Unfortunately, most people have the same impulse as you and your family: if they don't recognize the person in the photo, out it goes. What you need to realize is that in most cases it's not who the people in the photographs are that is important, it's what is behind them. The vast majority of lost information about the past is because no one at the time thought it was worth saving.

Perhaps I was too harsh. PHB is an acronym for "Pointy Haired Boss." Although someone reading Slashdot and not getting a Dilbert reference...

Whoosh!

Whoosh!

Yeah, I've noticed this ridiculously shallow anti-glasses bias regarding 3D: "I don't want to wear stupid glasses to watch a movie," or "the glasses look dorky." Having worn glasses all my life, I strongly suspect that these are the same sort of troglodytes that used to call people like me "four-eyes" and "Mr. Peabody." What is wrong with glasses other than they apparently offend the delicate sensibilities of closeted bullies?

I reluctantly cancelled my Google+ account because it actually removed functionality from Picasa, which I use almost every day. If you have a G+ account, you can no longer upload images from the program to your Picasa web albums; you are forced to upload to G+'s dumbed-down image gallery instead. You are given no choice whatsoever; if you have G+ the only way to get content onto web albums is if you happen to know the URL of your albums (a link is rather pointedly NOT provided), go there in a browser and upload the images using the web album interface. The only way to go back to uploading from the program is to cancel your G+ account. I didn't want to, but Picasa is more important to me than Google+. I generally love Google, but this was a dick move.

A short while ago Google changed Picasa (which used to be a great photo management tool) so that if you have a Google+ account you can no longer simply upload your images to your Picasa web account. Instead, it forces you to add the images to Google+, and you have zero choice in the matter unless you delete your Google+ account. The main problem, other than the privacy issues, is that the Google+ image gallery tools have been moronified to the point of worthlessness. You have to actually go to your Picasa web URL to do anything useful with your own images, and they don't even provide a link to your own galleries from Google+. I've been an apologist for Google for many years, but this Google+ monomania is unacceptable. I wish I'd never signed up -- I had no idea I'd be severely limiting the usefulness of the web apps I use every day.

Interesting definition: "an interpretation of what is not human or personal in terms of human or personal characteristics". Does this apply, however, when describing a physiological state that an animal happens to share with humans? Is describing a cat's experience of hunger as "hunger" an anthropomorphism? What about emotions, such as fear, contentment, anger? I don't think anyone will deny that most mammals, at least, experience these emotions. Why not mirth? Given recent discoveries in animal cognition, maybe the definition of anthropomorphism needs to be revised.

If she just wanted attention she would come in to be petted; she's certainly not shy in that regard. This is a deliberate ploy to get me to repeatedly stand there holding the door open like an idiot. When she tires of the game, that's when she comes into the room. I have a child, and it's not the same behavior at all. I'm not overly given to anthropomorphism, as I've been around veterinarians and vet techs most of my life. Still, it appears to me to be my cat playing a prank on me.

I would say that my cat's schtick of frantically crying and scratching at the door to be let in and then casually sauntering away when I open it would qualify. She usually does this at least three times before consenting to enter, and seems quite amused by the whole thing.

Maybe if we contained the helium from the nighttime sun in some sort of container, like a huge plastic bag, and used an abundant substance like sand as a weight, we could just drag it down to the surface of the Earth.

The objectional word list is hilarious if you imagine it being read by Porky Pig.

Because Google makes a distinction between the car being driven autonomously, which is the scenario which you describe, and manually driving the car, in which the car is driven just like any other Prius. Until more facts come in, what is the point of this scare-mongering conspiracy theory? What is YOUR agenda?

I've heard them referred to by both names. The Fox Venice Theater in Venice, California had one, but the staff didn't know what it was. They thought it was for smokers. I explained to them that at the time, people smoked absolutely everywhere, including theaters; they didn't need a separate room. (When I was a kid I slammed my hand in a car door, and the doctor that examined me was smoking while he did it. Of course, this was a small Texas town that still had one of those insanely dangerous fluoroscopes in the shoe store.)

Let me amend that. Look up '"crying booth" theater'.

About "shouting fire in a crowded theater": back in the day people really would, and did, stampede to get out of a theater if someone yelled "fire!" The reason is that at the time movies were on nitrate stock, which burned fast and hot, and if a fire broke out in the projection booth and you were anywhere near it you were literally toast. One theater I worked at had automatic steel shutters designed to slam shut over the projection windows if a fire was detected, so that the audience had a chance of getting out in time. It was assumed that the projectionist was never going to make it out alive anyway. Theaters used to have all sorts of odd things you don't see anymore. Look up "crying booths" sometime.