Calorie burn varies from person to person, sometimes by quite a bit. Come on, haven't you met someone who eats a ton and is still skinny? There's also a genetic factor, which is why Chinese and Indian people are less likely to be overweight.

I have lost about 30 pounds in the last 4 years. My main key was calorieking.com. But this is basically on online version of the hacker's diet with lots of education and community items. I am a smaller guy with low metabolism as well.

Here are my tips for adding some extra exercise or cutting calories:

• Take walks
• Drink lots of water
• Use the restroom on a different floor
• Play Dance Dance Revolution at home
• Eat a ton of vegetables. The waiter looks at me funny when I remind him that the steak is for my wife and the salad is mine. But

Has anyone else discovered this site? It's great, brings back memories of trading games with my friends growing up. Of course I hold on to the best games. But this is a good way to try out second-tier games that look interesting enough. I don't go through games the way I used to, so for me this is a much better deal than gamefly or other rental.

Or at least pick the same option as Cowboy Neal.

Exactly the same line HP gives for printer cartridges. But they can't tell if you refilled the cartridge and they rely on digital obfuscation to prevent people from making knockoff cartridges.

Hopefully the knockoff makers will figure out how to make their batteries report that they are actually "genuine".

I also live in Sunnyvale and my power bill is even less than his post-solar level. The reason is that I live in a small apartment instead of a house!

Living green is nice, but living small is far better.

Power rates vary quite a bit state to state and California one of the most expensive. It's about 50% more than in Georgia:

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epm/table5_6_a.html

I had the same problems after finishing school and moving out. From what it sounds like, you have the same problem of not being the kind of person who just picks up friends off the street or meets them in a coffee shop or something.

So you have to join some sort of club. meetup.com and meetin.com are both great. meetin.com in Portland, OR area is particularly awesome! LUG or really anything is fine too. Once you join a club and meet some people it's natural for things to spiral out. For example, you go to a few LUG meetings and find out that a bunch of guys hit a bar or play cards take ballroom lessons afterwards.

Now if you want to meet women, you need to join a club that has a good portion of women. Most women will not be geeks and not worthy of your time. Don't worry about it. Keep in mind that you only need to find one. If you have the mindset that you are not looking for a woman, just hanging out and having fun then it will happen eventually. But you do have to be doing something where women are present!

A big thing to keep in mind is that once you start hanging out with other people like this, you will figure things out and get more confidence in your social skills. Things will start looking a lot better and you'll find that you aren't as much of a loner as you thought.

By the way, I posted this several years ago looking for online dating advice:

http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/09/30/0023213

Best advice was to not do online dating at all! I joined a meatspace singles social club. Within a year I hit it off with a female possessing very strong geek credentials. Married her last year! Ballroom dancing skills are key, I highly recommend taking lessons.

Just got back from Taiwan where they finished a bullet train system in the last few years. The train is extremely impressive with an unbelievably smooth ride even though you are going 150 mph. It's also very convenient in Taiwan because the population corridor is along one side of the island with the two largest cities on either side. However, tickets are expensive-$30 or more each way (expensive for Taiwan). The terminals remind me of small airport terminals and are actually pretty pleasant. It's nice to go from one end of the island to the other in 2-3 hours.

But there's no equivalent in the US. I'm from the midwest and I can tell you that it never really came up how long it takes to get from city to city. For one thing, there's little tourism and so there's no reason. Maybe for a few months in the summer it would be profitable. You can drive city-to-city in a few hours and even if you're by yourself it's going to be way cheaper than the train. If you've got a whole family you'd be crazy to take the train.

Midwestern people would much rather have a route down to Florida. Get in the train on Friday night and sleep. Wake up and spend the day on the beach or at Disney. Then get back on the train and sleep on the way back. You could easily fill a train like this every weekend year-round.

I grew up in southern Ohio and moved to the west coast. When I first got here I was really surprised how friendly everyone is. Appalachian people are generally pretty tough to get along with.

You probably have SAD. I have it real bad and I am greatly enjoying my sunnier new home. There are some things you can do to fight it but moving is by far the best solution.

I have SAD and am much happier now that I have moved somewhere sunnier. That's why it's surprising to see that the upper midwest does so well. I'd be miserable most of the year there.