X-Files I'll give you cause it went downhill after Mulder left, and the ending, while kinda cool learning the date for something important to happen (not gonna post a spoiler for those that never saw it) had you going "huh?"

But Lost and Buffy? It was around season 3 that they announced their plan for a total of 6 seasons, with a clear cut ending, no movies after the show's over or anything. By the end of 6 seasons, it would be wrapped up quite nicely.

And Buffy was just stellar tv. Yea I'm a biast Whedon fan but damn, you're telling me season 7 of Buffy wasn't good? Even if it felt like it was dragging on past it's time, each season had a logical reason to continue. Seasons 1-3 high school, Season 4 and 5 college/home life/dealing with several deaths. etc etc It even had a logical conclusion that you always wondered about since season 1: "If there are so many demons, vampires etc in the world, how can ONE Slayer take care of them all?" Answer: the ending of season 7.

Oh and not to be a dick, don't mod down for it but, if Buffy over stayed it's welcome, then how come the Buffy Season 8 comic book series is selling like hotcakes? It's Dark Horse's best selling series, ever (even more than Witchblade). And they've already announced a Season 9 comic series once 8 is complete.

Talk about some "monstrous" bad web security.

The eBay/craigslist crackdown thing caught my eye. I can't say I know alot about MAPS and selling stuff but assuming you aren't a dealer who sells multiples of an inventory, bulk items, etc you should be able to sell for whatever price you want on eBay right? If I, as an individual, choose to sell a brand new Apple Macbook Air that I no longer want on ebay for half of what it costs in an Apple Store or online, I should be legally able to do this right?

I'm in the same boat as the article poster, in a similar manner.

I couldn't really afford an ivy league 4 year college, and I had to leave community college before my first year was done due to an illness in the family. A few years later I went to a local trade school, that was accredited, in the tech and IT field. I learned a good deal, even though I knew a certain amount already of what they were teaching.

They offered a Associates Degree program you could do, after you graduated, online. This was not covered in your initial tuition cost or factored into any student loans you got, so if you wanted the degree program it would come straight out of your pocket. Long story short, I couldn't afford this program, still can't.

As for certifications, I trained in what they called the C.E.T program (computer electronics technology). Not really IT (that was a different class path) but focused on hardware repair, PC repair, etc basically all the shit you need to be the local tech support in an office or "The Geek Squad". So I could get by with just the A+ and if I really wanted to look good on paper, the Net+. On the plus side, I aced the course that taught you about the A+ cert, so I got a voucher for one-free attempt at taking the test (it's like what, $150-200 normally?) Needless to say I still have the voucher. Why? Well the A+ textbook they gave us to study is a huge book, and as the professor explained not all the stuff we covered in class and other classes would be on the A+. For example we stuck with Windows 2000 mainly as the OS of learning. We never covered XP, Server, etc which were the big thing at the time (2003-2004). So I never took the test. If I failed, I'm out the one and only free voucher. If I fail and attempt it later, that's money out of my pocket. Money I don't have, at all.

So after I graduate I got six months to find a job before I gotta start paying student loans back. The school had a job placement option which was practically guaranteed. They never found me a job. I looked myself. Locally all places want a degree, or 3-5 years experience even on Entry Level jobs.

4 years later I'm still unemployed, and my student loans that were $3,500 I owed in summer of 2003, are now over $15,000 due to interest rate and non payment.

Yea if it were bad enough a normal person would break down and take a shit job at Walmart or your local McDonalds. Sadly I am not able to stand on my feet for more than an hour or so without getting extreme pain in my lower back, ankles and feet. Not just pain that makes you think "damn this is sore, but I gotta tough it out for 8 hours then go home". It's pain that is like "holy fuck, if I don't sit down in a minute I feel like my bones in my feet are going to shatter". (Let's not get into seeing a doctor, that's something for a whole other discussion).

So while I could easily work say, an office IT/tech job where I'm not on my feet for 8 hours minus a lunch break, I can't fill store shelves at Walmart, even part time, without the absolute need to sit down and rest every hour or so.

Luckily I have family to fall back on, other wise I'd be homeless, starving and not posting on /.

I knew going in, degrees matter. Sure they don't really mean squat in the "real world" but when it comes to a job, the more good stuff you have about you on paper, matters. Sadly, I just could not afford to get a degree. Couldn't pay for it out of my pocket and couldn't get any more student loans at the time (long before my dues went from 3k to 15k).

Get a degree if you can. It's a hassle, it's just a piece of paper, but that piece of paper can make the difference between you saying "So, your cd rom drive is acting up?" and "Would you like fries with that?"

The only way to play the demo is, and IANAL, kind of illegal now. The demo for L4D was removed from Steam the day the full game launched. If you google it, many people missed out on the demo and now have to buy the full game if they want to try it. The illegal part is, while the game is no longer listed in Steam, you still have the game installed. If you run the exe, you can play the single player demo only. I say kinda illegal cause if Valve doesn't want you playing the game on Steam, I doubt they want you playing the single player either and will probably update Steam to remove it (it was removed cause the demo is rather open ended and could easily have new maps made for it, detracting from sales of the full version. You could still technically do this for the single player too). So the linux guys are in the same boat as a lot of us wanting to test the game before buying it (assuming they even support Linux in the full version).

I'm 27 with 20/20 vision and I can't tell the difference really between HD and SD. I mean yea, in a good quality screen shot of both compared side by side, I'll notice a slight quality enhancement in HD. But you put a HDTV next to a SDTV and play the same movie in both formats, with stuff moving around on screen etc I probably couldn't tell ya which was which. There just isn't that much of a quality jump to make it super obvious.

As opposed to some other games? The one thing I hate about popular PC shooters on the PC is, aside from some kind of Favorite function for your favorite servers, what's your other option for finding a server? Pinging a server list. Which sure is fun in CS 1.6 or CS:S. Waiting for thousands of servers to load in the list then select a server, even with specifics set (location, map, etc) I know, not the same but similar so much that a few minutes wait time between matches ain't so bad. Maybe it's a little slower than console users are used to for a FPS online but for PC that's about par when you consider in pinging the master server list, finding and selecting a server, etc (not counting any Favorites option)

I'm kinda in that boat. Economy has hit me hard so a quick fix for having no PC I bought an eMachine (browsing and browser games). Sadly though it came with Vista Basic Home, it didn't come with a restore disk, the "restore" is a hidden partition that I have no idea how to access from dos, cause it's not even listed as a drive or partition of any kind. And of course asking Gateway is a hassle since their 1-800 isn't even listed in what little documentation comes with the PC, you have to find that on their website, which is a problem if you can't use Windows ;o I'm using AVG but until this issue is fixed I'm not updating definitions.