A new pizza delivery paradigm?

1) Customer places order.
2) Dominos HQ checks current moon position relative to the customers address and local weather conditions. A launch window is calculated.
3) Pizza is assembled, uncooked, and prepared for launch.
4) Pizza is launched on a trajectory to arrive at your home within 8 to 12 hours, only slightly longer than that of terrestrial delivery.
5) Pizza is baked during re-entry (only extra-crispy orders, please).
6) Pizza arrives at customer's location (+/- 1 km) and, for once, it's still warm when delivered.

The target market is the average dumb schmuck.

Funny, that's what your auto mechanic thinks about you.

Lost one CPU in a system I assembled due to ESD (assumed). After a month or so the system just started crashing randomly. Turned out the CPU was the culprit (an early P4). Been assembling PCs since the early 90's, I've had a lot of DOA equipment but just that one premature death. I have had some HD issues, but I always caught them before I lost data (knock on wood).

Um, I did have one regrettable moment though. I had a noisy, non-essential, fan in a computer once and I took the side of the case off in an attempt to disconnect it (computer still running). I could not disconnect it (cannot recall why) and instead of doing something rational I got pissed, grabbed the cutters and cut through the fan's wires. You don't need a high school diploma to imagine what happened next. It shorted the PSU, the CPU reset and my on-board audio never worked again. I breathed a sigh of relief, threw in a sound blaster card I had lying around and all was back to normal. I have considered anger-management counseling.

The same problem happened when people started upgrading their laptops to Windows Vista (and 7) and using the Aero interface. It put a much greater strain on the video cards and the increased heat pushed some people's systems over the edge and they started crashing. A lot of them were older laptops that likely had a lot of dust and grime built up in their system and fans that were starting to fail.

Is there something about Lion that would cause it to put a greater strain on the GPU during normal usage? I have a MacBook Pro from around that time but haven't bothered to update it to Lion since I don't really use it all that often anyway.

I tend to agree that the point is that the path you choose is ultimately inconsequential to the end that it "made all the difference." Where the difference being, clearly (in my mind), one's uniqueness. It also does not imply that the writer is better or worse for having chosen said path. The "sigh" he makes could be regret for himself or for those who chose the other path.

Since everyone is unique, clearly the path(s) we have chosen "made all the difference" regardless of whether or not those paths were the ones less traveled.

So, I don't think he's embellishing. He's simply stating a universal truth and it is just as true whether the statement be made at the moment he chose or "ages and ages hence." The choices you make in life are what ultimately define you.

These newly minted masters graduates will find themselves declaring bankruptcy and defaulting on education loans.

Except that it is not that simple: https://www1.salliemae.com/after_graduation/manage_your_loans/borrower_responsibility/managing_debt/bankruptcy.htm

Odds are you will not be able to claim an undue hardship and if you still decide you are unable to pay then the banks will, at the very least, garnish the wages you are earning from flipping burgers. If you go to school, take on a mountain of debt and fail to get a job that allows you to repay your debt then you are pretty well screwed. That debt is going to hang over your head (and probably grow) until you pay up or until you die.

"...why shouldn't people who want to live in rural areas have to pay more for services? It costs more to provide services to them."

What the hell are you talking about? *Want* to live in rural areas? You think people who live in rural areas are on permanent vacations or something? The reason people live in rural areas is because YOU pay them to. I'm not talking about some act of charity either. You need food. You need electricity. You need lumber. You need rock & minerals. The people who live in rural areas provide these in return for your money. Not just in the price of the goods but the infrastructure paid by all of our taxes. Or do you think that if you made people in rural areas pay "their fair share" for roads, utilities, etc. that somehow you'd still be able have any of the products listed above at prices you could still afford?

And don't say, "Oh, I'm not talking about the people who work in *those* industries. I'm mean the person who lives in Kansas and works at a <fill in the blank>." So, where does a miner go to buy clothes, groceries, gas, get a pizza, buy a new car, or see one of those fancy moving pictures? Guess what? Those places still need human employees. That's why they are out here "in the sticks". It's not because they want to lead inefficient lives, it's because there are jobs out here, jobs you indirectly pay for. Jobs that you *need* to pay for. And, wouldn't you know it, these people also need basic services like police, fire, health care, insurance, banking, road maintenance, local government... Do you see where this is going?

If you've got a better solution for keeping an urban area functioning with no one living in rural areas feel free to let us know. Until then, maybe you should leave your urban cocoon and get a better idea for how this world works.

True, but lava in MC is useful to annoying. With LEGO it's absolutely devastating.

As people have said, it already has taken off. Personally, I use AWS for much humbler reasons than most. I use it for hosting my personal domain(s) -- web, DNS, SVN, etc. I used to just have a linux server in my basement do it all, but then you have a $500 machine to maintain, a static IP to provision, possible TOS violations with your ISP, poor upload speeds, etc. For a few dollars a month I can host everything I used to at home on a virtual linux server with redundant storage attached and excellent bandwidth. It was a no-brainer for me.

I also store important documents and other irreplaceable items (photos, video recordings, etc) with their S3 service. I still have things stored locally, but it gives me additional piece of mind to have it somewhere redundant and external. You don't need to use Amazon for that, but it is more convenient for me than backing stuff up to media and then physically locating it somewhere off-site.

As far as the recent newsworthy outage at AWS, I trust Amazon will learn from their mistakes and fix them more than I trust my local ISPs to do so. Also, that network outage did not affect any of my sites or data.

Yeah, blue hippo had a great line in their ads that while perfectly understandable is designed to subtly confuse the customer.

"If you can afford 35 dollars a week for 12 months..."

Building up your savings to a reasonable level is never a bad idea.

By your logic you should not be paying for insurance on your auto, home, health or possessions since that money should be spent on paying down loans. Well, that's what having a source of liquidity is all about -- insurance. It's great that you will save a few grand on interest if you pay something off sooner. It's not so great that the first time you lose your job you are starving and on the streets because you had nothing saved.

To each his own, but you will regret making that double mortgage payment for the last year if now you become unemployed and realize that if you had saved that money you wouldn't be worrying about your mortgage for another 12 months (a simplified scenario, granted).

I'm all for paying off loans early, but I'm also for building up 3-6 months of cash (or other fairly liquid assets). You have to balance it. It's not all about paying the least amount possible. If that were the case you'd be living with your parents, eating rice and beans for every meal and walking/biking to work (not a bad lifestyle really, but it's probably not the one you've chosen). Building a buffer of cash gives you security and piece of mind which can go very far into reducing stress and therefore making life (and yourself) more pleasant and enjoyable.

While I have no love for the wealthy (they do just fine without it), it is not they (directly) who have killed off the middle class. Globalization (which I'm also not against) has killed off the middle class. And it is killing off the middle class (in America) because the middle class let it.

Everyone who, when presented with multiple products to purchase to fulfill a specific need or desire, will usually pick the cheapest one (everything else being equal). Well, guess what? The cheapest one is not made in America. So every time you do this you send jobs overseas. It's a vote that tells corporations that if they want your business then they have to use cheap foreign labor to get it.

So cry me a river middle class America -- for once you got what you voted for. Why shouldn't tech (and pretty much everything else) leave America? We obviously won't pay for it anyway. I sure as hell do not want to invest in a company that is going to employ Americans (I'm an American btw). You're paying a premium for nothing. Simply wasting money to sustain a way of life that is rapidly losing momentum as it further enters the atmosphere of global reality (excuse the poor analogy).

I am 37 too and we are very different (not better or worse, just different).

I'm not a computer scientist and I'm not a software engineer (and, no offense, but thank goodness I'm not a system admin). I'm a code monkey, a digital carpenter if you will. I've had my ass planted in front of a computer since the age of 9 -- it's what I do, it's what I love. I have been gainfully employed as a coder since the mid 90's. I achieved my ideal position and status the first day I went to work professionally -- a code monkey. I have absolutely no desire to "advance" (to what?). I want to code, not manage. Money? I already make twice the average household income in my area. Could I make more? Sure, but to what end? I'm more than happy with the money I make. You have to draw a line at some point and just start enjoying life and stop worrying about how much the guy down the hall makes. I ride out tough times not because of what is on a piece of paper, but by delivering positive results day after day, year after year.

Also, I have no degree. Not implying that one shouldn't get a degree but dropping out of university and going to work has turned out to be a good choice for me. I work amongst many hardware and software "engineers" (all with degrees) and I am at no disadvantage when it comes to performing my job.

I would like to add that my life is also fairly low stress which I think is very important too. The low stress doesn't come from having a good job. It comes from living well below my means. I could pay my mortgage, keep the lights on, put food on the table and gas in the car even with a 75% pay cut. Yes, I'm fortunate, but it isn't all luck.