>From the "WTF?" department of random things google searches turn up: http://www.armedrobbery.com/OrderformNEW5th.pdf Right- the next time some low-grade luser tries to mug me at a quarter to two in the afternoon on a busy street without even bringing a weapon of some sort (which honest to god did happen to me) I'm going to start screaming "RTFM!" at him. Here's the link I was searching for: http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/glance/burg.htm Last year, signifigantly less than 50,000 thousand homes were burglarized last year. As there are ~50 million homes in the US. this means the odds of you being burglarized ar less than 1 in 1,000. The odds of your home being burglarized in the next decade is less than 1%. http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/gvc.htm Innumeracy is a problem with security as it is with many things. The mediapathic and unusual stories grab the attention, and obscure the fact that they are the exception. We all worry about the homicidal lunatic breaking into our home to try and kill us- but that is the rare and exceptional case. If your home is going to be robbed, it is much more likely to be while you're away. We all worry about terrorists hijacking our airplane, and miss the fact that we are way more likely to die in an autoaccident driving to the airport. Another interesting link: http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm Violent crimes, per 100K people in the US, 2000: 506.1. Property crime: 3,617.9. You're much more likely to get something stolen than to be assaulted- seven times more likely, in fact. The cost of crimes, however, is dispropotionate, as violent crime racks up the costs a lot faster: http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/ovc/ncvrw/1998/html/costcrme.htm Note that robberies only cost $500 million in 1996, while rapes cost $127 billion the same year. But note that only 3% of medical expenses are crime related. Which sounds really bad, until you start comparing it to chronic diseases: http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/overview.htm Heart disease is the real killer. Rather than worrying about that psycopath, try quitting smoking, eating right, and exercising more. Brian _______________________________________________ TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota Help beta test TCLUG's potential new home: http://plone.mn-linux.org Got pictures for TCLUG? Beta test http://plone.mn-linux.org/gallery tclug-list at mn-linux.org https://mailman.real-time.com/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list