The FBI would probably take a "wire-fraud" interest in interstate transactions, assuming you can pry them away from anti-terrorism duty.

Screw the tin-foil hats! I'm going for a tin-foil body suit!!

Seriously, even with the effects of the inverse-square law, it's enough to make me wonder about living anywhere near a 100,000 W TV or Radio tower, let alone using a cellphone.

This story seems to crop up every year or two. Must be the anniversary date or something. http://www.firehouse.com/news/2001/6/11_bulb.html

There's an 80 year bulb in Oklahoma, too. http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Quirks/2008/02/20/81-year-old_light_bulb_going_strong/8286/

Must be something about Firehouses.

I can see the O.P. is of a certain age. For some reason all of those songs are from the 1970's.

The 70's were a great time for lyrics in rock, so it isn't a surprise that there are some uses of excessive force. For every Don McLean there is a Dan Fogelberg. For every Bruce Springsteen there is a Terry Jacks.

Taking an example: Midnight at the Oasis - the vocal performance is actually pretty good, if a little high-pitched. The lyrics are terrible "...send your camel to bed...", "...cactus is our friend...". Just what are these people doing? We may be in for a similar "flowering" in the 2010's, since the economy is looking very '70's (stagflation, anyone?) these days.

For my own list. I have to say that "Knock Three Times" beats out "Tie a Yellow Ribbon" for bottom fishing in my list. The banging and clanging are so gimmicky (and if you've ever seen the video of Tony Orlando and Dawn miming the pipe banging etc., it's even cornier). "Seasons in the Sun" and "Billy Don't be a Hero" are in there, too. So sad that these songs came out the year I copped my first feel. It kind of sours the memory.

Some more food for thought: What about Freddy Fender's "Before the Next Teardrop Falls". Or is that exempt because it's country? That insidious suicide song, "Alone Again, Naturally" by Gilbert O'Sullivan? The unapologetic sexism of "Let's make Lots of Money" by the Pet Shop Boys? The completely wordless "Tarzan Boy" by Baltimora? "Loving You" by Minnie Ripperton, more for the lyrics than the soprano (howling/virtuosity) she displays. Jewel's "Pieces of You" disc has a few candidates, too (Foolish Games, Pieces of You).

@#55 "...septic and virile..."

Now there's a phrase that will stay with me for quite a long time. I'm sure you meant "vile", but this version conjures up images of my "favorite" politicians still sexually harassing the interns while in the terminal stages of an STD. Which is a perfect metaphor for the state of the federal government.

#59 Beautifulmonster: Do I know you? I grew up in San Juan in the 1970s and my sisters were in the 80s. Your home environment sounds like you were in a North American expat family, since the locals were a lot less paranoid than you describe. If you went to CCS/CPS you probably know my mother. She was the school librarian at the elementary school.

Main article:
Well 9 years old is an interesting age. An 11 year old should definitely be able to get around by their self, a 10 year most likely, but a 9 year old is kind of like a 13 year old in that they find smart and interesting ways to make dumb mistakes. So I certainly wouldn't send my 9 year old kid out on her own to do something that she hadn't done previously under adult supervision. It sounds like our lead columnist is fine, since I'm sure she's carted her boy around the subway system with her on previous occasions.

For kids 8/9 to 12, my compromise with the paranoiacs and their government backers is the buddy system. Send your kids out in a group, or find a like-minded parent and let your kids go out together on these ventures. Even if the worst does happen, a) two targets are much harder to subdue than just one, b) assuming at least one child is saved you have a witness who can still phone home.

Interesting, the license says it's for UV/IR capabilities enabled in the firmware. That sounds like it's possible to hack the firmware of one of their regular cameras to provide the same capability. Or do they have a EULA for their regular cameras that prohibits modifications? Is reverse-engineering a legitimate business use? :)

Has anyone checked to see if the PDF is DRMed? The PDF could be made unreadable (at least by Adobe software) in a couple of weeks/months/years.

#2, #8: Maybe I'm just weird, but I haven't had a problem reading novel-length works on a laptop. Most of my recent book purchases have been RTF or HTML downloads from baen.com. I think some of this perception of unpleasantness may be the limited formatting options available eBook readers, but with RTF or HTML I can just format the whole document to my preferences if I don't like the publisher's choice. I'll admit it works best on a widescreen monitor where you can put your word-processor in dual-page mode, but it's not unpleasant at all. A laptop isn't as portable as a paperback, but it's more portable than 10 paperbacks. I have shelves of paperbacks now sitting quietly on my HD and/or CD-ROM.

This is a loss for all of us.

It made me wonder: Was he the last of the old-school SF writers of the Campbell era (1930's-50's), or is there still a survivor out there that I'm forgetting? Christopher Anvil wrote for Campbell in the 1950's, but he had barely gotten started. Brian Aldiss started about the same time, but he wasn't really a traditional hard-SF writer.

Time to hit wikipedia...

#11: Oh yeah. With a closer like that, he would've been a sure candidate for a Darwin Award.