The same is possible with a credit card - you can have your card maxed, get nailed with overage charges, declined transactions, etc. It's still a headache, but when I've had it happen to me I think I had the money restored within a few minutes of making the call.
They are. Protections are exactly the same (in the US at least.) You have protection from the moment that you learn of the problem, not when it happens.
Not that having your account drained doesn't suck, but your worst case scenario there isn't terrible unless you fail to check stuff and be responsible.
Unfortunately that's something of the lifecycle of online communities. Once they reach a critical mass people that probably shouldn't belong start congregating, sooner or later there seems to be a tipping point where things start racing down to the LCD of humor and insight. People start leaving and form another community.
HackerNews is surprising for the length of time it's managed to exist without turning into that. I have noticed that the quality of submissions has decreased over the past year.
What a fascinating concept. Not only can this potentially revolutionize the lives of millions of people, but the implications past that are staggering. If this was a standard option how many lives would be saved from the moment distractions? How many sleepy drivers would be saved from hurting themselves or others?
The next iteration of highways and freeways requires technology like this to happen. There's no reason that we can't travel much, much more quickly than we do currently and adapting cars to help prevent accidents and avoid the situations that cause them is a necessary catalyst.
How nice would it be to commute to work every day and avoid the traffic jams that plague cities?
This quote is one of my favorite Linus quotes ever. Bashing on Microsoft is such an 'in' thing to do and honestly it's so pointless. Many IT folk are stuck using their products for any of a number of reasons. Many of their products simply are the best fit for specific applications. It's so irritating to hear the constant Microsoft Sucks(tm) from people that either honestly know little about it or that bash unnecessarily. Every OS sucks, none are perfect.
The biggest gripe I have with that attitude is that it destroys the FOSS, Apple, and Linux movements. People that are new to the IT world don't have years of backgrounds with projects and are going to be picking up on the attitudes of the people already there as well as struggling through technical problems. If they're instantly exposed to a very negative attitude (towards themselves, others, or really anything) it's going to be a huge turnoff to whatever project it is. The negative/hateful attitude that a lot of people have towards Microsoft actively hurts the same cause that they're trying to help.
The other part of that is that with any social interaction someone that is constantly putting something down is perceived (usually rightfully so) as being insecure about their own inadequacies. I don't know about others, but Linux and Apple have both matured to the point that I'm quite comfortable quietly evangelizing and building others up, regardless of the OS choice.
It's time to relax guys, we finally have an atmosphere with the freedom to pick your own OS and to be happy with it. This is a GOOD time to be a nerd, and a fantastic time to share that passion and excitement with people from whatever background.
Besides, if there's someone to demonize, it's the people that don't take the time to secure their boxes. Those come from all distros/OS's and I'll gladly pass the pitchfork around for them!
I'm so glad to see other companies actually picking up the slack on space exploration. Hopefully they'll continue to pick up steam since it's looking like government funded exploration is more and more dead.
There's no reason that anyone under 30 today can't at least visit space cheaply in the future, unless we just give up.
Agreed. Many scientists can't even agree on the health benefits/drawbacks of foods like (cow) milk that we've ingested for centuries/millennium. Every other year for decades it's been called good or bad.
I have no interest in following health fads, until something is conclusive it's far too much energy (and indeed far too expensive) to try to play along. Most have a lifetime of a few months to a few years before they're discovered to be well-nigh worthless.
I'd rather invest time, energy, and money in my projects rather than trying to follow a diet. There's a lot of things to like in vegetarian diets, there's also a lot to like about meat (bacon anyone?)
This is an awesome thing. I can't see tech-savvy people switching to IE and keeping it unless they prefer it. All of the less-tech-savvy people out there that catch wind of this will upgrade to IE8 Goodbye IE6!!!
I too am impressed with Adam's character. He has managed to turn two very difficult lessons into something that shaped the rest of his life.
One of the lessons that I took from this is the value in learning lessons early on in life. He failed doing a small budget movie early-on in a spectacular manner which managed to help him avoid failing in a huge movie.
I also really liked how he related all of that to children, limits, and helping them grow.
Materials act differently under different conditions. Lots of pressure can make some materials very brittle or even softer. Brittle materials plus the weight/stress from the water currents involved could be what they are referring to.
I don't know the specifics of how the steel/iron/other compounds would react to that pressure but that's a guess.
Edit:
Other sources leave out the pressure part, it looks like the weight of the cable would be the issue. I guess it's also why we don't have a space elevator yet.
This is amazingly awesome. At the end it talks about how this device connects to the surface using cabling thinner than a human hair. Technology just blows my mind.
My favorite choice is probably MythTV + Boxee for a nicer front-end/social media application. The Mac stuff is nice, but you're locked into a single hardware piece. MythTV + Boxee let you add/modify your hardware as you see fit, select the OS and all that.
Borrowing someone else's car is probably more hassle than it's worth. You'll have to deal with insurance, maintenance and there's problems, you risk that relationship.
You assume that older cars are cheap and newer ones aren't. Get something reliable (good engine, good transmission) that's ugly or damaged in some non-functional way. I've had friends that have driven $500 cars all their lives and had them work. The secret is finding something that nobody else wants for non-functional reasons.
Just jump in and try. You'll probably fail a few times. You learn and get better and try again. Eventually you'll get it. Or not, in which case time to try something new!