Did what? Did what??

The urgency in The Measure of a Man makes no sense. The judge should simply pause the transfer order while the question of Data’s personhood is resolved, if necessary by a higher court months or years later.

To be fair, there are important differences between open source and closed source software.

I once blew a coworker’s mind with Alt-Tab.

Are the mashed potatoes buttered, or plain?

I started using a white noise machine and fans on high when I lived down the block from a hospital emergency room. It sounded like a jet engine in my bedroom, but my brain learned to interpret the white noise as profound silence. I moved away from the hospital zone but still use the white noise to sleep.

Everyone knows that foods are extended along the axis with a circular cross section.

i.e., burgers stack higher, hot dogs grow longer.

Ironically, billionaires probably do worry about money a lot. Just not in the same way everyone else does.

They do pay for their power. The bill would require them to pay for grid upgrades that their usage makes necessary.

I’m curious how it’s considered a “layoff” if it’s based on performance rather than the job itself being eliminated.

In Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force, there are terminals scattered around to restore your health, shield, ammo, etc. Each terminal restores one of these to a max of 100 health/shield or 300 ammo.

Then there’s the terminal just before the final boss fight that maxes everything to 999. Bricks were shat when first I saw that.

political dissatisfaction

By framing it as mere “political dissatisfaction”, the author inadvertently exposes their ulterior motive. The discussion is actually about whether Trump is in his right mind.

Fun fact: no member of the Supreme Court was willing to sign their name to the Bush v. Gore decision. It was instead issued per curiam, “by the court” itself.

So stop acting politically, John.

Verily.

Software is like a gas: it expands to fill its container.

I once experienced an episode of sleep paralysis with auditory hallucinations. I heard a deep masculine voice speaking in a guttural language that seemed just on the edge of being comprehensible to me. As if it were the primeval language from which all others sprang. The feel of the language in my ear was as familiar as my native tongue. I recognized the cadence, I could discern where one word ended and the next began, whether a sentence was a question, and so forth. But the words themselves were somehow alien.

I strained my senses trying to hear the voice more clearly. What horrible prophesy was I being given? What dreadful task have I been appointed? Am I the keymaster? The antichrist? Am I dying? Oh shit, that’s it, isn’t it? I’m dying and going to hell. Fuckfuckfuck. Um. I accept Jesus as my savior? …Buddha? …Joe Pesci?

Then I snapped out of it and the voice turned out to be the muffled sound of my neighbor’s TV. Praise be to Joe Pesci!

Wouldn’t air travel account for more transcontinental passenger traffic than cars or trains?