We still have a drive-in a couple of miles from me in Southwest Ohio. A couple of months ago they completed their transition to digital. Always a decent amount of cars there and if it's a bigger opening, there's a line of cars waiting to get in. They do things like regular theaters, getting first run movies and even doing the midnight premieres on Thursdays of the really big names. Yeah Drive-ins are dying, but there is a very viable business model out there. We have one right here in Ohio.

Judge Ruehlman brought up this up in his ruling:

"The device was not calibrated by a certified police officer, but rather it was calibrated by Optotraffic, the corporation that owns the device," Judge Ruehlman wrote. "Remember, Optotraffic has a financial stake in the game."

There is also the issue of due process. When you challenge the ticket and exercise your right to "face your accuser" in court, your accused becomes a printed report. That means you have no way to cross-examine. So now we get into a serious debate of rather the process involving these cameras is legal or not.

It wouldn't be shocking to see an appeals court hold this up and I could see it going all the way to the state Supreme Court, if not higher. The problem for the proponents of this case is that they are strongly outnumbered, and not just by speeders. Today a group of area lawmakers are unveiling their legislation to make the cameras illegal in Ohio. But I could see judges siding with the cameras on this, especially if the company that operates the cameras gives decides to give a nice donation to the judges re-election campaign. Welcome to our new democracy, that is much more like an auction than ever before.

This wasn't limited to sites that use Facebook Connect though. It also affected sites that have the Facebook Like button on it, as that apparently relies on connect. So you think you got something really simple on your site that an outage like this shouldn't effect, yet it does.

And yet our Congress has legislated away any power for agencies like the CDC to really look into gun related injuries and death. http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1487470 Makes you wonder why they take the time to write such legislation if there is "nothing to see here" in those reports.

Actually there is http://govtrack.us/ . You can bulk download from there. They even give you instructions on rsyncing all their data, plus have a rather nice API available.

Now I'm going to be up all night, contemplating how to get more sleep from being in a sleep deprived field.

Well unless the housecleaning service comes in and see's "clean" on your working tree and thinks that means they should click it.

If they don't know the simple commands, the best one to teach them is ALT-F4!

Even the cheapest bourbon will run you about $40 a gallon and that's not counting all the added taxes they put on alcohol. Yeah I'll stick with gas and get 10 gallons for the price of one of his gallons. OTOH, it does throw a kink into the cops saying they smell alcohol. "Hey officer - it's the car!"

It's amazing how FOX has taken a 180 on violent video games. Back in 2005, going after violent video games was "against the free market" per FOX. Of course that was when Hillary Clinton was trying to get FEPA through. In 2006 violent video games were also great per FOX! Of course they were talking about Left Behind, and I guess a bullet in the head to a non-believer is fine and dandy (and even Christian like) per FOX. Oh and where does this doctor get her claims about the increase in rapes? According to the DOJ, the number of rapes have had a rapid decline since the early 90's. Maybe we should investigate Mario and Luigi to see if they had an impact on the high level of rapes back then? Mario did force himself down some tight holes after all.

Don't you just love the excuses? Imagine if in the 60's everyone was saying "go to the moon? That's impossible!"

So Comcast, who is also the largest Cable provider in the country, is putting the squeeze on Netflix, who is one of the biggest threats to the cable industry. If it walks like a duck and it talks like a duck.....

Well that is unless you put your son in a balloon and let him go. Then the media just loves it!

They do this on everything, not just PS3. I had to run out and buy a new DirectTV receiver a couple of years ago and went to Best Buy. I grabbed the receiver off the shelf and went to pay. The cashier then told me I couldn't buy it without having them install it. I explained to them that I have had DirectTV installed for 10 years, including upgrading the dish. The install and all upgrades had been done by me and changing a few cables for a receiver is a cake walk. They insisted it was the policy of DirectTV. Finally I went to a different retailer, got the unit and paid for it with no problem. I contacted DirectTV the next day to ask them about this "policy" and they said there is no such thing. Morale of the story - when Best Buy tells you that you have to do something or they don't have what you want, just leave. There's already a well documented history of Best Buy doing this kind of crap and they seem intent on keeping it up.