I agree with you. It's a bad idea, a stupid idea, a thoroughly disgusting idea.

That's what they want you to think, at least. It's also what a lot of other child abusers claim.

I'm surprised Edward the Second of England didn't make this list. Or the Duke of Clarence...

Making any copy of money is a very ticklish subject. Yes, there are legal loopholes (although I'm not aware of any that say you are allowed to make a convincing copy if the back is from a different bill - most of them involve things such as copies that are much too large, or too small) that allow for copies under…

Vote: NearlyFreeSpeech.NET

Actually, the printing press was used in Europe before Gutenberg. There were a few small books printed from carved wood blocks. These blocks wore out easily, were only useful for that single book - and tended to produce a poorer impression, since planing a single block of wood as flat and smooth as necessary for a…

The CCleaner tip works great - for anything you've actually installed. Those programs that just unpack from a zip file into a folder under Program Files aren't listed, so you'll forget those if you use this method. (I know a lot of people won't care, but I've got a pretty good amount of stuff that I use that doesn't…

Sizable penalties for going outside the standards? Sounds like a fine to me. And setting standards sounds like regulation, too.

Which forces me to ask, has anyone ever done a truly scientific study to determine how much difference formal credentials really make? In the past, many scientists did not have any degree at all. There is a huge sector which makes money from the belief these formal credentials are a guarantee of something objective -…

As a former professional genealogist with more than a little interest in archival preservation, I was horrified to see that your first suggestion was cloud storage. I've had a look at a white paper prepared to evaluate the effectiveness of cloud storage for long term storage of genealogical data - and there are so…

Rome already collapsed, at least in part, for this reason. Farms grew larger and larger (they called them "latifundia") and so did factories. (Yes, they had factories. No machinery, but slaves made things in quantity for efficiency.) And eventually, so few people were making money there weren't enough customers for…

You seem to need a free lesson in human behaviour. If you express the viewpoint of a heartless jerk / creep / bigot - without some serious disclaimers to make it plain you don't share that viewpoint - people will assume that's what you are. And when you try to defend yourself after they get upset by basically saying…

Although making these maps certainly required fine motor skills, they also had something else you probably don't. Good pens. More specifically, responsive nibs. You'd be surprised what you can do with a nice, flexible, responsive nib. And they had some nice inks back then, too, although certain lines of modern inks…

You mean Ball's Pyramid?

IF you have the facilities to make one, building (or, better, converting an internal combustion vehicle into) a steam powered vehicle is a nice choice. Yes, it still needs fuel, but since the Stanley Steamer type engine is highly efficient (no transforming the jerky travel of pistons into rotary motion), the burner…

Actually, I read a very detailed article - and these papers belonged to Andrew Jennings, an attorney who worked for Lizzie Borden's defense team. From the Fall River Herald of 04 March 2012 #corrections

Yes, Andy Rooney did do what he did to stand up for free speech. And Andy Rooney never tried to have this clip censored, did he? For an individual to make up their mind that the person who did this clip is a jerk does not contradict free speech. Free speech gives every individual a right to think and say what they…

So when are they going to investigate treating the aggressive urge to make everyone else behave just like yourself? I am on the autism spectrum myself, and I find it insulting to read about efforts to "cure autism". Autism forms a part of my personality, and like every aspect of anyone's personality, it can be…

As a professional genealogist, I spent a good amount of my time in cemeteries, reading old tombstones. Small slate stones, often with multiple 'arches' on top, would mark the deaths of children from one family, within weeks or even days of each other. Measles, mumps, diphtheria, whooping cough, the list of diseases…

Depending on what you do for a living, this can be a dangerous tip. In some situations, I can easily imagine clients suing someone for fraud if their e-mail address implied a degree they did not possess. And I have belonged to a professional association in the past which would have kicked out any member for an ethical…