Speaking of "learning something new," here's a stupid off-topic question, but I have to ask: I've been here off and on for years (not necessarily posting), and I've seen "GP" and know it means something like "top poster" or "original poster." But never knew what it actually stands for, and Google seems to be no help. So what does "GP" mean anyway? Told ya it was a stupid question...

Oh yeah, forgot to mention that I have Microsoft Automatic Update turned OFF on the Fit-PC, to prevent it from updating and rebooting. I do the updates manually.

I'm making the switch from Comcast to MagicJack for my so-called pseudo "land line."

I have it running on a cheap Fit-PC Slim that is running the MagicJack software only, nothing else. I figure the $235 I spent for the Fit-PC Slim will be paid for pretty quickly due to (a) saving $25/month when I get rid of my Comcast line, and (b) running the MagicJack on a dedicated PC that sips power (it runs on only 10 watts!), rather than on my main PC that is an i7 behemoth with tons of cooling, etc. I can turn off my main PC when I'm away from it.

I have MagicJack voice mail messages e-mailed to my Gmail account, and from there I have a Gmail filter set up that sends a text message to my cell phone when a MagicJack voice mail comes in.

My Fit-PC Slim is remotely controlled from my main PC, so does not need a mouse, keyboard, monitor attached.

The MagicJack interface and the ads on the side of the window don't bother me because (a) I'm not using the interface at all; the MagicJack PC just sits there and does its job, functioning as a phone, and (b) I installed MagicBlock and MagicWho? to make it as invisible as possible.

So far, so good. The sound quality is at least as good as my Comcast line if not better. I'm hanging onto my Comcast line for a little while pending some more testing, but am expecting to get rid of it soon. Looking forward to the cost savings.

...not to inhale my food. Guess she was right.

...but it sure seems unethical. The police seem to be posting these pictures only to (a) humiliate and shame those arrested, (b) forever stigmatize those people by way of distributing (downloadable) pictures that will now live on in digital form in the public domain, in one form or another, forever. Who knows where they might end up. Sounds like a good way to potentially ruin someone's life over an *alleged* night of over-indulgence and bad judgment.

There is "being available in the public record," and there is "put on worldwide public display with a big scarlet 'A' for Alcoholic on their chests." They're going over the line here.

I own the "ass" in Fox Classics. So there.

What do you expect from a company with a bunch of Yahoos running it?

Seriously, though, they just made a combination of bad choices, or in some cases no choices (indecisiveness about what the company should be). A common scenario in companies that rise and fall as Yahoo did. I remember reading many years back that Yahoo headquarters had whimsically named its conference rooms things like "Decisive," "Competent, and "Sane," just so they could say things like "Anyone know where Paul is?" "Yeah, he's in Competent...he's in Decisive...etc."

This is an armed conflict in one of the most violent places on Earth and he put the spotlight on a number of civilians in a way that makes them targets of opportunity in a war zone.
Yep, exactly what I was saying in the last thread on this subject, and I ended up getting bad karma for it, but I know I'm right. Assange has even said that he does not care what happens to the people in these documents. In other words, his claims to be "combing through" this second round of documents in order to protect the people involved notwithstanding, Assange appears to be perfectly willing to let other people and their families to be brutally murdered as long as he gets to bask in the glory of being the Rebel On The Left.

Exactly. The only thing I would trust this guy to "meticulously comb through" is his own hair.

Modern human remains are much less preserved than egyptian pharaoes
Correct. Which is why I said ...with the exception of...

Agreed; I am not about to tell anyone that they are "wrong" for burying their dead. If their choice is burial, that is their choice. I am just saying that as a whole, I think that better solutions exist and that burial has always seemed a bit absurd to me. But maybe that's just me.

While I agree with the absurdities of burials, it has been working for tens of thousands of years with little trouble
No it hasn't, really -- not in the way we are doing it now. For most of those tens of thousands of years (maybe with the exception of Egyptian pharaohs and selected others), the remains were not embalmed -- and even if they were embalmed, certainly not with the level of technology now used. And the caskets were degradable, not the fancy things we use today that are designed to last and last.

Neither is the universe if we want to get completely nihilistic about it.
That is a poor counterargument, as methods such as cremation are (while not infinite, I suppose), still far more sustainable than burial.
Filling up cemeteries isn't a problem, and when it is, we can easily fix it with a few backhoes (which you would need anyway if you wanted to build there) and a few changed laws.
You really think Cemeteries are what's holding back 'REAL progress'? And all this time it was not being able to develop on that land that was holding back 'REAL progress'.
I'm not even talking about development on that land necessarily. It's just that using that land for burial seems a poor use of it. Even keeping that land as natural open space would be a better use in my opinion.
You know, what's funny is that if our ancestors didn't take some efforts to bury/preserve their dead, we would know a great deal less about them.
Yeah, but that was then -- when written and digital methods of information preservation were not available or used -- and this is now, when there are numerous methods of knowing a great deal about anyone, without having to have their remains in a box in the ground.
The deceased person is not there anyway. That person can be honored anywhere. It doesn't have to be at the site where his/her Earthly body is now in a box in the ground.

Now maybe if the civilized human race were finally able to get past the rather strange tradition of putting their loved ones' preserved physical remains into (usually rather expensive) boxes in the ground, in order to last as long as possible, filling up acres and acres of land with these, increasing on a daily basis with every new death -- then that might be some REAL progress. At some point this whole "burying" thing needs to go. It is not an infinitely sustainable model to follow.

Those retard monkey fish squirrels were not so retarded after all?