another FCC regulation or the like. I think the appropriate people to complain to would be the networks. I am not so naive as to think that would necessarily solve the problem, but that is at least where the problem is. Gripe at them, or perhaps push for a TV (hardware) feature that would accomplish what you want.

It seems that Mr. Kappos's statement would have been perfectly fine without the word "green":

"Every day an important tech innovation is hindered from coming to market is another day we harm our planet and another day lost in creating businesses and jobs. Applications in this pilot program will see a significant savings in pendency, which will help bring innovations to market more quickly."

So what exactly is the logical derivation of your claim in part (A)?

Once I read "HAL", I couldn't help but read "Strong AI" as "Strong Al" (that is, AL) and "Weak AI" as "Weak Al" (again, AL). ...all this even after reading (for several minutes) text that discussed AI.

While I'm hardly a Twitter devotee, I don't think it's fair to measure the value of Twitter's service during the Iran election fallout by whether or not it actually led to a regime change.

Why on Earth is the parent modded "Troll"? Please people, and I know this is said here quite often, but troll != disagree.

It's merely iLegal.

Your point is well-taken, but a subject's noteworthiness does not depend so much upon its literal existence in the real world.

Anyone know (I don't) whether Coolio asked permission from Stevie Wonder for incorporating core elements of one of his songs ("Pastime Paradise") in making "Gangsta's Paradise"?

You bring up some good points, but I didn't agree with this:

Considering this quote in the summary,

I don't really think that's a very fair characterization.

"Top * Lists" aren't necessarily unassailable data, but mathematicians, statisticians, and actuaries can do pretty well.