The second problem is more subtle; and something I see as a major threat to the rights afforded to the accused -- ridiculous trumped-up charges, and minimal pleas in exchange for not going to trial. 15 years in prison for owning certain books? Who would risk a fair trial if that's a possible outcome? Much better than submit to the will of the system and take your six months.

Fifteen years should not even be an option on the state's table. 1 year max. Fifteen years is what murderers and rapists get, if they have a really bad lawyer. Is owning books worse than taking someone's life?

Not going to trial means that the legal system never has a chance to strike down these blatantly unconstitutional laws, leaving anyone who owns books open to potential criminal charges. Are you sure the government likes every book on your shelf? With this kind of precedent, you should probably quit reading and just watch CSPAN -- It's What's Best.

Edit: I just realized that many actual child rapists face fewer than fifteen years in prison. So rather than reading a book showing someone who might be underage, it's better for you to just rape children instead. A fine message our lawmakers are sending us.

A few more cases like this, and I'm quitting programming and going to law school. This stuff needs to stop.

Of course, with a new job, 650 square feet, and an an IKEA nearby, I couldn't turn down a few basics. So I picked up a spartan bed, a minimalist sofa, a function-oriented desk.

Then time began to pass. Though I'd resolved never to subscribe to cable, where was the harm in a TV to watch Netflix in comfort? Off to Best Buy to pick up a 20" on sale. Then IKEA to put something under it. Now I needed shelves. Accessories. Electronics.

Time passes. Books. Papers. Storage. A couple raises? Bigger TV! No need to sell the old one; it goes in the bedroom. Office reorganization? Don't throw away that table; it matches my sofa! Now I need chairs...

As I laid the cables for my home theater system last year, I had to confront just how far I had come from my theoretically nomadic self just a few years earlier. I had an apartment full of stuff. Some new opportunities had me contemplating the possibility of picking up and moving a great distance -- something that would have been easy not all that long ago, now made quite the unappealing prospect.

I'd kept pretty fit myself. But I realized that my lifestyle had put on a lot of pounds while I wasn't looking.

Coming from an engineering background, I sat in on an entrepreneurship class at UChicago Booth and I was totally blown away.

The angle was completely different. The previous class the students were all given the details about hypothetical ventures with some background on the market and they were asked to say whether they would invest or not invest should such a proposal cross their desk.

Then the class I was in, the big twist was that a lot of the ventures were real, and the founders were there that day.

The experience of being there when a room full of really bright and really accomplished kids learned that the company that 9/10 had passed on became a multi-million dollar success was priceless (and vice-versa). The message was unmistakeable.

Regarding the student body: I struck up a conversation with an enrolled student next to me, and it turns out the guy was one of the first 10 employees at ICQ. Pretty cool.

Take which anecdote (mine or the author's) you will. Also consider that the author's program was an undergraduate program and try to remember how experienced or useful you were at 18-21.

Sex isn't something that is happening to you, it is something you participate in. So it is your damn fault if it is bad sex. Speak up about what you like, porn related or not.

Wow, Paul, you really don't understand what it is like to be poor. The poor people don't have a lot of cars in their yard because they can afford lots of cars. They have lots of cars because they never throw them away. Rich people throw lots of fine stuff away, but poor people keep everything forever, because they don't know when they can afford to buy another one.

I've been rich and poor and most of my family is still poor. While they don't have lots of cars in the yard, they are pack rats and worry constantly about a time in the future when they won't have anything anymore.

Poor people keep stuff because there may be a day when they'll need it but won't have the money to buy it. The regret of, "Oh... i had one of those but i got rid of it" is pretty strong when you need something you don't have but once did.

Adding these hyphens manually is quite tedious. So I wrote up this little utility that takes HTML and adds soft hyphens automatically.

Background:

- Took a day to write (started it yesterday afternoon)

- Written in Python, deployed on AppEngine

- Uses OpenOffice's hyphenation dictionaries

Source code: http://github.com/fortes/softhyphen

So, the author starts with an academic study of the sex lives of modern young people, which drew some conclusions that porn is not the devil: "pretty conventional, almost identical to their parents," and "pornography has been demonized and that its effects are negligible." Then, she spends more than a thousand words trying to refute that entirely by anecdotal evidence, capping it off with "porn is having a profound impact on our culture."

I know asking everyone to act like good scientists is too much. But I would like it if people would at least try to act like bad scientists, and selectively use studies that support their predetermined conclusions. What a world, where you strengthen your point by citing only studies that refute it.