old Karen

If you have cable TV service, you probably have at least one set-top box in your house. On Monday, a federal rule change takes effect that could eventually force you to rent more cable boxes.
Right now, most cable systems don’t scramble the “basic tier” service which includes local broadcast stations, public, government and education channels, as well as some non-premium programming. Buy basic service and you can plug the cable into a digital set that has a QAM tuner and see these unencrypted channels without a set-top box.


Cable companies want to scramble everything coming through their wire, including basic service. They say this will allow them to reduce theft – prevent people from watching programs they didn’t pay for – and improve customer service.
Their plan is to keep every cable household connected to the network and then activate or terminate service remotely, rather than sending out the cable guy. They say this will improve efficiency – technicians can focus on more difficult installations – and reduce the need for customers to stay at home waiting for service.

Researchers at a Rice University lab are researching technology that that could potentially stop a 9-millimeter bullet and seal the entryway behind it - an advance that may have huge implications for ballistic protection for soldiers, as well as other uses.
During tests, the researchers were able to shoot tiny glass beads at the material, which effectively stopped bullets in their paths.
"This would be a great ballistic windshield material," scientist Ned Thomas said in a clip posted on the university's website.
The group, which included scientist Thomas, Rice research scientist Jae-Hwang Lee and a team from MIT's Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies, was looking for ways to make materials "more impervious to deformation or failure." The result would be better, stronger, lighter armor for soldiers and police, and protection for sensitive materials subject to small, fast moving objects, such as aircraft and satellites.

Now THAT is racist.

Considering I and the kids often make fun of (name deleted's) pronounciation of certain words, like pearl (Japanese have great difficulty saying 'R') and her and the kids often make fun of my pronounciation of Japanese words, I would say it is safe to say she woud not consider it racist. In fact, once she understood what the word actually wrote by the commentor meant, she would think it is quite funny.

Ask the person who called you racist how copying that coment from a Japanese commentors quote displays you as thinking your race is somehow superior to the asian race? That is what "racism" means, you feel your race is superior. Even making a derogotory comment about someone of a different race is not racism, you have to actually believe your race is superior to theirs. Does this person know what you feel about the asian race? Can they see into your brain or read your thoughts, do they know what is in your heart? Then they cannot use that word or make that assertion unless your comments and/or actions have made it clear you feel that way.

I bet if you asked that person they would say they were "offended" by your saying it was funny. To which I would tell them to stop getting offended, very few things in life are TRUELY offensive. Many things are upsetting, frustrating, foolish, etc. but not much is actually offensive. If they think things are offensive they have cheapened the English language (a major effort of the media for many years) and use this and probably many words, such as RACIST, when they really do not apply, the situation has not risen to the level that word really means.
Your finding that comment funny might, very slightly and even cheapening the meaning in this words case as well, be taken as "prejudice", but in no way does it even approach being racist. Even to show you as prejudice you would have to repeatedly make comments similar in type and toward the same ethnic or racial group, one posting of a common verbal error that has been put in writing does not make a person prejudice, much less racist.