Indeed, if my wife and I were to do this once we have children, we would try to strike a middle ground. No outright banning of modern tech, but definitely limiting it. My nieces (12 and 4) each have their own tablet, and the older one has a new computer, Xbox 360, TV bigger than ours, her own cellphone, and no less than three portable gaming consoles. I'm a technology freak; I love to dabble with anything electronic...but in my opinion that's way too much tech for a developing child.

The problem with even partially going tech-free is that you become the outcast, and your children even more so. When I was growing up in the 80s, being the only kid without a Walkman and NES made me the "poor loser kid" on the block, even though financially we were no worse off than our neighbors. In today's world where children learn to read using Leapfrog tablets instead of actual books, the idea of being without some form of electronic device is considered a hardship at best.

Then you may want to go back to MySpace. I hear they are ditching the failed attempt at being a Facebook clone and are going back to their roots as a music lover's haven.

I have the opposite situation. Until some time last year, Comcast had a cap of 250GB on my account, but they removed it and simultaneously bumped me up from 12Mbps to roughly 20Mbps. I've had a few more bumps since then, and right now I average 30Mbps, while my plan still says "12Mbps". When I was still subject to the cap I only went over it one time by a couple of GBs, and I never got a nasty letter or email about it; in fact I only knew about it because I checked the usage meter on my account page.

I still don't know why they keep bumping up my speed (and I'm not complaining!), but whenever I try to sign up for the 50Mbps plan I'm told it is not available in my area. I asked a tech about that when my modem was replaced recently and he said there's no technical reason I can't get 50 or even 100Mbps. Apparently there are businesses near me with those speeds, using the same modem I now have. He suggested I just let them keep bumping me up and continue to charge me for the 12Mbps plan.

Because bedbugs are the ultimate venereal disease of hotel chains. They are very difficult to get rid of, and even if the hotel manages to wipe them out, once word gets out no one will touch them. Basically, the hotel chain feels the guy cost them real money. Though in truth, the hotel cost themselves the money by having the infestation in the first place; this guy just happened to be the patron who spoke out about it.

His review was of his room; he didn't sleep in the entire hotel and didn't claim to find the bugs anywhere but his own room. I'm no lawyer but the backlash from doing something as stupid as suing a customer for telling the truth will likely cost the chain much more than the $95k they wanted from him. I wouldn't be surprised if they ended up paying him in the end (or at least his legal fees).

I hope for your coworkers' sake they have a shower at work that you're allowed to use. Ewww.

The problem with the way self-insurance works is that it is only feasible for the very wealthy, and those are the types who can afford to shop around and get a much better rate than us peons. So self-insurance is completely off the table for pretty much anyone who makes less than $100k per year.

Newsflash: I am poor. I work with other poor people, and I live right in the middle of the poorest part of my county. And I'm damned happy that I'm allowed to have liability only insurance on my 1982 pickup truck, because if I were forced to have full coverage as owners of new vehicles do, I wouldn't be able to afford to drive it. My house cost less than the average full sized SUV, and I can barely afford those mortgage payments.

So fuck you, asshole. I'm living in near poverty and I know just how irresponsible my peers are with savings. I'm right there with them, I haven't had a savings account since high school, and I'm 35 now.

Are you speaking just of Florida? Because it's different in every state. Here in Georgia you have to have liability coverage at minimum to legally operate a vehicle, even if you have thousands in a savings account named "just in case I'm a bad driver". There was a time when you didn't have to have insurance in Alabama, but a few years ago they mandated minimum liability insurance coverage as well.

I'm normally not keen on the government telling us how to live our lives, but having mandatory liability coverage is a no-brainer for the vast majority of poor and middle-class citizens who simply can't be assumed to be responsible enough to have a personal insurance savings plan, and can't afford a huge payout if they do cause an accident. I'd rather pay $50/month to insure that I won't be sued and bankrupted because I made a mistake driving, than bank that money and hope that I've saved up enough to fight said lawsuit.

On the other side of the coin, I'd much rather the person who hits me has liability coverage, so their insurance company takes care of me instead of leaving me to chase after their assets in court. Also, I wouldn't be surprised if states without mandatory liability coverage have more hit-and-run accidents than other states.

I've used mine as a simple file server and I think it uses around 5-6 watts at 100% CPU with both USB ports populated. It is picky about storage, but most USB flash drives and most good quality genuine SDHC cards work well in my experience. Get a good quality power supply (it uses a Micro USB port) and use a powered USB hub for any high-current peripherals, and you shouldn't have any power issues.

Right now mine serves as a poor man's HTPC, a front end to my Plex server via Raspbmc, until I can replace it with a Roku. Then the Pi will become a private cloud server via OwnCloud.

Of course, they are capable of much more than what I've done. There is a GPIO header, camera and LCD headers, and a couple of groups have even built budget supercomputers out of dozens of units. It can run Debian (Raspbian), Arch Linux, Plan 9, RiscOS, BSD, Gentoo Linux, and there is steady progress on an Android port. You can also do bare metal programming on it, of course.

What fighting is necessary with Intel? The last time I can recall Intel video being buggy in GNU/Linux was with trying to set up KMS on an older kernel that didn't fully support it. It's all done automatically now in most distros.

I'm going with the consensus here: If you want good open source drivers, go Intel. If you want good 3D support and don't care about open source, go Nvidia. If you want half-assed open and closed drivers at the same time, go AMD/ATI.

Or just don't install X at all, and you won't notice a difference among the three. ;-)

Indeed, the Toshiba laptop I just got in a trade is 99.9% supported in GNU/Linux. That 0.1% is the headphone jack; with pure ALSA it simply doesn't work, and with PulseAudio it works but has to be manually switched when I plug in my 'phones or external speakers. Also, with Pulse I get a nasty static from time to time and the only cure is to reboot (I've tried stopping and starting the sound system and no dice).

Of course, the fact that the Intel HD graphics are fully supported is really great. Still, it's that one audio niggle that keeps me from truly enjoying GNU/Linux on it.

I have a fully working Mac Performa 460 with a 200MB SCSI drive. It's not the original drive (that was missing when I acquired the Mac second hand) but it is from around 1995. Sadly, without a 10BaseT card the old Performa can't communicate with my modern machines. I'm constantly debating whether I should spend $30 for the network card, or the same $30 on a good quality USB floppy drive for my Mac mini so I can transfer files reliably.

That's not always true. I work in law enforcement, and our policy manual (which I had to sign a notarized agreement to obey in order to maintain employment) specifically states that at all times we are to maintain the agency as well as all other law enforcement in a positive light. The section specifies social media, blogs and microblogging sites, personal websites and variations on "letters to the editor" type rants. In other words, I cannot at any time be negatively critical of my employer or similar agencies in any recorded form, whether public or private. To do so is to be terminated on the spot without redress.

Sometimes I wonder why I still work there, but I can't get around the fact that it pays decent, has the best insurance and retirement benefits in my area, and is virtually immune from the negative economy.

According to that article and other sources, Windows Phone 7 doesn't have it even if both the carrier and phone manufacturer (Sprint and HTC respectively in my case) normally install it. That said, WP7 has its own bug tracking and reporting software but it is opt-in and you actually have to tell it twice that you don't want it on. At least, mine asked me twice.