Kids today...

Disc = hard plastic optical.
Disk = magnetic, mostly film/oxide.

I could be wrong, but the "COME ON DOWN" image doesn't look like an ink-in-skin tattoo to me.

No regrets - it'll wash right off.

DC is two cities in one location, the Federal City where the US Government operates, and the municipality of the District of Columbia with all the various issues and resources of any mid-sized city in the USA. Congress doesn't actively administer DC, but it does occasionally step in and overrule the municipality. I have a philosophical objection to this, of course, but in practice it's done rarely and with restraint.

Policing in DC is complicated. There are at least 21 police jurisdictions in the district, and some overlap and cooperate while others are exclusive. Consider a burglary at Obama's apartment in NE. If the thief then walked to Union Station, he'd have been in and out of at least 6 jurisdictions, not to mention the Secret Service detail when Obama is in town.

Union Station itself is the jurisdiction of the Metropolitan Police Department, the Metro Transit Police, Amtrak Police, the TSA and at least one private armed security service - it IS private property after all. Three other jurisdictions border Union Station, and the authority of some police forces here follows their "subjects" wherever they may go.

For photographers, from tourists taking snapshots to professionals and photojournalists on assignment, there are few restrictions anywhere in DC. The main restriction is against the use of tripods or lighting equipment without attaining special permits.

If you're interested, here are some good summaries of photography rights in the USA, all from the last few years. I carry printed copies in my camera bags for just these kinds of situations (haven't needed them yet, BTW):

http://www.kantor.com/useful/Legal-Rights-of-Photographers.pdf
http://www.krages.com/ThePhotographersRight.pdf
http://www.nppa.org/news_and_events/news/2005/08/rights.pdf

It glows in the dark? I have the shirt and didn't know that. This subscription pays me back every day...

(Don't know what the fuss is. My 5 y.o. daughter asked about it once and I said it's a tribute to the strength of women that they can be so beautiful AND know how to handle a big tool^h^h^h^h piece of demolition equipment like that.)

How is having a joystick behind the zipper any different from other pants for guys?

Sorry, but that's just one example of this gag's high joke-per-concept ratio. Add in the "rodent storage in the rear" and the location of the G key, and this idea goes from prototype to punchline far too fast...

(I do like the stitching detail though - even without the I/O touches, I'd think about buying pants with that styling.)

Getting fumigated upon arrival was one of the highlights of my travels between Chicago and Mexico City in the 70s. I don't remember which end of the trip it was (or maybe both ends) but I do still recall the indignation I felt at being treated as if there was something dangerous about me or my stuff. And also wondering why the attendant who was doing the spraying was wearing a surgical mask, while we were left to breathe whatever that was.

Even then, as a pre-teen, I was skeptical that it was anything more than a performance, since whatever was in that little can couldn't possibly be strong enough to reach inside my shoes or clothes or bags.

Then again, in the late 60s I thought it was fun to run after the mosquito control trucks that patrolled our streets in summers, and to play in their fog.

Those were such different times. A group of kids under eight, running for blocks in the street, at night, hidden in a cloud of unknown chemicals (mineral oil mist? DDT?) was just a part of growing up in Indiana...

@12: Just for fun I pointed XENU (the link checker) at JWZ's archived bookmarks, and while most indeed are not answering now (or where the answer nowadays is nothing like it was back then), there are quite a few that have been in continuous use since then.

(This also prompted me to finally go ahead and set up my home network to use OpenDNS. It's really hard to get an honest HTTP response code these days...)

#45: For one thing, approximately half of the world's three year olds HAVE penises.

Anyway...

Any three year old in daycare knows what a penis looks like, or will learn in a year or two when they begin Kindergarten. Kids are like that.

What kids DON'T get on their own is the association between the "apparatus of elimination" and feelings of shame. That lesson is taught by well-meaning but mistaken adults.

It just doesn't usually happen on such a scale as the international attention this is getting. Imagine a decade from now when the then thirteen year old kid is sent a link to this story on the wayback machine.

Headin' in a somewhat tangential direction:

The mention of the Bell Science Labs kits reminded me of something that was crucial to my own early education: Things of Science

Here's some history about it.

I was a subscriber for several mid-70s years and still remember some of the units well to this day. I've been looking for something like this for the children in my life, and while I don't hold much hope for finding NOS units from back in my day I'm glad to hear that the folks who put them out have retained rights to the program and might start production again.

I wonder if contacting the Science Service (now the Society for Science and the Public and inquiring would make a difference?

(Maybe not if one of us does it. If one person does it they might think he's sick. And if two people do it in harmony... but if fifty people a day do they might call it a movement - a Things of Science movement!)

I got so confused the other day. I thought I was going to see a Barry White show, but it was some other Barry - Chuck, or something like that?

Anyway, that got me wondering how White Stripes got away with using Barry's last name in their band name. I mean, I know the difference, but would my grandmother?

Doesn't some lawyer out there need a new boat? Maybe they could look into this whole mess.

Toodles.

I investigated both a couple of years ago. After providing a plausible (and almost true) cover story about being the decider for about 50 mobile users, they both came through with 30 day trials.

Bottom line then was that the coverage was equivalent in my area (just about as many places where V failed but S worked and vice versa), and I got better speed at lower cost from Sprint so I went with them.

I haven't done any speed checks lately, but my service seems to be slower during the day now. It picks up during off hours, so I suspect they're oversold a bit around here - but I have no idea if it's the same where you are or if Verizon is any different.

Comments on the article at Kit-blog have pointed out that the Woody Allen type is not actually Windsor EF Extended.

I submitted (at about comment #14 there) some observations of a few obvious differences (thickness of the horizontal on A and the up-strokes on the W, the tail curl on the a) but my comment got dropped for some reason.

I couldn't provide the correct type variant, but now two other commenters have nominated Windsor EF Light Condensed as the most likely one.

I remember a book version of this I had as a kid (70's, probably - maybe late '60's).

Each page had some sort of musical notation, linked to a box at the bottom.

After coating the box with graphite (or, as we kids would say, "coloring it in with a pencil"), touching the stylus to the box at different points would produce various tones. If you could follow along with the notation and keep some sort of rhythm, you could actually make the thing carry something like a tune.

Google isn't leading me to anything similar available today, or I'd be ordering some for the kids in my life.

Yeah, I see what y'all are saying - but my first guess was the Ubuntu logo.

SomethingAwful has been doing occasional reviews like this for a few years now.

Here's the whole "The Horrors of Pornography" collection (link relatively SFW, but most articles are probably NSFW).

Unfortunately though, SketchUp is one of the few Google apps that isn't offered in a working Linux version. I tried it under Wine, but it complains about my display and won't run.

That's not a total showstopper for me, but it's not important enough for me to fire up the legacy Windows box very often. It's not like it's Lightroom or anything...