Without a doubt.

I guess I should have added that the strangest part of my experience was that I think it is weird that a family where the father pulled in $100,00+/year, which allowed the mother to stay home and "home school" the kids, didn't think to prepare their kids to be able to do the same when they grow up.

I have some first hand anecdotal evidence to present to the slashdot community.

From 5th-8th grade I was homeschooled (by choice) which in essence meant I read text books (A Becca publishing), as well as books outside of traditional text books, attended art classes, participated in tennis lessons, learned to play the trumpet, and picked up paintballing as well as maintened my own N64 fan website and learned the basics of HTML and web development.

I went back to the public school system for my high school years. At the time I had no interest in doing so, but I see the benefit it provided me now. For one, I got into college, learned to communicate with people "not like me", and even attempted, but failed (at the time) picking up girls.

My neighbors on the other hand, had 3 kids around my age and after seeing me "homeschooling" they decided it would be fun to do the same thing. Well, they didn't exactly push their kids to do anything beyond playing video games all day. I guess you could say they fit the definition of "unschooling", that is they did nothing to further their education and instead wasted away their time doing nothing "productive". They never ordered text books, or participated in any sort of standardized testing. After they were "done" with school, they didn't attempt to go to any post secondary school, and continue (to this day) to live at their parent's house.

Their oldest son (25) got engaged at 19, got a job working at a TV repair shop, and has no interest in furthering his education. He is currently living with Mommy & Daddy, along with his wife. The other two sons, have not attended college, and also still live at home.

By definition both me and my neighbors were home schooled, but I think I used home schooling as a means to learn outside the box, which to this day benefits me greatly. Whereas my neighbors used homeschooling to take their kids out of the system.

Not that this is any indication of homeschooling successes (or failures) but I am currently employed being paid well above average for my peer group. My neighbors, not so much.

One of my favorite quotes is by Mark Twain: "I never let my schooling get in the way of my education". I truly believe this, and try to follow it every day. Even though I also recognize the need to go "through the motions" of school, or the "normal" way to learn. However I don't let it stop my passions or what I believe in. I think homeschooling works on a case-by-case basis but I honestly think anyone who chooses to homeschool their kids without the intention of teaching them anything is doing them a huge disservice that will severely limit their future potential as in seen by my neighbor.

So I guess you could say, homeschooling works for some people, but horribly fails others. Next topic?

Firefox 3.5 has a private browsing mode

I hope you hit the "Report Spam" button which helps with identifying future spams sent using pattern recognition.

They need to get one of those flapping NAV's to fan off their server and cool it down.

I can't imagine a major competitor to the Apple iPhone will be allowed to do this without a lawsuit smacking them in the face. Then again, perhaps Palm wants a lawsuit to bring additional media attention to their device.

Seems like a risky move by Palm, their entire future most likely rests on this device. Without it succeeding the risk of Palm going under are pretty high. Might as well shoot for the fences I guess.

No, the masses don't. But the early adopters do. And the early adopters tell other people what to do on their computer.

In order for any product to be wildly successful you NEED early adopters who are ahead of the curve. This is what Adblock Plus users are. Without support for ABP you will not see a lot of the "techy" early adopters that people go to for computer advice adopting Chrome, therefore Chrome will struggle to find an audience.

Just my $.02

Is this a company you really want to work for? Any company that promotes policies like this either internally, or suggests they should be promoted is not a company worth working for in my opinion.

You should be grateful you have a new job lined up and are able to remove yourself from such an unethical company.

In the mean time, it may be smart to try and build up some sort of evidence trail about the blackmail going on. Slip a tape recorder into your jacket pocket and record the conversations you have with the blackmailer. (If you do this, make sure you check your jurisdictions laws on secretly audio taping someone first). Print out emails sent back and forth, or even if the best you can do is just writing down what you have experienced with a date and time entry as well as the best recollection of the conversation you had. Basically do whatever you can that will help you defend your character should the issue ever arise in the future.

I thought it was just better to have a neighbor who owns one of those - that way you get all the advantages (getting to ride in a boat, airplane or woman) without the annoyances that come along with owning one.

Useless comma called, he wants them all back!

Such as these products to "beat" the traffic cameras.

Photo Blocker

Photo Shield

This will be a poorly implemented system and once they realize how many people are driving for free on the road we will be back to having attendants at the booths.

Q: Can you really expect people to buy music that's locked to a device they upgrade every 12 to 18 months?

A: I didn't realise phones were churning that quickly in the marketplace these days. I'm sure there are some users who change their phone every year.

This answer is coming from the head of the Microsoft mobile division in the UK! How is it possible that he could be unaware that many individuals replace their phone every 12-18 months? This is completely mind baffling to me.

Havn't you heard, 2008 is the year of the Linux desktop!