Jay McDaniel

silentbrad sends this quote from TheWrap: "'It's a deal with the devil,' one studio executive [said]. 'Cinedigm is being used as their pawn.' Cinedigm announced this weekend that it would offer the first seven minutes of the Emily Blunt-Colin Firth indie Arthur Newman exclusively to BitTorrent users, which number up to 170 million people.... Hollywood studios have spent years and many millions of dollars to protect their intellectual property and worry that by teaming up with BitTorrent, Cinedigm has embraced a company that imperils the financial underpinnings of the film business and should be kept at arm's length. 'It's great for BitTorrent and disingenuous of Cinedigm,' said the executive. 'The fact of the matter is BitTorrent is in it for themselves, they're not in it for the health of the industry.' Other executives including at Warner Brothers and Sony echoed those comments, fretting that Cinedigm had unwittingly opened a Pandora's box in a bid to get attention for its low-budget release. ... 'Blaming BitTorrent for piracy is like blaming a freeway for drunk drivers, ' Jill Calcaterra, Cinedigm's chief marketing officer said. 'How people use it can be positive for the industry or it can hurt the industry. We want it help us make this indie film successful.' ... 'We'll be working with all of [the studios] one day,' [Matt Mason, BitTorrent's vice president of marketing] said. 'It's really up to them how quickly they come to the table and realize we're not the villain, we're the heroes.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

If you have a wireless connection and then plug into your wired network, Windows might continue to use your wireless connection for your network usage. Here's how to change it so Windows uses your wired connection by default.

As explained on Microsoft, when more than one network connection is available, Windows will choose the one with the lowest metric value (automatically assigned based on the network connection's rated speed). Previously, to change the default priority of each interface you would change the metric value for each connection. NirmalTV suggests a newer, simpler method:

• Go to Network Connections under the Control Panel
• Under the file menu, go to Advanced > Advanced Settings
• In the Adapters and Bindings tab, click on the connection you want prioritized (e.g., the ethernet connection) and use the up arrow to move it to the top of the list

That's it! Hit OK and now your wired connection will be the default (when you're plugged in, that is).

How to Make Windows Select Wired Connection Instead of Wireless Connection | NirmalTV

An anonymous reader writes "New York City Police Commissioner Ray Kelly thinks that now is a great time to install even more surveillance cameras hither and yon around the Big Apple. After the Boston Marathon bombing, the Tsarnaev brothers were famously captured on security camera footage and thereby identified. That just may soften up Americans to the idea of the all-seeing glass eye. 'I think the privacy issue has really been taken off the table,' Kelly gloats."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

You may know how to care for a kitchen knife, but when's the last time you paid your simple pocket knife the attention it deserves? Instructables user kennethisme has a great tutorial on how to care for your average folding pocket knife, from cleaning the blade to lubricating the body.

It's something that a lot of people overlook, especially if your primary use for a pocket knife is opening packages, mail, and occasionally cutting zip ties and other tough plastic bits. Just like a kitchen knife, the dirtier it gets the more dangerous it is, so keeping it in good condition is important. Kennethisme scrubs the blade down with warm, soapy water and an old toothbrush, and then moves on to picking the right lubricant to keep the hinge, lock, and other moving parts well oiled. He suggests a petroleum-based wet lubricant, as opposed to a spray-on dry lubricant that will attract lint or dust. Similarly, he points out that you should use a food-grade lubricant if you plan to use your pocket knife in any food preparation.

Hit the link below for the whole guide and a few more tips, including specific lubricant suggestions. He doesn't get into keeping a pocket knife sharp, but the principles there are similar to other, previously mentioned kitchen skills. Unfortunately taking proper care of a pocket knife is something many of us often forget, and the guide makes it easy.

Pocket Knife Maintenance: Cleaning and Lubricating | Instructables

Although wireless is simpler for a lot of people, due to multimedia sharing, bandwidth on a home network, and paranoia about wireless security, you may want to use a hard wired solution for home networking. Having a wired network at home allows you to have a private, high-speed network for internet access, file sharing, media streaming, online gaming, IP security cameras, and much more.

This post is republished from Instructables.

Here's a step-by-step guide to wiring your home with Cat5e or Cat6 ethernet cable. (If you're not sure of the difference between the two, check out this post.)

Step 1: Initial Considerations and Planning

There are certain design considerations that need to be addressed based on your needs.

1. Which room(s) do I want wired? I have a two-bedroom condo so I knew I wanted both bedrooms wired. I also have a TV alcove where my cable TV is, so that seemed like a good location to wire as well (especially for things like video game consoles). Having cable TV in each of these locations, it seemed logical to treat the network the same way.
2. How many ports do I want in each location? With multiple game consoles and a network-enabled Blu-Ray player connected to my TV, I knew I wanted at least three connections behind my TV. Since the wall plates come in 1, 2, 4, and 6-jack configurations (for single gang), I just went with 4. Why run one cable when it's nearly as easy to run 4, right? Rather than vary the number, I just ran 4 drops to each location to provide maximum flexibility without the need for local (in-room) switches. Three locations with four ports each = 12 ports total.
3. What is a good location for distribution? For me, the logical location was my laundry room because my cable TV already comes into it and gets split to each room. It's important to note that my internet comes into the house (over the cable) here too, so if I move my cable modem here, it will be able to supply internet access to the entire network. Another thing to consider is the amount of space needed to mount a shelf to hold the network equipment.
4. What path should the cables take? This is probably the most difficult consideration. For me, my condo is on the second (top) floor and I have access to my attic. My cable TV is distributed through the attic, so it seemed like a good solution to run my home network through there as well. For single floor homes with a basement, the basement may be the best path. For multi-story homes you may have to get creative. Outside could be an option, or through an old laundry chute. (I won't address the specifics of all the possibilities, just my own circumstances.) The other consideration with cable path is cable length. The max cable length for up to gigabit speeds over copper UTP cabling is 100 meters (~300 feet). This should provide plenty of flexibility for most home applications, but it is good to be aware of this limit.
5. What network speed do I need? This will mainly play a part in what kind of switch to get. I used a 10mbps switch because I got it for free, and it's still faster than most everyone's home internet connection (you can probably pick up a really cheap one—possibly even free—at a used computer store). But, if you're going to be doing anything over the network—like playing games, transferring files between computers, or anything like that—we definitely recommend getting a gigabit switch. If you're buying a new switch, these aren't that expensive these days, so there's little reason not to go gigabit.
   
   

Next up, tools and materials!

Step 2: Required Tools and Materials (and Costs)

Your tools and materials (and costs) can vary a lot based on your needs and what you already have. I borrowed a lot of the following tools, but here's a very basic, estimated breakdown:

Tools

• Ethernet crimping tool (only if you're putting plug on the ends). Cost: $13 on Amazon.
• Drill (primarily for drilling through wall top plates, but makes screwing faster too). Cost: varies (I already had one).
• Paddle bit or hole saw (size will vary by how many cables you're running). Cost: usually around $20.
• Pointed hand saw (this makes it easy to cut holes for the gang boxes/wall plates). Cost: usually around $15.
• Strong string or a fish tape. Cost: $30 on Amazon.
• Label maker (optional).
• Pencil.
• Sharpie-type marker.
• Ruler.
• Stud finder. Cost: $13 on Amazon.
• Punchdown tool (optional). I used a small screwdriver instead.
• Laptop or cable tester (to test each drop). I used my laptop.

Materials

• 1000' spool Cat5e or Cat6, Cat6 recommended (more or less based on your need). Cost: $105 on Monoprice.
• Single Gang Retrofit Boxes (the kind that clamp to the drywall, open back). Cost: $0.25 each.
• RJ45 Jacks and plates (get what you need, maybe an extra or two). Cost: $0.35/plate; $14 for 12 jacks.
• RJ45 plugs (optional). Cost: $5 for 10.
• Plastic grommet (optional, makes the cabling look professional). Cost: $0.60.
• Patch panel (optional, another professional touch). Cost: $33 and up on Amazon (I dragged it out of the dumpster at work).
• Ethernet switch. Cost: $32 for an 8 port gigabit switch.
• Router (optional, may be required by you ISP). I already had one, and most of you probably will too.
• Velcro strips for cable management (optional). Cost: $3 for a roll.
• Short patch cables (optional). Cost: $5, but will vary depending on length.

Now that we've (hopefully) got all the stuff we need, lets mount the wall plates!

Step 3: Mount the Wall Plates

Pictured above: The cable and new ethernet cables come down the wall in the same space between studs. Note the extra cable length in case of mistakes!

Since I knew the path my cable TV took and it was in all of the same locations that I wanted my ethernet jacks, I just located my cable TV jacks to start. Using the stud finder I was able to tell which side of the cable jack the stud was located on. Studs are located 16" apart in almost all homes and I knew I wanted my ethernet to go in the same wall cavity as the cable TV.

Once you've decided where to mount the box, you need to draw the lines on the wall to fit the new box and cut the hold with the pointed hand saw. The pointed saw should be able to push through the dry wall pretty easily without the need to drill starter holes.

Once you have the hole cut in the wall, you can put the single gang box into the hole and screw the clamps with hold it in place by clamping to the back of the dry wall. Repeat this for each location that you want to run to. Pictured above: A hole to fit the grommet. It's a nice professional-looking touch. For now we'll leave the wall plates off.

At this time you'll also want to cut a hole in the wall in the distribution room. Here you want to cut a hole that the plastic grommet will fit into.

Next: we can run cables.

Step 4: Measure and Run the Cables

Pictured above: Hole drilled in the top plate of the wall. String dropped down with a bolt tied to it so I could pull up the cables.

There are a number of ways to do this. You can estimate, measure from floor plans, run one, etc. I used the run one method. To find the lengths required for each run, I ran one cable to each room from the distribution room, pulled it out, and made three more like it. After that, you can run all four together. You'll also want to label both ends of each cable with a sharpie. This way you can label the ports on both ends.

Before you can do this, however, you need to drill through the wall top plates so that you can drop the cables into the walls where you've cut the holes. Finding the right place to drill in the top plate (to make sure you get in the right 16" gap between studs) can be tricky. This is another reason I decided to follow the coax cables for cable TV. I traced down the cable TV through that attic and then drilled new holes in the top plate right next to the cable TV holes. You'll need a powerful drill and either a paddle bit or a hole saw for this. The hole saw is easier but the paddle bit is cheaper. I used a 1 1/4" paddle bit and it was hard to control and strained the drill at times. You can also opt to drill multiple small holes and use one for each cable—although this makes running them a bit harder since you can't tape the bundle together.

Once you have the top holes drilled you can string out some cable to measure how much for each run, then cut three more equal lengths per run, and re-run the cables. Be sure to make them long enough that you have some extra from stripping and crimping accidents. It's always easy to tuck extra length into the wall.

Next up: making connections.

Step 5: Connect the Wires to the Jacks and Patch Panel

Pictured above: RJ-45 plug diagram.

Now the we've got the cables run we can punch down the the cables to the patch panel and the to jacks. I noted in the materials that a patch panel was optional. You can take the raw cable directly out of the wall, put a RJ-45 plug on it, and plug directly into the switch. But for permanent installation, I feel it's much more professional to mount a patch panel.

Pictured above: Cables punched down to the back of the patch panel.

This is pretty easy. Most patch panels and jacks have diagrams with wire color diagrams for the common T568A and T568B wiring standards. To be honest, I don't know if either would work. I've seen "A" used for ISDN before, but in looking at the T568B color guide I recognized it as the same as the tons of patch cables I've made before. So I went with it. Make sure you use the same on both ends. You can use the punch down tool or a small screw driver to punch the individual wires.

Once you have all the cables connected, you can mount the patch panel to the wall and click the jacks into their respective wall plates on the other ends. You can also screw the wall plates into the gang boxes.

Pictured above: Short patch cables up to the switch. The aluminum is the bottom of the shelf that the switch sits on.

Now we can make sure things work!

Step 6: Test Your Connections

Pictured above: Testing 1,2,3...

Before you start connecting most of the network components, you want to test all of the connections to be sure things are working. This can be done a number of ways. If you actually have a network tester, then you probably know what you're doing. You're on your own. The method I used was a little different.

I plugged a short patch cable from my patch panel to each port on my switch and turned it on. Since it's a managed switch, I set each port to be "up/up" and "auto negotiate." Unmanaged switches will not need to configure anything.

The next step is to take another patch cable and a laptop and plug it into each port in each room. Check the switch after each port and verify the "link" indicator is on. Being able to establish a link tests the physical layer (i.e. no broken wires, all tight crimps, no crossed wires), as well as the data link layer (i.e. negotiation between network card and switch port). No IP addressing or anything needed for testing.

Pictured above: Neat and clean lables for each port actually go where they say they do. MB = Master Bedroom, SB = Second Bedroom, etc.

This is also a good time to make sure your labeling matches on both ends. For example, you can make sure that "Master Bedroom Port 2" on your patch panel actually goes to the second port in the master bedroom.

Now, to the internet, and beyond!

Step 7: Connect to the Internet

Pictured above: Cable gets split to: 1. Main TV, 2. Cable Modem, 3. Second splitter. Second Splitter goes to each bedroom. I'm less concerned about signal degradation there but the runs are short enough that I don't need amplifiers.

Now that we've got this fancy network, we want to connect it to the internet right?

First: the cable modem setup. Since I moved my cable modem from my second bedroom (office) to the distribution room, I needed to change the way my cable was split. Rather than the main cable into the house being split three ways, I split things a little differently. I split the incoming cable with a three-way splitter first: one to the main TV, one to the two-way splitter for TV in the bedrooms, and the other into the cable modem. I connected the splitters using a male-male barrel connector.

Now that the cable modem is in the right place we can continue with our network setup. Depending on your internet provider some of this setup may vary. (I'm going to discuss the specifics of my environment only, but will provide tips for others when possible.)

From the cable modem ethernet port I plugged into the "Untrusted" port on my router/firewall. From the "Trusted" port, I connected to the first switch port on my switch. If your switch has one, plug into the port labeled "Uplink" instead. Depending on the switch or cable modem and/or router, you may need (or already have) crossover cables for these connections. With my router/firewall set up as a DHCP server I can now provide each port access to the internet. In addition, my entire network is protected from outside access by the firewall.

Pictured above from top left: Firewall, Cable Modem, Wireless Access Point, 24 port managed 100 megabit switch, cable management and patch panel.

Although it's not integral to this instructable, I also plugged a wireless access point into my switch so that I can have wireless access as well. Since my wireless is both encrypted and has MAC filtering, I feel comfortable with it on the "trusted" side of my firewall. If for some reason I wanted to provide open wireless access but still protect my network, I would need a different configuration of connections. (I won't go into detail about these changes but I wanted to note them depending on what your network goals are and how they might incorporate wireless access.)

In summary, my firewall receives my single, static IP from my ISP cable modem. It also acts as a router and provides DHCP IP addresses to all other hosts on my private network via the switch and cabling we just installed.

What the hell do we do with it now?!? NEXT!

Step 8: Make Your Geek Friends Drool with These Cool Options

There are some cool additions that you can make to your home network that will make your geek friends jealous.

1. File server or NAS. I added and mounted a 1U file server in the distribution room that holds all of my multimedia. This includes a mirrored RAID with 1TB of storage for music, movies, TV shows, etc. (RAID is not a backup, but I feel better about not losing my media if a hard drive takes a dump) With this I can stream media to any computers on my network! A SOHO NAS device such as Netgear's ReadyNAS also works well here, but I've found that their network performance (of NAS devices, NOT specifically the ReadyNAS which I've heard is tha' bomb) doesn't approach the gigabit speeds their network interfaces can negotiate. *Editor's note: Learn how to turn an old computer into a NAS here.
2. XBMC. I have both of my Xboxes (yes the originals, no 360 yet) soft modded with XBMC loaded on them. They're also configured with the DVD remote receivers for Xbox so I can control them from the Harmony. This allows me to stream all the multimedia on my server to either of my TVs! No more is watching Hulu or other media limited to just my computer screens. *Editor's note: Find out everything you need to know about building a seriously kickass XBMC media center here.

3. Gigabit switch. I touched on this before, but upgrading to a gigabit switch allows super fast file sharing between machines on your home network. It's probably overkill but so is a Bugatti and we all want one of those. If you can't afford one with enough ports for your entire network, you can segregate two networks. With the patch panel, you could plug port one and two from each four-port location into the gigabit switch and the other two into the slower switch. But come on, you might as well blow the money and get the whole shebang!

4. DVR anywhere. With a file server set up, you can also install a bunch of DVR cards in it. Each card can record different shows from your cable and store them on the file server. You can then watch your recorded shows on any TV in your house with XBMC. Assuming you set up the routing and or VPN access, you can access those shows from a laptop with decent bandwidth anywhere. *Editor's note: Not sure what TV tuner is right for your DIY DVR? We can help.

5. IP phones. Some manufacturers are making IP-based telephones that can connect to the internet. Who still has a home phone!?! But if you need one, at least you can skip the phone company bill.

6. IP Cameras. You can put security cameras in any room that you've run network drops to and record them to your file server. No more worrying if the babysitter is shaking your kids or snooping in your bedroom. *Editor's note: Need some help setting up your surveillance system? Everything you should know is here.

7. Be creative!

How to Wire Your House With Cat-5 (or 6) For Ethernet Networking | Instructables

---

Instructables is a place that lets you explore, document, and share your creations. The seeds of Instructables germinated at the MIT Media Lab as the future founders of Squid Labs built places to share their projects, connect with others, and make an impact on the world.

Image remixed from AptTone (Shutterstock).

Want to see your work on Lifehacker? Email Tessa.

Divorce is never easy, but it's one of those life events that deserves a serious postmortem examination to figure out what really happened. I went through a divorce last year, and from that failure I've learned a lot about what it takes to make a relationship work.

We tend to learn best from failure, and when a marriage fails you're certainly primed for a lot of learning and self-reflection. On the surface, my marriage had all the makings of something that should work: no infidelity, no abuse, and we seemingly got along great. But if I'm perfectly honest, we sucked at actually dealing with issues. Looking back on the whole experience, I've walked away a slightly smarter man, and here are a few pieces of advice I wish I'd heard—or least followed—before it all went to hell.

Find the Right Ways to Communicate

It's no secret that communication is the key to the success of any relationship. In fact, it’s some of the most common advice you hear. The problem is, it isn’t always as simple as it sounds. People communicate in different ways, and in the case of my ex-wife and I, we communicated in what felt like entirely different languages. I was the more standoffish one who tended to communicate subtly, whereas she was more straightforward.

These two forms of communication don't seem to work together, but that doesn't mean you can't find a middle ground. The first step is realizing that you're having trouble speaking on the same wavelength. Then, it's time figure out how to talk to one another. In our case, we simply weren't revealing that much about ourselves. We avoided hot topics and instead talked blandly about work, friends, or whatever boring gossip was happening in the world. We knew we needed to communicate, but we never figured out how to do it. One solution I came across far too late popped up in The Wall Street Journal:

Spouses need to speak in a calm and caring voice. They should learn to argue in a way that produces a solution, not just more anger. They have to practice "active listening," where they try to hear what the other person is saying, repeating back what they just heard and asking if they understood correctly...

Dr. Orbuch suggests a 10-minute rule: Every day, for 10 minutes, the couple should talk alone about something other than work, the family and children, the household, the relationship. No problems. No scheduling. No logistics.

Dr. Orbuch's point is pretty simple: talk about nothing, talk about philosophy, talk about dreams—whatever, just talk for 10 minutes a day. That said, our own Walter Glenn adds his own rules for effective communication and arguments:

Giving your partner the chance to vent frustration (and feel safe doing it) is part of your job as a spouse, whether that frustration is directed at you or about something else. Fights are absolutely fine. But it's important to set up a few ground rules about fighting. Here are a couple of rules my wife and I always follow:

• No name calling or personal insults. She might call my idea idiotic, but that's very different than calling me an idiot. So, word choice is important.
• Either of us can walk away from a fight if we need some time to cool off. The trick is, nobody just storms off. We always say some variation of "I need to cool down for a few minutes. Let's continue later."
• This one is mostly if you have kids (and may be more parenting advice), but I feel like if you start a fight in front of your kids, you owe it to them to let them see how the fight gets resolved. Sending them away and then having them see later on that the fight is over doesn't alleviate fear or teach them anything.

Glenn's point is that what happens after the fight is what's important, and fights aren't a bad thing. My ex-wife and I were both the non-fighting type, and I'll certainly second the notion that being non-confrontational all the time isn't worth it.

You'll find thousands of articles out there dedicated to finding the right communication style (here are just a few I found helpful), but it boils down to a few simple rules: shut up and just listen when you need to (and understand when your partner doesn't want you to solve a problem), respect each other, and dedicate time to actually talk about things that matter (and things that don't). It sounds simple, but it’s hard for some of us to do—and if you keep repeating those rules over and over in your head, you’ll come a lot closer.

Learn (and Address) Different Attachment Styles

It might not seem that obvious at a glance, but what psychologists call attachment styles is an important thing to think about when a relationship starts to get a little rocky. Attachment styles are essentially how we handle emotional attachment—whether you're an emotionally giving person who shows affection outwardly or you're more reserved—and when two people with opposite styles pair up as we did, a lot of confusion can happen.

To put it simply: I was far more reserved than my ex-wife. The more attention she wanted, the more I'd shirk away. I am, put bluntly, incredibly reserved when it comes to affection. If it was feasible for me to live in a bubble when I go out I probably would. This seemed like a road block that we couldn't cross but eventually I realized that this behavior wasn't nearly as set in stone as I'd thought. In fact, as The Wall Street Journal points out, it's not that difficult to address:

The good news, Dr. Levine says, is that attachment style can change. Experts say couples need to tell each other what they need and be specific. For example, they can say, "I know it's difficult for you to be affectionate in front of my friends, but at home I really need a hug every day."

Displays of love don't have to be 50-50, as long as both people show something. "Each partner will need to make some slight movements in the opposite direction from which they are comfortable," says Sharon Gilchrest O'Neill, a Mount Kisco, N.Y., marriage and family therapist. She says she is more emotionally reserved than her husband, and he asked her to give him a kiss when he comes home.

Acknowledging this, I've become less of a bubble-boy over time, and while I'll never be as emotionally forward as some people, I'm certainly less standoffish than I was. Again, this boils down to good communication, but it's also about acknowledging that changes can happen, and finding the ways each person communicates. A lot of the time we assume we can't change our behaviors—that small changes don't make a difference—but when it comes to relationships they really can.

Priority Changes Matter More Than You Might Think

You'll inevitably hit a point where your priorities change in a relationship. In our case, this came about as both of us finished school, and starting moving into our respective careers. For the longest time, our goals were short-sighted: finish school, find work. As those things changed, we never took the time to sit down and address it.

For a lot of people, this often manifests in money conversations (we've got you covered there if you need it), but in our case it was more about goals in general. Money was never an issue of contention between us, but conflicting ideas about the future were.

When you suddenly find yourself in an entirely different circumstance, dealing with those changes takes foresight and communication. Without those two things, the distance between you only grows to the point of no return. We both went from having 14 hour days filled with work and school to suddenly having free time we weren't used to, but we didn't alter our behaviour accordingly. Psych Central has a few ways to deal with these changes:

[Dr. Terry] Orbuch encourages couples to “discuss how much this difference or big change impacts each of you separately and impacts your relationship.” This helps to figure out if you’re OK with the change and how you’re going to deal with it.

Reaching a compromise is one way. “Compromise can mean different things to different people.” It might mean going with your partner’s desires this time, your desires or meeting in the middle, she said...

Another way to deal with a big change is to “work on accepting the difference” and “not taking it personally.” For instance, your spouse leaning toward liberal views isn’t an affront to your more conservative philosophies. And it’s fine for some topics to be taboo for a couple. It’s something you don’t talk about so much because you know it brings conflict.

When we were caught up in the heat of changes, neither of us took the time to initiate a conversation about how important these changes were. Our priorities had shifted, but neither of us decided to talk about it. The best thing we could have done would have been to sit down and outline a five year plan to see where we stood on issues. Without doing that, we simply didn't know what we wanted from the relationship, the present, or the future. The only real way past this is to talk about changes early before they happen. Go through it all: how they change your priorities, and how it's going to affect your relationship moving forward.

Ruts Don't Go Away on Their Own

All relationships have their ups and downs, but when those downs stick around for a couple months they become ruts. Even a rut is common enough. When you spend a lot of time with someone it's inevitable you'll get a little bored of the routine if it never changes. With us, we got stuck in one of those ruts, but instead of really trying to break out of it, we just waited for it to pass. Clearly, that was a horrible choice.

In our case, the rut basically translated to boredom. Ruts aren't always bad—they're dependable and not always boring—but when they get too stale it's hard to turn around. The whole relationship just became rote and mundane. It seems like a common enough problem, as I've heard it from plenty of friends as well. The obvious solution, as Psychology Today points out, is to mix things up and engage in novel activities:

Engaging in these activities with your partner involves cooperation and provides a shared experience that can bring you closer together. It also helps you extend the pleasure you get out of the activity to your relationship...you don’t have to set up an obstacle course at home (though that might be a fun Friday night activity!), take skydiving lessons, or go bungee jumping in Zimbabwe. Instead, take a break from the same ol’, same ol’ and try out a new hobby together (glass blowing, anyone?), bike or hike through an unexplored area near where you live, play tourist in your city, or take a weekend trip to a nearby town.

It's stupidly simple advice, but it's still solid. You don't have to do anything extravagant. Grab a crazy Groupon deal and do something new, head off to terrible looking movie, or wander around a new park every once in a while. When things get boring the best thing you can do is change them. You're not going to get out of a rut unless you're willing to climb out of it.

Relationship Counselors Can Usually Only Help When Problems Start

It's a pretty natural tendency to hit up a therapist or counselor when things fall apart. The problem, at least in our case, was that we didn't even think to bother with a counselor until it was way too late.

After our first (and only) meeting with the counselor, it became pretty clear that we'd waited way too long. After my soon-to-be-ex-wife had left, I stuck around and talked with the counselor more to try and figure out exactly where everything went wrong. The counselor was pretty blunt, and said that we'd essentially let fixable problems get to the point where they weren't reversible.

We'd let things go on too long, hadn't addressed issues in years, and essentially let the marriage ungracefully fizzle out instead of dealing with the problems head on. I'm typically not one for therapy or counseling, but if we'd tackled this early we would have at least walked away with a better understanding of what was wrong. A couples counselor or therapist can't fix problems, they're only going to walk you through the process of fixing them yourself. They're worthwhile at pretty much any stage in the relationship if you're in need of a little guidance. If it's past the time where you're both willing to do that, a counselor isn't much help.

---

Of course, relationship "advice" is by no means universal, but we can all take something away from our failures. It took over a year for me to really look at those failures with a critical eye, but I'm glad I did.

Photos by Nick Criscuolo, Paul Hudson, Pascal, JD Hancock, Enrico.

Q: Is it true that there are bills in Congress that would exempt members and their staffs and families from buying into “Obamacare”?

A: No. Congress members and staffers will be required to buy insurance through the exchanges on Jan. 1. But reportedly there is concern about whether federal contributions to premiums can continue without a change.

FULL QUESTION

Is it true that there are bills in the House and Senate that will exempt members and their staff and families from buying into Obamacare?

FULL ANSWER

Several readers have asked us about Congress attempting to exempt itself from the requirements of the Affordable Care Act. A few said that a Facebook post claimed that President Barack Obama, Sen. Harry Reid and Democrats in Congress were trying to “get themselves exempted from Obamacare,” in the words of one reader.

But there is no bill in Congress calling for an exemption from the health care law. In fact, members of Congress and their staffs face additional requirements that most Americans don’t have to meet.

Under the health care law, their insurance coverage will have to switch from the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program, the group of private insurance plans that cover 8 million federal employees and retirees, to the exchanges created by the law. Those exchanges are meant for those who buy coverage on their own, the currently uninsured and small businesses. Members of Congress and their staffs would be the only employees of a large employer in the exchanges, which are set to begin offering insurance in January.

So, why is the false “exempt” claim making the Facebook rounds? There is reportedly concern on Capitol Hill that the Office of Personnel Management, which administers the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program, won’t be able to smoothly transition members and their staffs into an exchange. The concern, as a Roll Call story explained, was that the government wouldn’t be able to make contributions toward the federal employees’ premiums, at least at the beginning of 2014. That would mean employees would pick up the whole tab for their insurance policies. Right now, the government pays 72 percent of premiums on average.

The “exempt” claims were sparked by a Politico report on April 24 that said secret talks were being held by lawmakers to change the requirement to get insurance through the exchanges because of this concern. The headline on the story said “Lawmakers, aides may get Obamacare exemption.”

After the story was published, a spokesman for Sen. Harry Reid said there hadn’t been any discussions to exempt Congress from “provisions that apply to any employees of any other public or private employer offering health care.” And Democratic Rep. Henry Waxman of California told Politico that lawmakers and their staffs will indeed get insurance through the exchanges. “[T]he federal government will offer them health insurance coverage that they obtained through the exchanges because we want to get the same health care coverage everybody else has available to them,” he said.

We contacted the Office of Personnel Management and received this statement from an administration official: “Members of Congress will not receive anything that is not available to the public. The law doesn’t allow them to get insurance from FEHB, they are going to get insurance on the market place, just like uninsured individuals and small businesses.”

We can’t say what did or didn’t happen in any secret meetings. But we can say that no bill has been introduced to exempt members of Congress from the Affordable Care Act — and they were never exempt in the first place. Even if, hypothetically, Congress were to nullify the provision requiring members and their staffs to get insurance on the exchanges, it still wouldn’t amount to an exemption from the law. Lawmakers and staffers would be subject to the mandate to have health insurance or pay a fine, just as everyone else is.

The law provides a few exemptions from the requirement to have insurance, but only for those who earn too little to file taxes, those with financial hardships, those who can’t find affordable coverage, and some religious groups that qualify for Social Security exemptions, mainly Mennonite or Amish.

An Old Falsehood

Bogus claims about Congress being “exempt” date back to early 2010, when different health care bills were still being debated. Some Republicans claimed that Americans, except for members of Congress, would be forced into the government-run “public option” (which wasn’t part of the final bill that became law) or state-based exchanges (which are part of the law).

As we said previously, members of Congress get private health insurance through the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program, which actually served as a model for the exchanges. Federal workers pick from among many health plans. The exchanges would operate in the same way — like a marketplace for those shopping for private insurance.

But some Republicans pushed the idea that if the exchanges were good enough for other Americans, they should be good enough for Congress. So, an amendment by Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa was added to the Senate bill requiring that the federal government offer only health plans that were part of an exchange to members of Congress and their staffs. The law’s final language on this, written by Sen. Tom Coburn, says that: “the only health plans that the Federal Government may make available to Members of Congress and congressional staff with respect to their service as a Member of Congress or congressional staff shall be health plans that are — (I) created under this Act (or an amendment made by this Act); or (II) offered through an Exchange established under this Act.”

Congressional “staff” is defined as “all full-time and part-time employees employed by the official office of a Member of Congress, whether in Washington, DC or outside of Washington, DC.” As we reported before, Coburn said the provision wouldn’t apply to those working for committees or leadership staff, and a Congressional Research Service report agreed that could be the case.

In other words, the Affordable Care Act places on lawmakers and their staffs additional requirements that don’t pertain to other Americans with work-based insurance.

– Lori Robertson

Sources

Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Public Law 111–148. 111th Congress

The Federal Employees Health Benefits (FEHB) Program. OPM.gov. accessed 3 May 2013.

Ethridge, Emily. “Health Insurance Anxiety on Capitol Hill.” 25 Apr 2013.

Robertson, Lori. “Congress Exempt from Health Bill?” FactCheck.org. 20 Jan 2010.

Jackson, Brooks. “Health Care for Members of Congress?” FactCheck.org. 25 Aug 2009.

Bresnahan, John and Jake Sherman. “Lawmakers, aides may get Obamacare exemption.” Politico. 24 Apr 2013.

Baker, Sam. “Dems won’t seek ObamaCare exemption.” The Hill. 25 Apr 3013.

Henig, Jess. “More Malarkey About Health Care.” FactCheck.org. 19 Apr 2010.

Powered By WizardRSS.com | Full Text RSS Feed | Amazon Plugin Wordpress | Android Forums | Wordpress Tutorials

In an opinion met by groans from open-government advocates across the country, the U.S. Supreme Court this week unanimously ruled that government transparency has its limits—and those limits can be a state’s boundaries and the citizens living within them.

Open-records laws, most notably the Freedom of Information Act on the federal level, guarantee the public’s right to access government documents and data. There are a few general exceptions (such as records related to ongoing criminal investigations and records containing sensitive personnel information), but the idea is that transparency is a prerequisite for good governance. Open-government advocates believe officials are less likely to abuse their authority when they know their work is subject to citizen scrutiny.

The Commonwealth of Virginia also has a Freedom of Information Act. Although modeled after the federal FOIA, the state’s version limits access to records to Virginians only. This “citizens-only” provision is what SCOTUS upheld in its ruling.

The plaintiffs in the case were Mark McBurney and Roger Hurlbert, both of whom had FOIA requests rejected by Virginian agencies. McBurney, a former resident of Virginia, had sought records related to his family after a child-support enforcement agency allegedly bungled his case. Hurlbert runs a firm that is hired by a variety of clients to request and research real estate records; in this case Hurlbert was contracted to obtain tax records for a property in Virginia.

EFF joined Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, the Sunlight Foundation, the Project On Government Oversight and several other open-government advocates in filing an amicus curiae brief that argued that “citizens-only” open-records laws have the potential to harm the constitutional rights of non-citizens (that is, non-citizens of a particular state).

The court disagreed. You can read the opinion itself here to understand the specific legal rationale Justice Samuel Alito used in writing the opinion. However, there are two underlying misconceptions that keep coming up in the debate over these “citizens-only” record rules that the court did not fully address.

The Supreme Court Reporter of Decisions’ syllabus—the official summary of the decision—epitomized the misconceptions underlying citizens-only provisions:  

Virginia’s FOIA exists to provide a mechanism for Virginia citizens to obtain an accounting from their public officials; noncitizens have no comparable need. Moreover, the distinction between citizens and noncitizens recognizes that citizens alone foot the bill for the fixed costs underlying recordkeeping in the Commonwealth.

This statement misses the mark for several reasons, not the least of which is that it distorts the court’s ruling. Yet, these are the arguments often made by proponents of citizens-only public records laws.

First off: the assertion that Virginians singlehandedly bear the cost of government record keeping lacks a fundamental understanding of how state budgets work.

For the 2013 fiscal year, Virginia has allocated $42.7 billion to run the entirety of its government. Of that, $9.5 billion is anticipated to come from federal grants and contracts. That means the nation's taxpayers, largely non-citizens of Virginia, foot 22 percent of the state's bills and all the record-keeping that goes along with it. That also means that non-citizens have a substantial interest in ensuring that Virginia is spending federal money wisely.

It's a false assumption that only people living inside a state have an interest in how that state operates. A state can have a direct and tangible impact on the citizens of another state, whether through sending inmates to out-of-state private prisons or meeting with out-of-state corporations to entice them to relocate to a more favorable tax climate. The public also has an interest in understanding policies in a national context. Case in point: EFF and Muckrock’s "Drone Census." This ruling directly affects our ability to compile a comprehensive database of unmanned aerial vehicle programs by local law-enforcement agencies across the country. (On a related note: In one case, we only learned of a California county’s drone plans through a records request filed in Washington state.) 

Here’s another example of why state affairs have national relevance: Virginia officials have a tendency to become federal officials, dating as far back as George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. In modern years, the tradition has continued with, most recently, Gov. Jim Gilmore running for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008.  Current Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell is frequently named as a prospective contender in 2016. It’s hard to argue that vetting a presidential hopeful’s executive experience is not a “need” for non-Virginians. Democracy would be poorly served if only Virginia-based news outlets were able to access a presidential candidates’s records.  

Unfortunately, SCOTUS’ ruling won’t be easily undone, at least not in the courts. Efforts are underway to expand FOIA surrogate networks (where, say, someone in Virginia will file a request on your behalf). Perhaps, one day, legislators in the eight states with citizens-only provisions will undo these needless restrictions. Accountability should not stop at any state’s line.

Related Issues:  Transparency
Share this:   ||  Join EFF

Together with the Digital Media Law Project, we filed an amicus brief today in federal court in Massachusetts. We are urging the court to ensure that the Digital Millennium Copyright Act provides protection for victims of abusive takedown notices—specifically, that the DMCA requires copyright owners to consider fair use before sending takedowns.

The takedown procedure of the DMCA provides a quick, cheap, extrajudicial way to get speech removed from the internet. As we’ve written many, many times before, this makes it a tempting tool for those who wish to remove speech they happen to dislike. To prevent such abuse, Section 512(f) of the DMCA provides victims of wrongful takedowns with a remedy, allowing them to file a lawsuit for misrepresentation under the DMCA.

This latest Section 512(f) case out of Massachusetts has a curious history. It began as an online battle between two bloggers—doula Gina Crosley-Corcoran and OB/GYN Dr. Amy Tuteur—about the safety of home birth. After an exchange of critical posts, Crosley-Corcoran posted a photo of herself making a well-known, finger-related gesture to Tuteur and writing: “I don’t want to leave you without something you can take back to your blog and obsess over, so here’s a picture of me.” Tuteur responded with a post of her own that included the photo with some commentary (the photo is now removed from this post)—a clear case of fair use.

Crosley-Corcoran then sent a DMCA takedown notice to the host of Tuteur’s blog, alleging copyright infringement of the finger photo. After Tuteur changed hosts, Crosley-Corcoran sent another takedown notice to the new host. According to Tuteur, this second notice was sent after Crosley-Corcoran’s attorney admitted that there was no valid copyright claim. And on her blog, Crosley-Corcoran wrote that she would be prepared to settle the matter if Tuteur would “agree to stop personally attacking me.” As others have also concluded, the chain of events suggests that Crosley-Corcoran was using the DMCA to silence a critic.

Tuteur responded by filing a federal lawsuit in Massachusetts asserting a DMCA Section 512(f) claim. On its own initiative, the court issued an order to show cause suggesting that it “seriously questions” whether Tuteur has stated a viable Section 512(f) claim. The core of the court’s concern is that the fair use is an affirmative defense—the judge questioned whether the DMCA requires the sender of a takedown notice to consider fair use.

This is an important question. If the DMCA did not require copyright owners to consider fair use, it would be an open invitation for private censorship. For example, an author could send a takedown notice to remove a critical book review based on just a few quoted words. Fortunately, other courts that have considered this issue have found that the DMCA does require consideration of fair use. For example, in Lenz v. Universal, where EFF represents the plaintiff, the court ruled that content owners must consider fair use before sending takedowns.

The case of Tuteur v. Crosley-Corcoran is not about the relative merits of these blogger’s views about childbirth. Rather, it is about the alleged misuse of the DMCA to silence a critic and the crucial legal issue of whether the DMCA requires senders of takedown notices to consider fair use. Today we urge the court to reach the right result and ensure that the DMCA protects free expression.

Files:  eff_and_dmlp_tuteur_brief.pdf Related Issues:  Intellectual Property DMCA
Share this:   ||  Join EFF

It’s a tried and true principle that once a work enters the public domain, absent an act of Congress, it stays there. It can be preserved, shared and reused freely, without even a need to attribute to the original author. Archives of public domain works are extremely valuable to the public, a treasure trove of entertainment and source materials. That is one reason the Internet Archive, a nonprofit digital library dedicated to expanding access to knowledge and culture, has made preserving and facilitating access to public domain materials a central part of its mission.

Those materials include old televisions shows, such as a popular 1950s show called “You Asked For It.” You can watch the show via the Archive site, and/or use footage from it to create new works: just what the public domain is supposed to enable.  

Or at least that’s how things will stand unless an obscure company that claims to own a trademark in the term “You Asked For It” in connection with licensing televisions shows, memorabilia, etc. gets its way. The company, Sandy Frank Film Syndication, has hit the Archive with ridiculous legal threats based not on copyrights, but rather trademark rights. The company initially demanded that the Archive takedown not just links to the television show (which it admits is in the public domain) but also links to remix videos that use footage from the show, a series of sermons that happen to use the term “you asked for it” in the title, and a reference to a record that also used the term. When the Archive pushed back, SFFS withdrew its complaints about colloquial uses but renewed its demand regarding the other materials and insisted that even using the term in a Internet search could violate trademark law. 

The claims are, of course, ludicrous, as we explained in some detail in a letter we sent to SFFS yesterday.  Leaving aside the fact that the uses in question are entirely noncommercial and there is no likelihood of consumer confusion, well-established Supreme Court precedent makes clear that you cannot use trademark to accomplish an end-run around the Copyright Act.  In Dastar v. 20th Century, a 2003 case involving another public domain television show, the Court affirmed that

The rights of a patentee or copyright holder are part of a “carefully crafted bargain,” . . . under which, once the patent or copyright monopoly has expired, the public may use the invention or work at will and without attribution. 

We assume that SFFS will have the good sense to walk away from this fight. But we fear this is not the last time we will hear of a trademark holder attempting to invade the public domain. A few years from now – absent another foolish act of Congress (and not one that they could get away with without a massive fight) – works locked up when the copyright term was extended by 20 years will finally start to enter the public domain.  When that happens, we can expect former copyright owners will be scrambling to find new ways to keep the cultural commons from expanding. 

EFF will be there to fight back, just as we are today, but we’ll need your help. Too often, the fight won’t happen because mark owners will target “weak link” service providers who lack the time and inclination to assess the validity of the claims. To help secure the public domain now, service providers should adopt speech-friendly procedures, such as trademark takedown policies that include an easy-to-use counter-notice process.  Users, for their part, should urge their providers to adopt those procedures – or switch to those who will – and continue to speak out against trademark bullies.

Share this:   ||  Join EFF

If you have an interest in your privacy – and, let’s be honest, you really should – then this information from the Electronic Frontier Foundation should be of interest to you. According to a recent report from the EFF, Google has ranked as one of the highest in a slew of public companies when it comes to how they protect their users.

According to the report, Google received marks for:

• Requiring a warrant to release user content
• Publishing transparency reports
• Publishing law enforcement guidelines
• Fighting for user privacy rights in court
• Fighting for user privacy rights in Congress

In fact, the only thing that Google didn’t receive a mark in was telling users about government data requests. In comparison, the only thing Apple did receive a mark in was fighting for user rights in Congress – something that, honestly, is a little difficult not to do, what with all the lobbying that goes on.

Other companies did score higher than Google; for example, Twitter and Sonic.net received marks in every category. Other companies, however, such as Verizon and MySpace, received no marks in any areas at all.

Be sure to hit the source link for the full report, and let us know your thoughts in the comments.

via eff

The post Electronic Frontier Foundation shows Google fights for user privacy more than Apple, others appeared first on AndroidGuys.

Readers offer their best tips for waking up quickly, downloading galleries from Imgur, and saving new things to Evernote.

Every day we receive boatloads of great reader tips in our inbox, but for various reasons—maybe they're a bit too niche, maybe we couldn't find a good way to present it, or maybe we just couldn't fit it in—the tip didn't make the front page. From the Tips Box is where we round up some of our favorites for your buffet-style consumption. Got a tip of your own to share? Add it in the comments, email it to tips at lifehacker.com, or share it over at our user-run blog, Hackerspace.

Smooth the Transition Out of Dreamland by Sleeping Backwards

Chillychili finds a better way to wake up quickly:

Sometimes we wake up, realize it's already 6:30 (20 minutes too late too trudge through your home city's traffic in time), and quickly rush through breakfast to make it to work or school, realizing a bit too late that it's 6:30 at night. We often don't think much when we wake up due to drowsiness and just go on autopilot.

One way to avoid this is to sleep with the positions of your feet and head reversed for naps, days you need to catch a flight, weekends, or really any occasion that differs from your normal sleep. Immediately after waking up, your spatial awareness informs you of your place in time.

Photo by Martin Cathrae.

Add /zip to Imgur Galleries to Download All Photos at Once

Michael van Dorst discovers a tip for Imgur users:

If you view an album on Imgur, add /zip to the URL to download the whole album as a .zip file.

Save Anything with Evernote's Web Clipper and IFTTT

Wickedcupofjoe shares a solution to a problem she has on Pinterest:

I don't know why this didn't dawn on me earlier, but this morning it hit me like a ton of bricks: Pinterest—as much as I love thee—is horrible at storing information. In my meager little hunt for a meatball entrée, I came across quite a few incorrectly pinned (a peeve for another time) recipes, as well as recipes where the link was dead. Which means, I'm stuck looking at delicious food images of entrées I'll never be able to recreate. Luckily >this gal!< is technically inclined and knew to look for the cached page. Score!

In an attempt to make life easier for others, I attempted to place the recipe itself as the description of the pin, however, you're limited to 500 characters. The recipe I wanted to save had 679, and no matter how I abbreviated and removed excess characters, it wasn't fitting.

After fighting the character limit for a few moments, I raised the white flag and opened up Evernote. I'm still an on-again/off-again Evernote user (though I have bookmarked Whitson's article on how to use Evernote correctly and give it a full go once again) so it's usually moments like this when I open it.

I do utilize an IFTTT recipe that auto-saves any pin I create in Pinterest to Evernote, but that's not going to solve any dead links.

Wickedcupofjoe touches on a lot of issues here, but that IFTTT recipe is really what interests me here—you could use it with a lot of services, not just Pinterest, to save stuff and make it a lot easier to find later.

Restore Arrow Key Navigation in Gmail's Preview Pane Lab

Dustin Luck revives a dead Gmail feature:

About a month ago, Google decided to release a new feature that allowed using the arrow keys to navigate up and down in the thread list. Unfortunately, that meant that the arrow keys no longer work for scrolling the message body when the Preview Pane lab is enabled. I finally had enough, and wrote a Greasemonkey script to re-enable scrolling the preview pane with arrows. I’ve done some testing and it seems pretty stable. If you’re interested in trying it out, go for it. If you have any feedback, you can leave it in the forum on the userscripts site.

kxra writes "The Free Culture Foundation has posted a thorough response to the most common and misinformed defenses of the W3C's Extended Media Extensions (EME) proposal to inject DRM into HTML5. They join the EFF and FSF in a call to send a strong message to the W3C that DRM in HTML5 undermines the W3C's self-stated mission to make the benefits of the Web 'available to all people, whatever their hardware, software, network infrastructure, native language, culture, geographical location, or physical or mental ability.' The FCF counters the three most common myths by unpacking some quotes which explain that 1.) DRM is not about protecting copyright. That is a straw man. DRM is about limiting the functionality of devices and selling features back in the form of services. 2.) DRM in HTML5 doesn't obsolete proprietary, platform-specific browser plug-ins; it encourages them. 3.) the Web doesn't need big media; big media needs the Web." Also: the FSF has announced that a coalition of 27 web freedom organizations have sent a joint letter to the W3C opposing DRM support in HTML5.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

We love keyboard shortcuts and we love Gmail. This minimalistic Gmail cheat sheet brings the two together, visually highlighting the shortcuts that will help you use Gmail faster and easier.

Of course, if you have keyboard shortcuts enabled in Gmail (you have to go into your settings to turn them on), you can hit the question mark (?) for Gmail's own pop-up keyboard reference. This cheat sheet, however, is a great visual reference, which might make learning and understanding the shortcuts a bit easier. Also, you can save it to your desktop or post it in your office for a quick look every now and then.

Here it is for you to save (by right-clicking on the image):

Visualeks | via Gizmodo

Virtucon writes "U.S. Magistrate William Callahan Jr. of Wisconsin has ruled in favor of the accused in that he should not have to decrypt his storage device. The U.S. Government had sought to compel Feldman to provide his password to obtain access to the data. Presumably the FBI has had no success in getting the data and had sought to have the judge compel Feldman to provide the decrypted contents of what they had seized. The Judge ruled (PDF): 'This is a close call, but I conclude that Feldman's act of production, which would necessarily require his using a password of some type to decrypt the storage device, would be tantamount to telling the government something it does not already know with "reasonably particularity" — namely, that Feldman has personal access to and control over the encrypted storage devices. Accordingly, in my opinion, Fifth Amendment protection is available to Feldman. Stated another way, ordering Feldman to decrypt the storage devices would be in violation of his Fifth Amendment right against compelled self-incrimination.'" If the government has reasonable suspicion that you have illicit data, they can still compel you to decrypt it.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Those who favor a society without gun rights seem to be prone to spreading false information. At best, anti-gun leaders unknowingly spread baseless accusations; at worst, they willingly to lie to achieve their objectives. Regardless, it is my observation that a host of gun control myths began circulating during the 1960s and continue today.

For instance, how many times have you heard President Barack Obama pushing the Manchin-Toomey gun control bill because, according to the him, 90 percent of Americans support so-called universal background checks? Well, a Pew Research poll was conducted after the Senate defeated the bill. Turns out only 47 percent of Americans are disappointed the bill failed, while 32 percent describe themselves as “very happy” or “relieved.” So, Mr. President, you can quit arguing that the country is behind you on this.

If we can spread the truth about this myth now, maybe it will die. But there are other, older myths that have festered for years. Unfortunately, as the saying goes, if a lie is spread enough, it becomes the truth. Even some gun owners can start to believe the nonsense, which is particularly dangerous in the current political environment. So the next time you hear a gun-control advocate rattling off one of these myths, shock him with the truth.

Myth No. 1: A gun in the home is more likely to kill a family member than an intruder.
This is probably the most widely circulated gun control myth ever. It’s been argued that a gun in the home is 43 times more likely to kill a family than an intruder. You’re actually safer, argue anti-gun folks, in a gun-free home. That may help them sleep at night, but it isn’t true.

Despite this myth’s popularity, have you ever noticed politicians and journalists never cite a source to go along with it? Perhaps that’s because it’s derived from a seriously flawed 1986 report in the New England Journal of Medicine, “Protection or Peril?: An Analysis of Firearm-Related Deaths in the Home.”

Most notably, the study only accounted for cases of self-defense with firearms in which the criminal was killed. If the bad guy was wounded, held at gunpoint for police or ran away, it was not included in the data. That is a rather incredible oversight since, according to Florida State criminologist Gary Kleck, criminals are only shot dead in about 1 percent of firearm-defense incidents. Fact is, according to Kleck’s exhaustive research, a gun in the home is three to five times more likely to help stop a crime than commit one.

Myth No. 2: Forty percent of guns are purchased without a background check.
In pushing for “universal” background checks, Obama has repeatedly said, “As many as 40 percent of guns are purchased without a background check.” Vice President Joe Biden has also pushed the stat, and their lapdogs at The New York Times, USA Today and other media outlets have reported the stat as fact without questioning the source. As professor John Lott demonstrates, the number is actually closer to 10 percent.

To reach the 40-percent number, one must count family inheritances and gifts as “purchases.” The number is also based on a Clinton administration survey in which many respondents erroneously indicated they had not undergone a background check to buy a gun.

Myth No. 3: Fewer people own guns today.
Given the spate of gun buying over the last few years, it’s hard to believe anyone could perpetuate this myth with a straight face. According to FBI data, there have been a rather incredible 70,291,049 background checks for gun purchases since Obama took office. Gun control advocates argue it’s merely existing gun owners making all the purchasing. However, according to a 2011 Gallup poll, at least 47 percent of Americans own guns, compared to 41 percent in 1993. By most indications, gun ownership is on the rise.

Myth No. 4: Criminals obtain their weapons at gun shows.
The Brady Campaign and others have fought hard to convince us that criminals and even terrorists purchase their wares at gun shows. But what do the facts say? A Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) study from November 2001, “Firearms Use by Offenders,” found only 1 percent of criminals obtained their firearms at gun shows. An earlier BJS study found that only 1.7 percent of federal inmates made their purchases at gun shows. The numbers are backed up by a National Institute of Justice survey, which found only about 2-percent of criminals bought at gun shows.

So how do most bad guys obtain their guns? They’re forced to steal them.

Myth No. 5: People hardly ever use guns for self-defense.
If gun control advocates can convince the public that guns are rarely used for self-defense, then they can portray those who keep them for protection as misguided or paranoid. Fact is, according to a study by Kleck, guns are used up to 2.5 million times per year annually in the United States for armed self-defense. Often these incidents are unreported to the police or the media.

Why? In many cases the would-be victim draws a gun, the criminal immediately runs away and the event is never reported. Gun control advocates should keep in mind that self-defense doesn’t necessarily involve actually shooting a criminal, as this is gun owners’ last resort. There is also, of course, media bias that influences under-reporting of self-defense incidents, but we’ll save that topic for another feature.

Myth No. 6: Your gun is more likely to be used against you by an attacker.
According to Kleck’s book, Point Blank: Guns and Violence in America, attackers only disarm armed citizens in fewer than 1 percent of cases. This is especially true in cases of concealed carry, because the attacker often didn’t realize the target was armed, had no plan to disarm him or her, and flees in search of easier prey. By contrast, according to U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics data, armed resistance against an attacker—especially with a firearm—is the most effective means to prevent injury, or to thwart robbery or assault. In other words, “just doing whatever the bad guy says,” is often poor advice.

Myth No. 7: We can’t trust people with concealed carry.
Those who often perpetuate this myth don’t realize their state allows concealed carry—unless the individual is a citizen of Illinois. Criminals, on the other hand, do seem to notice the freedom by which the law-abiding residents of their locale can carry guns. Research by Lott, for instance, found that when shall-issue concealed carry is introduced, there are decreases in the rates of murder by 8.5 percent, rape by 5 percent and aggravated assault by 5 percent. While some academics dispute Lott’s findings, most concede that concealed carry—at the very least—has not resulted in the “blood in the streets” predictions of anti-gun groups. In his story, “‘More Guns, Less Crime’ Thesis Rests on a Flawed Statistical Design, Scholars Argue,” author David Glenn concludes: “Mr. Lott’s research has convinced his peers of at least one point: No scholars now claim that legalizing concealed weapons causes a major increase in crime.”

Myth No. 8: Urban areas especially need gun control.
There tend to be differing views on gun control in rural areas compared to urban centers, but it is wrong to suggest—as Obama has sometimes done—that gun control can be more effective in cities. To suggest honest American citizens living in metropolitan areas cannot be trusted with Second Amendment rights is not only misguided, but in some cases, may have racial undertones.

According to research by Lott for his book, More Guns, Less Crime, when the gun rights of a given population are restored, violent crime actually goes down. This is especially true, Lott found, for high-crime urban areas and neighborhoods with large minority populations. The greatest reduction in violent crime occurs when law-abiding citizens of the population are allowed to carry concealed handguns.

Myth No. 9: Guns teach kids to be violent.
Anyone who grew up in a gun-friendly household knows firearms teach discipline and other positive attributes. But how do we quantify that when our opponents are so willing to spread mistruths?

Well, we have studies to cite. Arguably the best is, “Patterns of Adolescent Firearms Ownership and Use,” by Terence P. Thornberry, Alan J. Lizotte and James M. Tesoriero. Among other findings, the researchers found that children taught about firearms and their legitimate uses by family members have much lower rates of delinquency than children in households without guns. Additionally, R. Tonso—head of the Department of Sociology, Criminal Justice and Anthropology at the University of Evansville in Indiana—found that children introduced to guns associate them with freedom, security and recreation—not violence.

Myth No. 10: Gun control prevents crime.
We’ve saved the ultimate myth for last. Here are but a few examples of failed gun control policies in action:

• Washington, D.C.’s ban on handguns (since repealed, sort of) took effect in 1977 and the city’s murder rate tripled by the 1990’s. According to D.C.’s own police department, every firearm murder was committed with a handgun
• Chicago copied D.C.’s handgun ban in 1982 and, according to city data, within 10 years its handgun-related murders doubled.
• Maryland and California have both imposed waiting periods for gun purchases and restricted sales of handguns and semi-auto rifles. Yet according to FBI Uniform Crime Reports, their murder and robbery rates that far exceed the rest of the country.

There are plenty more cases in which gun control has backfired, even as nationwide gun ownership has increased and crime has decreased.