Maybe you grew up at least middle class or better, without ever worrying about what's for dinner. Or maybe you grew up poor and are like some former smokers that constantly berate others that still have the habit? As for dinner, is going to be leftovers again? Good, at least there are leftovers.

I'm curious how the current status of our welfare system is different then it was decades ago when my single mother was doing the best she could to make sure my brother and I had food to eat. So, we got food stamps, we got free and awful cheese from our benevolent USDA overlords, and my mom was working her ass off. Two weeks after I turned 16 I got a job working at McDonald's for $3.35 and hour. I was in the Civil Air Patrol by then doing very good and interesting things, because I had enough nutrition and a damned roof over my head, instead of a bridge and a cardboard box. Eventually I served in the Army, but I was always a geek and so here I am now.

We were poor, you stereotyping asshole, and we weren't fucking lazy all the time. I really wish you people that equate needing assistance with laziness were required spend a few years eating government cheese. Or how about military service in a combat zone for all of you entitled jerks? :)

Q! I was flipping through channels the other night and saw TNG on BBC America, and what do you know: I found a Q episode again. He is irreverent, amusing in his own sadistic way, but really I wish he'd never been thought of by whoever was high on LSD, whiskey and whatever it takes to make one come up with an omnipotent Q. The humans on trial episode... oh I'll just quit now :)

Which country or society does not have symbols? Or songs? Flags have been around for ages, too. Sheesh. You want to paint 245 million+ adult people that live in the US as suck-ass consumers, without even pondering how many *want* to look at the "man behind the curtain" and who's guard is certainly not down. You've been watching too many Hollywood movies.

Who believes everything that a government does, being run by humans like us, is always "true and right?" Wherever you're from, I'm sure you can read your own history books and see that your ancestors likely acted in your collective best interest, but not necessarily that of your neighbors. Sorry to say, despite some fine accomplishments, the US's fuckups tend to have far-flung consequences, but I take exception when someone stereotypes such a diverse collection of people as moronic drones. Wouldn't you?

Anyway, I've never seen dog catcher on a ballot. It's an interesting idea though, which perhaps I'll bring up at a city council meeting or, better yet, create a petition on the white house's web site.

I've been trying to find out whether the breach of background investigation info also includes military. I underwent an FBI background check in the 90's, and if there are 21 million records stolen, I have a feeling mine could be one of them. The paperwork I had to fill out pretty much told my life story, and I had to give names and addresses and phone numbers of people I knew. Which the FBI didn't talk to, they asked for others that knew me from those 5. Hell they even interviewed my high school counselor.

Regardless I am not feeling worried. What would the Chinese want with me nowadays? :-) Still a bit creepy though.

Wait, what? Is that for real, $2k? LOL. I didn't come across /. for a couple years after it got really going, hence never had an offer to sell my UID.

As for the future, I'm going to try and be optimistic.

I outright block smtp connections from them and any hosts that match these. There is nothing coming from hinet worth accepting.

hinet-ip.hinet.net
.dynamic.hinet.net
.dynamic-ip.hinet.net

I think you meant email for sending bills. Yes that's a good thing. I still stuff envelopes for those who refuse to get invoices via email.

And no, the spam problem is still alive and well. I responded to a user earlier who said he only gets 1 or 2 spams a month in his inbox, so no spam problem. He neglected completely all the behind-the-scenes work that goes into that excellent result. But there is still a ton of cpu time all over the planet dedicated to filtering that shit out!

I'm tired of spammers, seriously tired.

LOL. I'll bite 72442. I'm drinking, too, but somehow manged to tpe ths. Cheers!

Sysadmins who happen to administer email servers have not forgotten. It's still an issue, big time.

Oh for sure. I mean, it only took the opening scene of BSG to get me pretty hooked and the music just added to the awesome factor. Then it just got better!

And there seem to be many trolls saying this isn't news for nerds and yada yada. But they likely did not watch Wrath of Khan in a theater at first release. I was just closing in on being a teenager. Sometimes the music gets stuck in my head I have so many neurons dedicated to its storage! Hah.

Seriously though, we'll never know now his future compositions. Damn!

LOL. Argh! You did NOT just say that :-) But, yes you did.

The producers of "CSI: Cyber." Duh :-)

You've done well.

Some days later... score 0! Like it, love it, want some more of it.