I am inclined to agree with that. There are a lot of great universities out there. MIT and Harvard are among the ones with enormous endowments that still get hundreds of millions in donor cash that could probably be put to better use at schools with less name recognition.

Just what flavor is the kool-aid?

Java

Yeah, well, my grandfather died because of this machine you insensitive clod!

Reminds me of the scene from Babylon 5 where Londo explains that an action figure of him is lacking the appropriate alien sex organs and that is why is should be banned.

100x earnings... yeah, no bubble here.

I believe the ridiculous rates for texting are proof that there is collusion in this market. Something with such little overhead (essentially none) should not be able to sustain such a high cost if there is adequate competition. I think people would reject it, if they had a choice.

I'm seconding Daktech as a solid supplier, these guys have an absolutely ludicrous warranty. My department has a lot of their systems in service and they've done very well.

They're not bullshitting when they say a 7 year warranty. I've called them up about some dead CDROM drives in some 5-year-old celerons and they've sent over/dropped off replacements (I'm local). If they don't have the original part they send over something similar or slightly better.

They don't usually need to do this however, as they use good parts. I've taken some apart to find decent Antec cases/PSUs, Intel motherboards, non-proprietary form factors and parts.

The only problem is that they don't always have the bleeding edge stuff to spec your machines, but Dell will take you to town on that sort of spec anyways, so they're really not much better.

Yep, I bought some merchandise on Ebay that turned out to be counterfeit and Ebay/Paypals dispute solution was for me to pay to ship it back to the seller and then I would get my money back. When I explained that:

1. It is nearly as expensive to ship it back as it cost to buy it.
2. It would be illegal for me to ship counterfeit merchandise back out of the country.
3. I can prove it is counterfeit.

They would not change their minds and refund me under their protection policy so with about 1 exception I have never used paypal or ebay since then. I pretty much won't use either service unless I absolutely have to and would rather pay more than use them.

Basically the only fraud protection policy Paypal/Ebay honors is when it protects them from ever having to pay out.

There probably was a God around 14 billion years ago, he just happened to explode after losing Pascal's Wager.

Oh god, I hope that was a typo of 'Goat Worship'.

For all the oil products that it takes to plant, create and use fertilizer and pesticide, harvest, process, package, distribute, and cook those 12,000 calories, it is less clear how much of an energy savings you've created by biking.

This is why I gave up food and started drinking crude oil. People are incredibly wasteful.

First off the guy is clearly incorrect since this theory of his would invalidate virtually all regulation of say railways or power lines or gas lines.

More importantly, the guy is wrong because the property in question, not the cables/towers themselves but rather the right-of-way and the licensed spectrum that does not truly belong to those cable/telco companies. Those right-of-ways along public roads and along people's property underground are takings in and of themselves. The cable/telco cannot claim that regulating or placing conditions on the takings that they benefit from are themselves takings.