A patient prankster could make your phone unusable for a good long while. Similarly, setting your phone somewhere overnight that periodically tries to unlock the phone would mean you couldn't use it for 16 hours or so.

I had Prey installed on my son's laptop, which was stolen along with a bunch of other things. After I told Prey it was stolen, we got a geolocation hit in a nearby town with the name of the hotel in the WiFi. The local police went out at midnight and collected it all for us. We drove over in the morning and brought them brownies.

Sometimes I run defrag and delete my temp folders when weird issues show up. It seems to work enough times that I keep doing it. I can't tell if that's a fact-based decision or just superstition.

I recently had a great experience with police. We had a break-in, and all the laptops were stolen. Fortunately we had Prey on one of them, and it tracked the thieves to a hotel in a nearby town. The local police investigated and recovered almost everything. We drove over the next day and brought them brownies.

Looking at the demographics (PDF), it looks like 222 have law degrees and 24 have medical degrees.

It's my understanding that dust devils have done a pretty good job of keeping the solar panels clean over the years.

A similar thing happened to me. My finance was signing my daughter up for a game when she put in her actual age. This purged her account completely, which was really annoying. I drilled into everyone's heads that they should always lie about their age on the Internet, which goes against my general policy of honesty.

The moral of the story is that laws have unintended consequences.

It looks like aluminum likely doesn't cause alzheimer's. There was also some evidence that high doses of zinc can cause problems.
On the other hand, a recent study suggests that too much zinc might be the problem. In this laboratory experiment, zinc caused beta amyloid from cerebrospinal fluid -- the fluid that bathes the brain -- to form clumps similar to the plaques of Alzheimer's disease.

My general rule of thumb is to stay physically active, eat well, and stay mentally sharp. Mega doses of whatever likely aren't going to help much.

My mother in law is currently dying of cancer, in Oregon, with probably a few weeks to live. She's pretty depressed about it, though isn't considering suicide. My personal goal is to have her take the right medication so that she's as pain-free and comfortable as possible. Hospice is also covering 100% of all medical fees.

I guess what I'm saying is that legislating who can or can't commit suicide based on depression isn't necessarily the solution. Taking care of people so that they can be as high-functioning, pain-free, and financially secure is perhaps a more practical solution.

Neverwinter Nights can be picked up for $10 and runs on older machines. There is a huge amount of content out there, though the engine is a bit dated, people have made lots of things.

Minecraft is the mainstay in our household, perfect for a ten year-old. Build, explore, mine, and create your own world.

We had a good time with Trine, and up to three can play. It's a pretty game, though hooking up multiple mice and keyboards to a PC can be tricky.

There is certainly value with long-term projects in education (I have a master's degree in biology education but am not currently teaching).

At the same time, I think there's immense value in giving regular feedback to students. I'm most fond of unified smaller projects which lead up to larger projects, with guidance along the way. Imaging starting a year-long course by saying "Everyone, build a content management system!" and not providing any indication of how they're doing until the end.

Wyden to Block Telecom Bill Without Net Neutrality(2006)
Protecting mobile privacy(now)

I got to vote for him too.

This is my great-great-great-grandfather. He has had his head replaced twice and his, erm, "handle" replaced three times. Grandad is a randy old gentleman.

I used to recommend AVG, and have since switched to telling family members to use Windows Security Essentials. AVG isn't the lightweight, unobtrusive piece of software it used to be.

It could also mean that panspermia happens (life seeding earth), but that there's not just a single type of life floating around in space. I can envision a universe full of bacteria that make their way into assorted planetary niches every once in awhile.