Word: foolproof
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...American Technology Corporation. This 33-inch dish emits a sound blast of up to 150 decibels, deafening and driving away would-be attackers. It proved remarkably effective in foiling a pirate attack on a British cruise ship off the Horn of Africa in 2005. But it's hardly foolproof, says Butler: "Eventually [pirates] get used to it and wear earmuffs." Still, even imperfect security measures can help deter pirates. "The risk is unknown, so all you can do is take precautions," said Butler. "If they see the boats are protected, they'll find another target...
...watch videos for free with advertisements interspersed, or pay to download ad-free films; prices range from 99 cents for a music video to $9.99 for the latest Bollywood release. Rajshri.com uses Microsoft's Windows Media Digital Rights Management service to protect against copying, which Barjatya calls "nearly 100% foolproof." The site streams some 90,000 gigabytes of content every month; after an April 1 relaunch, it will offer more than 1,000 films, as well as downloads for mobile phones. For advertisers, the new site will also offer the ability to target ads based on viewers' demographics and content...
...same ambivalence. We add safeguards one day, then shortcut them the next. One government budget contains millions of dollars for prosecutions, while another department spends more millions to defend against them. Indeed, the very essence of ambiguity is our vain search for a bloodless, odorless, motionless, painless, foolproof mode of killing healthy people. No amount of patching changes the nature of a Rube Goldberg machine. In 1996 Congress passed an extensive overhaul of capital punishment, but as in all previous overhauls, the changes quickly spawned new nuances to appeal. Ten years later, one of the most skillful anti-death-penalty...
...investment banks, shaking down corporations, and guilt-tripping college administrators, bode extremely ill for our politics.Political solutions, no matter how uncontroversial or widely supported, can never be flawless and exact. The law of unintended consequences, in so complex a subject as human beings, ensures that no plan will be foolproof. Such a realization should not force us subsequently to withhold our moral outrage against the Darfur atrocities. But to recognize the abomination is not to discover the cure. Surely, the intricate market mechanisms, for which the Darfur petitioners think they have fully accounted, will not operate as predictably as they...
...Nelson-Whitehouse bill would appropriate as much as $1 billion to help states move back to optical scanning (or any method that provides a reliable paper trail). "Unless someone can come up with a foolproof method of producing a paper trail with touch-screen machines, this is how we need to go," says Nelson, pointing out that attempts up to now to make DRE paper-trail compatible have too often led to printer paper jams and other "screw...