There's nothing logical or reasonable about making your toaster run linux either, but it's considered a mark of true geekdom. Not all geeks have to be Vulcans. I think getting a tattoo of physics equations or a perl script or whatever to be incredibly geeky.

You can pass down your tattoo to your descendants... Just leave instructions in your will to be skinned and have your hide turned into a nice human-leather wall-hanging. (There's also photos & memories if you're squeamish).

I know you're an old-timer, but tattoos aren't just for felons and soldiers anymore. They have actually achieved pretty wide mainstream acceptance. Kind of like how computers aren't just for geeks anymore.

Now, personally, I know I'm too fickle to commit to something that permanent on my body. But if other geeks want to decorate their skin with some geek-tribe symbols, I totally approve.

P.S. Discrimination for employment (or anything else) based on the existence of a tattoo should be punished as harshly as discrimination based on race, hair color, or sexual orientation. (However, an employer should be free to set a policy that tattoos must be covered while in uniform, as long as that policy is applied equally).

From what I've heard, The Netherlands seems like one of the sanest countries around. How necessary is it to speak Dutch to live there? Could an english-speaking american ex-pat get by ok?

I don't want to leave my home country but if it keeps marching toward Christian Police State I would like a backup plan.

I dislike the Fisher Price look of default XP, so I disable all the visual effects ("set to best performance") so it ends up looking a lot like '95, but I do use the XP start menu. I also enable the quick launch but take everything out of it except for the "show desktop" button.

And my favorite screensaver is still "Mystify", which dates back to Windows 3.x or possibly even further...

Hi there. I know you're probably a troll, but I'm going to respond to you as if you were serious.

Please note I am a professionally trained chef.

The practice of "resting" meat is important. If you cut into a steak that's hot off the grill, you will see a whole bunch of liquid run out and make a pool on your plate. Think of this as a pool of flavor that you just drained out of your steak. If you give it a few minutes to cool down a little and let the fat congeal, it won't go running out, and you will experience all the intended fatty goodness in every bite.

P.S. If your steak is actually *cold*, then yes somebody is doing something wrong.

I technically have a 3.5" floppy drive in my PC, but it's non-functional. I'm using it as structural support to help hold up the hard drive bay (not quite the right size for my case).

I doubt it. Our sun is at most only 5 billion years old. There are stars out there a good three times that old. The odds that we're first are ridiculously tiny.

So tell her to take a train(s) to somewhere that still has functioning air travel. Or get on a boat.

I once had the same effect after accidentally inhaling a face-full of balsamic vinegar steam. Not fun. Worst thing I've ever had in my lungs (even worse than pepper spray). Was coughing and short of breath for weeks.

I agree with you that in recent decades the U.S. military has mostly been used as a beatstick to protect the interests of a small handful of wealthy sociopathic elite. However, most of the soldiers aren't bad people. They are mostly ignorant, uneducated people who truly believe the lie that they are fighting the good fight and doing what needs to be done. It's not that they lack integrity, they genuinely don't know that what they are doing is traitorous to their country and their planet. Only a small handful at the very top qualify as "sociopathic traitors".

I was beginning to wonder if I had a magnet on my head because I can't think of anything morally wrong that doesn't cause harm either. Glad to know I'm not the only one that thinks this way.

I suspect religion may be the real culprit here, because that's the only place I can think of where things that cause no actual harm are called morally wrong.

On that note, did we just stumble across the area of the brain responsible for religion/magical thinking? Can many of the world's problems be solved with mandatory magnetic hats?

You also said:

I contend that is not necessarily always the case. Open relationships can and do work. The main practical problem with adultery is the dishonesty that typically surrounds it, and that indeed causes harm, which in that case makes it immoral, but adultery doesn't necessarily have to be dishonest or harmful.

So you're saying something that you don't actually believe just to upset the people who take you seriously? Seems like some sort of weird, desperate, misguided grab for the wrong kind of attention. Or is it just pure malice, spreading negative emotions like nails on the freeway?

I would actually have more respect for a misguided racist individual who truly believes in "nigger grease" than for someone who would say something like that knowing full well it isn't true just to cause harm.

That said, I do actually agree with your basic principle that many "politically correct" people take the race issue way too seriously and, by getting offended inappropriately, actually perpetuate racism. But trying to call attention to it in this manner is adding fuel to the fire, not doing anything constructive.

... but I think you're missing the point. It doesn't matter what the total downtime over the course of a year is (unless you're lucky enough to get it all in one sitting). The problem is that with a less-than-perfect connection, that downtime can happen a second or two at a time. It was my understanding that even one second of downtime is enough to boot you out of the game and lose all your progress. By extrapolating from your figures, that happens more or less daily even at "five nines". I think a once per day random chance of program failure and loss of progress is going to alienate and upset all but the most casual of gamers, and I have no sympathy for a company that treats its paying customers like criminals.

In my home town, about 10+ years ago, they tried the same tactic to get rid of the teenagers that were eternally hanging out in the town square. Trouble was, the teenagers in question were mostly goth/vampire types and they actually liked the classical music. It still makes me laugh...