Sorry, wrong figures. The probability is 0.0000000071 (1 in 140 million) for 3 in 36 persons. Not much difference for 3 or more persons.

The probability for 3 or more persons in 10000 is still only 0.08 (1 in 12)

#38, Teresa

I need someone to figure the odds for me. If thirty-six people have posted comments in a thread, what are the odds of three of them having a condition that affects one person in ten thousand?

Hmm, the unexpected results of combinatorial statistics ...

The odds of exactly 3 people having the condition is 0.22 (ie 1 in 5)

The odds of 3 or more people having the condition is much higher 0.712 (about 3 in 4)

The odds of nobody having the condition is only 0.0225 (2 in 100)

Synchronicity. Just last week, I saw an Indian movie on TV. The hero is a cop whose wife died in child birth. Years later, the child is in a car with the nanny and driver. She's very thirsty and begs for a drink. Nanny tells the driver to stop, and buys a packet from a road side stall. Unknown to them, they vendor gave them the wrong packet. There's the normal one, and the "special" which is filled with some alcoholic drink (I'm not sure what), sold surreptitiously only to "regular" customers.

The child ends up in hospital. Father rushes over, and the doctor tells him she has alcohol in her system. Does the state take the daughter away from our hero? No. Does our hero blame the nanny? No.

Dad soon finds out that there's a syndicate that sells alcoholic drinks disguise as soft drinks. He catches the vendor, beats him up, puts him in jail, and threatens to kill him, even going so far as to pretend to execute another prisoner (actually a police officer in disguise) in front of him. All this to get him to rat on the big boss.

Note: I'm not sure if this sort of thing happens normally in India, but in Indian movies, it is common for police brutality to be applauded as a way to punish the bad guys, to get confessions, etc.

Over here in Malaysia, there's this thing called Mobile Money http://www.mobile-money.com/ It seemed to be a great idea. Launched a couple of years ago, it still has not taken off. Basically, the idea was to eliminate credit card fraud by tying transactions to your mobile phone.

When you apply for your "credit card", you register your mobile phone number. You then get a 6 digit one-time-use PIN via SMS. There's no physical card, the phone is your card. To make a purchase, give the shop your PIN. They phone Mobile Money's IVR, keys in your PIN, and the computer tells them if the transaction is successful. You then get SMS notification, and a new PIN. Web transactions works the same way.

There is another mode of operation. You give the merchant your mobile phone number. Mobile Money SMS you for approval, and you reply yes or no. The IVR then calls the merchant to tell them the transaction has been approved.

This eliminates many problems with credit cards. The merchant does not have to have a credit card terminal. They just use the telephone they already have in the shop. This is also great for one-person web stores that have low transaction volumes. The customer cannot repudiate the transaction. For the merchants, "chargebacks" will be thing of the past. Because it is more secure, Mobile Money can afford to charge the merchant a lower % than normal credit cards (especially for online transactions).

For the customer, the merchant cannot make multiple charges to your credit card once they have your credit card number, and they cannot charge whatever amount they like. And you get SMS notification on every transaction.

It's a pity it didn't catch on. Seems like a good idea. Mobile Money isn't dead yet, but it isn't going anywhere. Not even in the tiny Malaysian market, much less world wide. There are two big problems. They are competing against big established players like Visa and Mastercard. It's not built on top of existing credit cards, but as an alternative to them.

It's also a chicken-and-egg problem. The big merchants are not signing up because there are not many customers. The customers are not signing up because the big shops are not supporting it. Just a very long list of small stores. Though they managed to sign up two big banks, their parent company does not have enough muscle to push it through to get wide adoption.

#2, The "gravity annulling devices" do not have to be anti-gravity machines (we haven't seen any evidence of anti-gravity yet). They can be kept aloft with dark energy. We cannot create dark energy just yet, but hey, we still have 9,991 years to work on it. :)

#3, You don't have to wait until past the heat death of the universe. In Charles Stross's Accelerando http://www.accelerando.org/ when that happens, the current generation already born today is still living. It all depends on whether you believes Bill Joy or Ray Kurzweil.

With platinum woven into the cloth, would it protect against tasers?

Many of us have stuff like IM clients, browsers (with cookies), software that "phones home", etc, that leaves the IP address in the logs of some server somewhere. I run the servers for my office, where some of these services keeps these logs. So assuming we have this list of IP addresses, I am wondering how feasible is it for us (or the police) to approach the ISP to trace their logs with this IP address and comes up with a physical address of the thief. I have not actually tested this because, well, none of our computers have been stolen yet. Not that I'm actually hoping for it to happen. Just wondering how effective this method would be as a defense against theft.

You've all got it wrong. The reason the cars may be safe or unsafe is because you're all driving too fast. If the speed limit were reduced to 10mph (that's 15km/h to the rest of us non-Americans), I'm sure road fatalities will drop immediately to zero. You'd be saving 100,000 lifes every year in America alone. Millions worldwide. Think about it.

We're not quite ready for lab meat yet. Because of the need to feed it with serum, it kinds of defeats the entire purpose. But how about a special breed of animal that can be harvested without killing it?

When a mosquito feeds on me, it does not eat all of me and kill me. Why can't we cut a little meat from the animal, let it grow back, and repeat. Though the animal has a brain, we could anesthesize it before cutting; or it could simply be engineered to not have nerves in the body part we plan to harvest.

We're not actually killing the animal. It would be kind of like harvesting wool from sheep. This reminds me of a story about a race of intelligent, pacifist, giant lizards; with tails that can detach like geckos' tails. The humans periodically eat their king's tail (which of course does not kill him), as a way to humiliate them, and to show their dominance.

Forget throwing babies off a tower. How about throwing adults off the tower? Those wimpy trust exercises where you fall backward at ground level needs a slight modification. If you truly trust your mates, you'll jump off the tower and they will catch you in a little blanket 20m below.

An additional advantage is that this will create really tight teams. Those who don't trust their team mates will chicken out. Those disliked by their team mates will go splat, and thereby be culled.

Perhaps we are wrong to fight for privacy? Perhaps we should give it all up. Completely. But fairly (more on this below). Chip every single person at birth. Sensors all over the country track your every movement down to the nearest cm. Every single second, every single day. The police will like this. Makes it much easier to solve crimes, you can narrow down the suspect list.

However it must be fair. If the government can track my every movement, I should have access to all this information too. I should be able to see the movement history of the PM, every politician, every police officer, my neighbours, every one. No exception. All these data should be publicly available to everyone. No filtering because of "security". It's either all or nothing. Or else you end up with a police state. Anyone who fudges the data gets their head chop off for treason. That will make a truly open society.

BTW: #24 Nil should read Cory's short story, Scroogle. http://www.radaronline.com/from-the-magazine/2007/09/google_fiction_evil_dangerous_surveillance_control_1.php

#64, Sean Blueart, who buys 23K gold leaf on credit.

Good for you that they trust you to buy on credit, but no, that doesn't count as an honor system. You're buying on credit. You got a bill. I'm sure they know exactly how much you owe them at every point in time. If you were to forget to pay them, or to mistakenly write the check for a wrong amount, they will phone you.

An honor system means the seller relies on the buyer to be honest. Because the seller relies on the buyer to be honest, he/she does not check.

I also do not consider as "honor system", the examples above where you buy public transport tickets from a machine, and there are no turnstyles, and people rarely check whether you have a ticket. The fact that you have a ticket shows that you are not being trusted on your honor alone. Part of the incentive to pay comes from the risk of a fine and embarrassment of being caught without a ticket. If it truly relied on your honesty, there would be no need for any ticket or inspectors. You'd simply drop your coins into a slot, and nobody will check whether you actually paid the correct amount (or any amount for that matter).

Where's the book?

He works for Business Week, and the building is named McGraw-Hill, and the way to get some money was to sue? His friends and family should have advised him to take 2 days off, and go back to work. I'm not saying that suing was a bad idea, but staying away from work for 8 weeks, to increase the payout; you kind of understand why he might have trouble getting another job after that.

I think the post should be retitled from

Chinese-Made Gadgets Going to Get More Expensive

to

Imported Gadgets Are Going to Get More Expensive in America Due to Devaluating US Dollar and Rising Oil prices

The earth might be sucked into a black hole, but who said it will come out the other side OK? In fact, tidal forces will ripped the earth apart, into bits smaller than grains of sand, before they even reach the event horizon of the black hole.

Me thinks the problem is not that they are blending in too well amongst the passengers. The problem is some of them are not blending in well enough.

What is that that passengers (ie customers) dislike about the homeless? Some of them are very dirty and smelly. You're afraid that if they sit next to you, the smell will stick on you till you get off the plane and check into the hotel on the other side of the world 12 hours later.

To solution is not to figure out ways to detect every single homeless person and remove them from the airport. The solution is to help them blend in further. Obviously some of them are doing this well enough on their own. They should be given a pat on the back, and be left alone. But some others may need a bit of help in "blending in". Every effort should be directed towards this end.

Broadway should not only be focused on coaxing them to leave the airport. The airport can help by giving outreach organizations like Broadway a small free office at the airport itself. This should not be in the high traffic areas, but perhaps in one of the more secluded places that is nevertheless easily reached. There should be public bathrooms which will help the homeless keep clean, and also serve airline passengers who are sometimes stuck for hours, perhaps just coming off a 6 hour connecting flight. I'm sure many will welcome the opportunity to take a shower.

Legally, terms on a ticket are never valid. You cannot "consent to it on the ticket". I'm not a lawyer, but I did take a class on law, and this was one of the first things we learnt.

The reason for this is simple. Buying a flight ticket is covered by contract law. The contract is completed when you purchased the ticket. The ticket is only given to you *AFTER* the contract is made. So whatever additional terms printed the ticket, you could not have known of them, or agreed to them, *BEFORE* you made the contract. So they are not part of the contract.

It's not like you are expected to read all the terms on the back of the ticket, and only then decided, ... hmmm I don't like this, this, and this ... go back to the counter 10 minutes later and ask ... can I have my money back?

Can we regrow an entire body (without a brain)? All we have to do after that is brain transplant. Just imagine the possible applications.

I get the impression that in America (and apparently in Germany as well), surgeons do not actually meet their patients before cutting them open. What kind of butcher shops do you run over there anyway?

I've had a few surgeries in the years past. Even in a developing country like Malaysia, my surgeons recognize me by face, and knows me by name. I've met them at least once (usually a few times) before the day of the surgery. A nurse will check my name, the kind of surgery, and which body part is being operated on.

But all these checks are besides the point. My surgeon recognize me by face, and he/she knows even better than me what kind of operation I am having, on which part of my body, and why I need it. I do not understand how is it possible for the surgeon to do the wrong surgery on the wrong patient.

It's like a parent who goes to school to pick up his kid to send to tuition class, but picks up the wrong kid by mistake and sends her to the wrong class in the wrong place of town.

He was trying to hit the bird but not to kill it. He didn't know that a rock hard ball, travelling at 50km/h, hitting bird with a tiny head was going to kill or hurt it. Now, if he really believed that, he should never be allowed anywhere near a golf club or a golf ball ever again, because he probably also believed that golf balls also cannot hurt children if they are hit in the head.

He should not be punished, except that he should never ever touch another golf club again in his life.

Keep in mind GWB's "If you're not with us, you're against us" comment. The neocons sees the world as divided into two groups, "us" and "them". Because of 9/11, they feel justified in doing anything and everything to "them". After all "we" are at war, and these people are not entitled to "our" civilized standards and rights, if they are people at all.

Non-americans sees the world as divided into 3 groups, the Americans (300 million), their enemies/terrorists they are fighting (a few thousand, or at the most a few tens of thousands, definitely nowhere near 1 million), and everybody else (6 billion people). They do not appreciate being lumped together with the second group, and do not want to be conscripted into the first group. They have other more pressing problems and wish the first 2 groups to go away and don't bother them.

Most of the world believes that a sizable portion (if not most of) the Gitmo immates are just innocent people wrongly caught by mistake. They therefore identify with the prisoners. When you torture them, the first thought that comes to mind is "hey, that could be me, my son, father, brother, sister, etc". Americans do not identify with the prisoners and think "well, it's not so bad, we're not killing them, and if *THEY* suffered a little for our benefit, well the tradeoff is worthwhile".

The way I see it, group 3 has more to fear from group 1 than group 2. Group 2 at least makes a token effort to target group 1 only, while group 1 does not even recognize a difference between group 2 and 3.

Why are the kids attacking public transport? They have their own cars and don't need to use these buses? They want the city to stop sending these buses to their home areas? How are they going to get around when no buses go there?

What I find most interesting is the fact that he had more than 80 websites, all basically doing the same thing (selling travel to Cuba) but taking different "angles". Sounds like a great idea. I just finished putting up a web shop yesterday (which have had no business yet, because I have not yet promoted it), I will now create many other shops, selling basically the same thing. And learning from his experience, they will not be all under my own name.

#22 xadrian says ... as soon as I get there, my mere presence has fixed whatever issue they were having ...

Hey, I just realized. I too have this power to cause technical problems to fix themselves by my mere proximity. And here we were, thinking that superpowers only existed in comics. We must give this power a name. :-)

Ban driving. Then you can talk on the cellphone all you want.

And I can ride my bike again. Safely.
:-)

Are there no geeks here? Get rid of the water cannon. Add a wireless camera and small compartments with doors. I could send this thing out to do my shopping for me while I grow fat on my couch. :-)

#24 strawMan

> I would argue on the principle of harm/benefit ratio. That is to say, is the harmful aspect of this greater than the benefits? I say no; the Administration has not, to date, misused the data accumulated. On the other hand, the benefit of being able to eavesdrop on possible terrorist communication is quite real. Therefore, I would say that having these backdoors passes the harm/benefit test.

I will argue that the benefit of being able to eavesdrop on possible terrorists is a delusional wishful falacy. After all, how many real terrorists have they caught this way? They know you would be listening (or at least it's possible that you might be listening) and take the necessary precautions to avoid getting caught this way.

On the other hand, the harm of giving up all your much vaunted civil liberties, one after another, in the believe that the state will use this to increase "security", is very real. Without the terrorists having to do anything, you're surrendering, turning your country into a police state.

When this process is complete, how will your country be better than any other? In fact, it will be worse. You'll find yourselves living in a new East Germany. The only reason there has not been another 9/11 is not because the state has been very successful in protecting you. It's because the terrorists find there is no need. There is no need to carry out a risky, expensive attack that will like kill some of their own. Not when you are doing exactly what they want. Robbers do not beat their victims when the victims are in the act of handing over all their possessions.

Ten years ago, many people look up to America. The land of liberty and freedom. They wanted to move there, or turn their own countries into little copies of America. Today, the only people wishing to go to America are economic migrants. Those who wanted to emulate it now hang their head in shame, wishing their friends will forget what they said in the past.

I just had a thought. Is there chemical that can make ordinary clothes highly flammable? You soak your clothes in this liquid, then dry it. Once dry, there is no smell. So we hatch a plot to bring down the plane. A 4 person team is to take a flight, wearing their now highly-flammable clothes, carrying bags full of similarly treated clothes onto the plane.

Once the plane is in the air, our team removes the clothes in the bags and then huddle together, and then light themselves up. Depending on the type of plane, they may situate themselves near the tail or the wings. The sudden, strong flash or fire will raise the temperature in the immediate vicinity high enough that the fuel on board the plane also ignites and bring down the entire plane.

OK, there are flaws in this plan, but the liquid explosive thing has proven that the plan does not have to be sound to get the TSA to react.

The expected reaction is that henceforth, passengers will be forbidden from bringing clothes on board, either in their bags, or wearing them. Before boarding planes, all passengers will change into special clothes provided by the TSA. These will have special slits to allow easy inspection to verify that passengers do not sneak in contraband clothes under the TSA provided ones.

The parents “mistakenly believed they were entitled to bring on unlimited quantities, which is not what we say,” Ms. Howe said. “We say you can bring a reasonable amount for your trip, and obviously the officer has some discretion on defining what that would be.”

You Americans are crazy for putting up with the TSA. Anywhere else but in America or Europe, if you wanted to get on the plane with enough baby food to last a whole week, nobody is going to care.

The comment here shows that the true purpose of the TSA is to turn people into sheep who will blindly follow instructions from "authority" without question, whether it be reasonable or not. In the rest of the "non-free-world", we cannot bring knifes, guns, or explosives on the plane, but nobody cares if you wanted to bring 30 bottles of shampoo or 20 bottles of water.

#5 & #8, I suggest adding doors to each shelf.

#11, the doors are hinged on top, so they automatically closes by gravity.

If the doors are made of a transparent material, you can protect the books behind them, and still see the book spines. Makes it easier to search for that one book from your collection of 10,000 books. :)

I hate to say this, but it looks like the bank really know what they are doing. The attack they mounted was highly effective.

I'm wondering how much fault Dynadot bears in this. It may have been expedient for them to not fight the injunction, but this is an extremely short term view. Do we really want a registrar who rolls over so easily? Would it be appropriate to make a call for everyone to move their domains away from Dynadot?

Removing the DNS entry does not take out just the website. You also lose email, and every other service/server that is accessed using that domain name. After all, how many organizations are willing to risk this happening to them. The first threat of a lawsuit from some disgruntled supplier / customer / competitor / etc, and Dynadot will shutdown all your Internet services.

As for blocking the transfer of the domain name to another registrar, I wonder if there is any recourse for the domain name owner. If the registrar refuses to allow transfer, what can we do. This is unrelated to the Wikileaks case, but how many of us shop around for cheap registrars? Your, up-to-now customer-friendly registrar, may one day be taken-over, and the new management may decide to raise prices, and at the same time refuse to allow transfers. Do we have any recourse then? Are registrars allowed to block transfers as-they-like, or is there a list of "approved" reasons supplied by ICANN?

Why is it we are not allowed to ingest dangerous poisons that will kill us? Surely evolution will take care of everything. Or do we not believe in evolution?

You know what we need? Robotics! Think Aibo. Reborn dolls that not only look and feel like real babies. They actually move like real babies and sound like one.

Put something in it's palm, and it'll instinctively grasp it. Touch it on the cheek and it'll move a little in response. Disturb it too much while it's sleeping, it'll wake up and start crying, complete with flailing arms and legs.

Later models will be fully awake. Open eyes. Face tracking software. Smiles at people. Plays peekaboo. I call it "My-pet-baby". :)

Hey, is #6 and #7 a spambot? How did it get past our moderator?

Run your notebook without a hard disk. Boot it off a live Linux CD (eg Puppy Linux). Save your "data" to a USB flash drive. This is not your real data. Just pick a few innocuous documents you don't mind them copying. Save them again to force the time stamp to change. Go to wikipedia, save a few articles about your destination.

Here's the story you give the customs officer. You want to know why my notebook does not have a hard disk? It crashed a week ago, and I had to send it in for repair, I'm still waiting for it to come back ... (complain a bit about how it takes so long to boot up from the CD, about how you probably lose all your data, how you probably should have made backups, etc, try to get their sympathies).

Actually you've packed your hard disk with your checked-in luggage. Remember to use lots of bubble wrap for padding. :-)

First generation RFID: the reader query the chip, the chip broadcast its ID number in reply

Second generation RFID: when you get the chip, you program it with a secret key, when the reader query the chip, the chip waits for this "secret" key as well before replying. Strangers who don't know the secret key cannot get your RFID chip to reply. If we make the "secret" key long enough, they wouldn't be able to just try the keys one after another. But the "secret" key is not secret as it's broadcasted by the reader.

Third generation RFID: challenge-response mechanism obviates the need for the reader to broadcast the secret key, but this will need more processing power in the RFID chips.

When wil we get there?

I would like to know how many cable cuts occurred last year. Their distribution in time and space. Only then can I tell whether the recent "spate" of cable cuts is normal or not.

"Let he is without sin cast the first stone". #5, do you trully believe that you can live the next week without breaking any laws, if the government were to watch you every minute? We are all guilty of breaking some law or another. From big ones, to small minor, stupid, outdated laws nobody even knew still existed.

In a totally surveiled society, the government does not prosecute everybody for every minor infraction. Instead, it builds a dosier for every person. A list of past wrongs for which you can be prosecuted. This is then used to force compliance to the wishes of those in power.

He looks to be bullet proof too. Makes me think of the question that appeared in the New Scientist magazine. How fat do you have to be in order to make you bullet proof? (The idea being, if you have a layer of fat thick enough around your body, it will be enough to stop any bullet from hitting any vital organs.)

It's just a regular full-face motorcycle helmet. I have one that looks a bit like this. The reason the helmet looks so weird is because the artist made the visor too reflective, and it is also way too large. It reaches all the way down to below his chin. A real helmet's visor should only be about half as large is it's drawn.

Terrorists will no longer have to risk life and limb. They only need to hack one of these ...

I'm pretty sure, those arms from the US to Australia / Taiwan / Japan flew across the Pacific. This will remove some of the red lines over Europe and makes some of the lines clearer.

Sounds interesting, but computer geek that I am, there's no computer interface. It would be absolutely fantastic if each led could be turned on/off individually. Perhaps controlled by a computer. :)

Each tourist pays a 250 baht entrance fee. Each women gets 1500 baht per month. For the 20 of them, that adds up to 30,000 baht per month. If there were 100-1000 visitors per day, that adds up to 750,000 to 7.5 million baht per month. That's close to US$250K per month! Where're all these money going !!!?

I doubt it finds its way back to the central government in Bangkok. Probably pocketed by a few local officials who thought up the ticket collecting gig. You know what's going on in Thailand today, with all the allegations of corruption against the last prime minister. Maybe if we all make a lot of noise, the central government will shut down this thing and let the women go.

A couple of the larger stores started to have this system a couple of years ago. The system worked very well. Then the government withdrew the $1 coin (due to too many fakes). The $1 is now a paper note. (I'm in Malaysia). So all the stores removed the trolley locks.

Recently, I saw one store that again started to install the trolley locks, but now using 20 sen coins. But then, 20 sen is about equivalent to US$0.05, the value is too low. :-)

#3, Simon, your friend do not need heavy cutting tools to remove that coins. The store staff have a special modified chain-thingy that you can insert into the lock to remove the coin. I had plans to bring a pair of pliers, or drill a hole into the coin where I could use a strong thread to pull out the coin. After all, the grip couldn't be that strong. Failing that, I was going to construct my own coin-removing chain-thingy. But the locks were all removed before I could do this. Now, if only I could remember where that new 20-sen lock store is, I can put my old plans into action. :)

BTW, most people are willing to walk about 5 to 10 meters to park the trolley, but not all the way across the parking lot. Some stores caught on to this, and have many places to put the trolley all over the parking lot, instead of just one or two near the entrance.

It could have been worse ...

The sentence for carrying illegal drugs is 4 years, with a minimum of 6 months in Dubai? You call that bad? Just you come over here to Malaysia or Singapore ... :-)

And consider the Japanese criminal system that have a conviction rate of 99%. If the police there arrests you, you're as good as convicted. (I heard this on one of the BBC's podcasted documentaries).

Or the Americans could have accused him of being a terrorist, and shipped him off to Gitmo.

Well, just my lame effort in cheering him up. Hope they let him out soon.

The terrorists are trying to block the sewers in order to spread diseases and cause an epidemic. We must ban the sale of all flour immediately! And yeast too.

They flew from the UK to the US for a weekend shopping holiday? Are they very rich, or are the air fares these days way too cheap? I hate to attack the victim, but it does seems a bit wasteful to me, to fly 5500km for a 2 day holiday.

Why are space cockroaches stronger than the earth-bound ones? People who spend a few months in space comes back crippled. They grew so weak, they can hardly walk. I would have thought that space cockroaches would be big, but weak.

Infected ants, normally black, develop a bright red abdomen, called a gaster, and tend to hold it in an elevated position, an alarm posture in ants. The ants also get sluggish, and the gaster is easily broken off, making it easy for birds to pluck.

Just imagine. You're an ant, walking along, minding your own business, when you accidentally bump into one of your fellow ants. And her butt promptly falls off ... :P

I don't understand this "nuclear secret" thing. What secret? You centrifuge a lot of uranium to separate out U235. You put the U235 together and you have a bomb. Any idiot could do it.

If the Americans did it 60 years ago, don't tell me that any third world country today cannot do it. It's not like these non-American "new nuclear nations" are incapable of developing their own nuclear weapons without stealing "nuclear secrets" from America.

Considering the extremely high cost of the printer and material, and the quality of the resulting product; would it not be better to do the reverse process? Start with a block of plastic, grind it down to what we need. The excess/unused plastic, we put in the oven to melt down for the next project.

Or we start with a low-cost, low-res 3D printer, which produces an object that is close to what what we want. Then we use another device to grind it down, to get better resolution, sharp edges, etc.

To all those who complain about "cleaning up after", please look at the video. Did you notice the people walking by who pick up a few balls and put it in the bags they were carrying?

Those balls are new. I'd go clean up myself, for free, if Rome weren't so far away. After I "clean up", I'll sell those balls. Those balls will probably get picked up within a day or two.

It may also depends on whose hand it is, and how big a sissy you are. Me, I couldn't do it. :) But I'm sure the hawker lady across the road from my office can do it. She cooks with two rows of pots, and when she reaches for the pot in the far row, her hand is in the flame of the fire in the first row. Did I mention that she picks up the pots with her bare hands? :)

Cory, in your picture published on your website at http://craphound.com/bio.php, you are wearing our clothes. Please note that these clothes are trademarked by us. We would appreciate if you would remove the photo, or replace it with another photo not wearing our clothes. It would not do to simply change your clothes, as you would then infringe on someone else's trademark. You will have to take the new photo without wearing any clothes. For obvious reasons, we suggest that the new photo be a head shot only.

Oh yeah, and lose the glasses too.

:)

Noun: trademark
1. a distinguishing characteristic or attribute
2. a formally registered symbol identifying the manufacturer or distributor of a product

"Ford" is a trademark. "Mustang" is a trademark. The symbols are trademarks. The entire car itself is not a trademark. It isn't even a "mark".

I bring lots of guns, and stand around at the street corner, near your house. After a couple of days, you walk by, pass too close to me, and I shoot you. I please self defense. The reason is simple. You came closer than the 5 meter security zone I've declared around myself. I was worried that you may have wanted to stab me with a knife. That is despite the fact that I did not see you carrying a knife, or any other weapon with which to attack me, and at that time I myself was carrying 20 different weapons, and wearing full armour.

I then walked over, and confirmed that you did not have a knife concealed on your person, or any other weapon. Nevertheless, it was still self-defense, because you COULD have been carrying a knife. I did not think you were concealing a knife when I shot you, but it was possible, though improbable.

The absurdity of the situation. I do not see why the Americans are publicising this incident. What purpose does it serve, other than to paint the Americans as arrogant, solipsists, who care nothing for anybody else. If the Americans pass nearby, and you do not quickly scurry out of the way like good little cockroaches, they will step on you and break your back. Is it the job of the American government to make their nation more unpopular, and more hated throughout the rest of the world? Are they trying to make sure Al-Qaeda get more recruits, because they are worried that Al-Qaeda is not strong enough to carry on this "War Against Terror" for the rest of eternity.

Wouldn't it be easier to simply sedate everybody and fly everybody unconscious? If they are not conscious, they cannot hijack the plane, blow up the plane, or get up to any mischief.

They wouldn't need to drink or eat anything, or use the toilet (you can remove that from the plane). You can also get rid of all the food, drinks, utensils, trolleys, cabin crew, entertainment system, walkway, etc. With all the passengers unconscious, you can probably packed 3 to 5 times the number of passengers into the plane. If there's any delay, the passengers wouldn't complain either, at least not until after they've arrived at their destination.

There are advantages to the passengers as well. You turn up at the airport, take a drink, lie down, and wake up x hours later at your destination with your luggage beside you. No waiting. You'd be well rested from the "sleep" you have had.

If you have connecting flights, you wouldn't need visas or go through customs at each stop. The airline will just transfer you from plane to plane like luggage.

But most importantly of all, you can fire all the TSA staff and burn the no-fly-list! They wouldn't be needed anymore. :)

I live in Malaysia, a Muslim country, in southeast Asia. One of those *not* particularly well known for freedom and civil liberties. I take photos where I want, whenever I want, and nobody ever asked me not to. I've many photos of malls, shops, government buildings, police stations, airports, inside airplanes, etc. Except for inside museums, I can't think of any place where taking photos is prohibited.

On airplanes, there's no silly rule about not taking water or liquids on board. I asked and they tell me that that rule only applies if you're going to America or Europe. For travelling in Asia, they don't care. As for the 2 hour security check lines, well, ours is about 2 minutes. At the most. Usually, you just walk up, and go straight through.

I think those "freedom loving" people out west are stupid for allowing things to get to where they are now. The people spreading terror, (the real terrorists) stealing your freedoms, is not Al-Qaeda. Guess who they are.

You know, these days, a terrorist no longer have to actually kill people. For instance, say somebody were to try to smuggle onto an airplane, bomb components placed in condoms hidden in his anus ... just think of the checks the TSA will have to do after that ...

He deliberately gets caught and is sent to jail, but on the plus side, he doesn't have to kill himself, or anyone else. But he achieves his objective. To scare people, and force people to subject themselves like sheep to ever more senseless humiliation by the TSA.

Hmmm ... the possibilities for non-violent terrorists today is practically unlimited.

The problem with the "War on Terror" stuff is that it was never for your benefit.

There are about 1 to 2 billion Muslims on the planet right now. 99.99% of them did not know who Osama was, never heard of Al-Qaeda, do not now what they were fighting for, and therefore had no sympathy for them. Osama and Al-Qaeda were nobodies. Not a worthwhile opponent.

Who was it who gave them free publicity? Who was it who built up their image into some kind of larger-than-life-super-Islamic-warrior fighting the west? How was it that they were able to get thousands of new recruits in the past few years?

A terrorist is a person who uses terror to reach his/her political goals. This does not require actual violences. You don't have to blow up people with bombs. Scare-mongering works well enough. You could send fake bomb threats, or mail real bombs that are not actually rigged up to explode. On the other side (well actually, being partners, they are really on the same side), you could harp continously about the scary bogeyman, terrorising everybody into giving up their civil rights. Does this sound like anybody we know?

In the end, you have a police state. Could the "terrorist" have achieved anything better if they had actually blown up a building every week? Does that sound like victory? To me, it looks like surrender. Giving up everything right at the begining, and then shouting "we're winning" over and over again. It's stupid and sad.

#7 is obviously a troll. I suggest we all ignore it.

#30 & #35: I think Rajiv is a closer comparison than Indira.

#1: there's not going to be any war with India. If there was going to be any war, it would have been when Zia died (India was suspect #1 then).

#41: dictators do not need to kill opponents in secret. Remember Bhutto's father?

The service is not subsidised right? How can having too many customers be a problem. They only need to split the service. Get rid of the maid outfit for the disabled service. And start a parallel service for the otaku.

Why do we need to store any info on the card at all (except for the serial number)? It's not like your name, date of birth, gender, address, signature, etc is not stored in a database kept by the card issuer. When you go to a hospital, they're not going to read your medical history from the card. They'll read the card serial number, and use that to pull your medical history from their database. If the info was stored on your card, can you imagine what happens when you lose the card, or it is damaged?

Heck, why do we need the card at all. We just need the serial number. Just give every one a unique ID number. You can memorize it or scrawl it on a piece of paper. When you go to a bank, you don't have to show proof of ID. You just tell them your ID number, they key it into the computer, and your biometrics pops up. They can look at your photo, check your height, check your fingerprint, etc.

When you leave the country, you don't have to carry a passport. Just tell them your ID number. There will be no more fake passports. To make it easier to remember, we can make the "ID number" alphanumeric. Everybody can choose their own ID, so long as it's not already taken. Pretty soon, it'll be used as your name. Imagine, a unique name for everybody on the planet. :)

Iraq should pass a law saying writing was first invented in ancient Mesopotamia, and it has a copyright on all writing. Therefore all countries that use writing (including Egypt) should pay royalties on all writing, including all books, advertisements, websites, signages, etc.

There is a reason the public domain exists, and there is a reason copyrights do not last forever. Dr Hawass has our sympathies. Yes, Egypt needs money to maintain it's many historical sites. But this is not the way to go about getting it.

All this is totally unnecessary. All these calls to 911 will put an undue strain on the police. Instead, we just need to round up all the non-whites, and all the liberals, and ship them off to Gitmo. Then the country will be totally safe. There are no white terrorists. At least those that are not liberals.

Oh, wait. I'm not white. Forget what I just said. :)

This happened in March 2005. That's 2 years and 8 months ago. Why did it take so long for the State Commission on Judicial Conduct to recommend his removal. He admitted that he knew his action was wrong, and yet, he gets to remain in office for nearly 3 years, plus the time his appeal takes (who knows how many months/years).

Does this not throw into doubt, all those cases held during the past 2-1/2 years, not to mention the future cases. Why is the judge not on administrative leave?

I also wonder, why did the officers in court failed to find the ringing mobile phone? I would have thought that it would have been a simple matter, as mobile phones have different ringing tones, and all mobile phones records the date/time of the last few received calls. Perhaps the officers actually found the offending phone, but considered the judges mental state, and fearing he would toss the phone owner into jail, decided not to tell him who it was. Good intention which eventually backfired, when the judge tossed everybody into jail. At that point, the officers wouldn't have came forward and said, "oh yes, we found out who it was, but we tried to protect him by not telling the judge". The other 45 people would blame *THEM*.

Take an extremely sensitive CCD (say ISO 32000). Put it in a camera without any lens. Just a pin hole. Can it defeat this device, and MPAA anti-camcorder devices, thereby enabling you to record movies in the cinema. As an additional benefit, this also eliminates all focussing problems and you have infinite depth of view.

3.5 million tons is nothing. Keele Valley Landfill near Toronto contains 30 million tons of garbage, and it's no where near "twice the size of Texas". In fact, it's only 930 acres. Texas is 261,800 square miles. Twice that is 335,200,000 acres.

If this "3.5 million ton floating garbage island" were packed into the density you normally find in a landfill, it would take up only about 100 acres. Or to put it another way, to get an island twice the size of Texas, at normal landfill density (make a proper island) you'd need 3 million times as much garbage as is floating in the "island" right now.

Sure it's bad to have so much rubbish floating in the ocean. But this isn't an island. It's more like sprinkling a bit of pepper on a bowl of soup.

The problem here is the same as for software. How do you set a price for a product whose fixed cost is not zero, but where the marginal cost is zero? Simple economic theory tells us that the "normal price" will approach zero. It might start a bit higher than zero, but over time, in a free market, the price will gradually approach zero.

By right, ebooks should cost only a tiny fraction of the printed paper books. But they are not. There is no printing cost. No distribution cost. No loss for unsold copies. No holding cost. No markup by the distributor. No percentage to be take by the retailer. The price needs only be divided between the author and the publisher. Yet we find that the cost for ebooks and paper books are nearly the same.

What a wonderful device. If the police were to use this for interrogation, suspects could be made to confess, thereby driving up the crime-solving rate up to nearly 100%.

Between this and the ikea graphic, I think perhaps Mark has been working too hard. Maybe he needs more sleep. :)

Maybe normal people like kfunque (#5) are trained to start reading the clock at the top (12), but the rest of us clock-slaves (erm, workers who punch in at 9am every morning, including the ikea person who made the chart) have been brainwashed. Every day starts at 9am and ends at 9pm. :)

You know, when any US Immigration, Homeland Security, or TSA staff travels overseas; they're just begging to be similarly treated. If the general population don't do anything about these people, eventually, after a while, all Americans will be similarly abused when they go overseas.

:)

If you're going to dump all the shoes into one giant pile, does it make more sense to tag the shoes or the boxes.

Come to think of it, I've never seen a store that tags the box instead of the shoe. Maybe they do things different in America?

I suggest that he, and his camera phone holding friend, be sentenced to be tied up, lying on the sidewalk in front of that doorway, for 1 hour everyday, for a year, with a sign that invites everybody to come and pee on him. The modest can bring their pee in a container and pour it on his head.

I've never seen a real bomb in my life. Nevertheless, I'm confident it does not consist of flashing LEDs on a circuit board, with dangling wires. Despite what we see on TV everyday, where the wires' sole reason for existence is to be cut, so that the hero can disable it. Why would a real bomb have LEDs? So that it'll attract attention? So that it'll be harder to hide?

OTOH a battery can be used to trigger a bomb. Or a lighter, or a match. So what they should do is search for and arrest everybody who turns up in an airport with a battery, or a lighter, or a match. Now, of course that will be stupid and unreasonable, but just a little bit less so than searching for LEDs on a circuit board.

PS: a handphone makes a nice trigger for a bomb. Not only can you use the built in alarm clock, if you want to trigger the bomb earlier, you can also call the number from a payphone, or send it an SMS. So they should probably arrest everybody who carries a handphone as well.

Question: How many people were killed in 911 six years ago?
Answer: 3000

Question: How many murders have occurred in America since then?
Answer: about 15,000 a year, for 6 years = 60,000 (about 2/3rd of these are gun related)

Question: How many people have died in car accidents in America?
Answer: about 40,000 a year, after 6 years that 1/4 million

This tells me that the reasonable, logical thing to do is to get rid of the TSA, ban all guns, and reduce the speed limit by 20mph. But of course people are neither logical nor reasonable ...

Mikko says ...
>I don't know about either, really, but I've heard that Ramadans fasting(is that the english word for not eating?)-rules are not law for pregnant or old/sick/weak people. Use common sense.

Yes you are right. Children, those who are sick, or pregnant need not fast. Women also do not fast during their menstrual period. Except for the children, the others have to count their missed days and "make it up" later. Since most women usually can tell approximately which and how many days they will be menstruating, many will "make it up" in advance (they will fast on some days in the month preceeding Ramadan).

All these people who are not fasting are not supposed to advertise the fact (ie, don't go eating in public; buy the food, bring it home or to your office, and eat in private).

In Islam, fasting is not just abstaining from food and water. The fast can be invalidated by lying, lustful thoughts, fighting, etc. These "lost days" have to be "replaced" after Ramadan, same as the above "missed days".

I know all these stuff not because I am a Muslim (I am Christian), but 95% of my colleagues at work are Muslim.

What's with all these people with keyboards missing the vowels? You do know your posts are very hard to read, right? Take the first one. I can't make any sense of it.

This isn't Arabic (where I hear it's common practice to omit most of the vowels). Please spell properly. We just want to read the posts, not play "guess what this word means".

I've followed the link to www.cbc.ca, but that article did not mention arrest. In fact, it said ...

"No charges have been laid"