you don't know what pattern matching is. the rest of your post doesn't make too much more sense, either.

I don't know much but I happened to be in Gwinnett traffic court last week, and that particular judge was knocking the fine down to $75 from $150. I believe all the people I saw plead no contest instead of guilty, which I thought was crazy - you only get one per five years; I last used one about 7 years ago for going 24mph over the limit.

I was in traffic court in Gwinnett last week. I got to leave fairly early, but while I was waiting I'd guess that almost half of the people before me were for tickets for using their phone at lights. The judge knocked all their fines in half from $150 to $75. Even the judge made a joke about the surprising number of people in for that. He also explained a couple of times that technically you have to be off the road, and it's not just texting - any use besides making a call is illegal (although he didn't mention if dialing was).

Why does the summary say the company is going out of business? They're still selling the larger items and that article doesn't say anything about them closing - in fact, it says they're working on new stuff.

I had an AOL (artificial optic lens?) implanted around 1996 due to a cataract from eye injury. Black lights at places used to give me a headache due to...i'm not sure, i thought it was the disparity between what my two different eyes were seeing (they glow a bright purple to the damaged eye). It's been so long that it no longer causes headaches, but it's still...odd.

When I asked my opthamologist about it he said something about "a UV filter" in the lens.

He also wanted to replace the lens with a newer & better one only a few years after the surgery...but I'm squeamish about it, understandably (having stitches cut out of your eye with a scalpel is a bit disconcerting).

This is the story I thought of when I marked "my current timezone is where it's at." I'm already in Real Time!

I'm encouraged by all the privacy advocates here...but wonder how many people (correctly) denigrating this device, Michigan police, etc. will--in the next breath--trip over themselves to grant the State any other power it wants...say, "Net Neutrality" or pretty much any infringement on property rights.

I'm not phone division at Nokia...not even on the phone-based software team, and I've gotten less-sensitive prototypes to carry months ahead of release.

Thankfully I've never lost one...although I do tend to break them...

We even have super-sensitive prototypes since we're mixed with phone software guys...I could see somebody carrying one out temporarily if they didn't care too much about their job.

Google had a web accelerator back in the day. It's one of the earliest apps I remember Google launching. "Wow, they're giving away their software and bandwidth for free? Not related to their search engine? What's the catch?" They pulled it pretty quickly after it started deleting databases.

I'm getting pretty old and my memory's getting foggy, so I could be wrong...it's hard to remember back to the "advances" that were happening in ~1999-2001 while I was drunk on my new GATech dorm internet power. So if it was another company then I apologize in advance.

The DRM is already cracked. It's easy to convert Amazon books to an open format.

/ or so my friend told me

I'm on the server software team, so I'm not completely sure about the client - but as I understand it, the client's hitting our CCDS server to save you the step of putting in server names / ports /etc. The service was written for Nokia Messaging, and is used there, but is also valid for the client to configure its built-in client.

/just finished implementing push, non-POP Hotmail support for Nokia Messaging not too long ago

My wife's a print Graphic Designer. When she's looking for jobs, at least half of the "Graphic Designer" positions require HTML, and then I get to hear the tirade of yelling.

Yes, that's exactly what he's saying.

Way to add a lot of value to the thread.

After Taxes and Health Insurance, it can easily amount to $5 or less an hour. Some people have to do it because they don't have the education or skills to meet the jobs available in their area. Likewise they don't have the money to move elsewhere.

It happens, I've seen it. Now take that and try to raise a family.

Not only would I not try to raise a family, but I didn't even think about buying a house until I was getting married. And I make good money. And don't think I "need" to spend anything on television...so I choose not to.

You can repeat or make up an infinite amount of sob stories, but really - it's not that hard to refrain from having a family. Most people don't wake up one day all of a sudden having 3 kids and a minimum-wage job. For the most part, they got themselves in the situation.

You do realize that many of our states are the size of and have the population of most other countries?

You do realize how terrible the Federal government is here?

I'm guessing no, since you don't understand our system of federalism or that we're a constitutional republic or how our Constitution (with amendments) prevents states from reinstating slavery while still severely limiting the Feds' powers.

(/me looks up poster-with-very-low-ID's information)

Nope, you're a Russian in California. You have no idea how our (currently very broken) system of federal government is supposed to work, or how to get it back to a working state.