Apparently you missed this statement:

"At some point a PC will cost more than it's worth to repair, but that's the point you chuck it and get a new one, and even then you can harvest parts as spares."

Replacing the motherboard certainly qualifies as the point that the pc is cost more than it is worth. But then, as stated, you can salvage the other components for another system.

My comment wasn't detailed and I may have given the wrong impression. The two guys were friends, and he had said it in a joking manner. There were more factors that made it obvious to all involved that this was a benign situation.

In 1999 when I was a freshman in HS, I saw another freshman walk up behind another kid and jokingly put a plastic knife from the lunch room to his back. He said, "give me all your money."

Unfortunately, a teacher also saw this harmless joke. The kid was arrested and expelled from the entire school district.

This, and the chemicals used in the manufacture of semiconductors are of extremely high purity and precision. I work for a manufacturer of such chemicals, and I'm amazed at the amount of thought and innovation that is thrown at maintaining and improving the quality of our product. Additionally, the solutions are typically custom tailored to the application, even down to the customer's process line. Everything that can even obliquely affect the final product is regulated and and detailed at length. I can't so much as move a printer in our lab without writing a whitepaper and requesting the change from the customer. We're talking a 2-3 month turn around time. This sort of service does not come cheap. And I'm just talking about the chemical side of the business.

In my opinion, the smart watch should be considered a peripheral for the smart phone I already have in my pocket.

This means it won't need to be a high powered device. I agree with you that this is not practical at this time.

But, if I'm able to check notifications such as text messages, subject lines of received emails, and navigation commands from my GPS, I'd be happy. I should be able to change music tracks without pulling out my phone. It could display a grocery list.

Stop thinking of it as it's own computing device, and more as a display device with limited input capabilities, and I think it'll make a lot more sense.

You must be new to science.

No true Scotsman.

No one really knows how they'd handle such a situation until they are in it. Past thoughts and declarations might predispose an untrained person to a certain action, but when a harsh reality comes suddenly and unexpectedly it's all about instinct and fight or flight responses.

I've been enough dangerous situations to know that I'm neither a courageous man nor a coward, but simply a man. I saved a roofied woman from being raped by a group of strangers and have a heavily scared face to remind me of my moment of courage. On the other hand, I ran like hell when skinheads raided my friend's party with baseball bats and knives. I have the memory of standing over my friend's hospital bed as he was nursed back to health to remind me of my moment of cowardice.

The lady from the article is alive and was able to free herself from her attacker. That is what matters.

Weird, most of the posts I've read from GirlinTraining have been interesting and well received by slashdot. Enough so that I remember her/his name. I can't say the same for either of you. Maybe you should try to contribute to the discussion rather than throwing stones?

On that note, I'm conflicted about this generation of consoles. I skipped the last generation entirely and was hoping update my aging PS2, but I certainly won't abide an always on type requirement. That leaves Sony's offering, but with their history I can't trust that they change their policy in a year or two after they eat Microsoft's lunch.

What this means for me, and I'm sure quite a few other people, is that I'm going to delay purchasing any console until the water looks less muddied. Or not. I already have a perfectly capable PC. If the console manufacturers can't make their experience easier and more convenient than a PC in the livingroom, well, why even use a console?

I'm sorry, but I'm from the midwest and I can tell you that a lot of fucking people care about shit that is none of their business. The rednecks absolutely will attack you for being gay, transgendered, atheist, black, hispanic, hell even dressing like a goth or with too much care (metrosexual).

Yeah, with a name like Zed it is real easy to remember and associate him with his very public meltdown a few years ago.

http://developers.slashdot.org/story/08/01/02/1811218/rails-bigwig-rails-on-rails-community

I get where you're coming from, but if you go far back enough on the timeline, we're all immigrants, including the 'Native' Americans.

I'm working with a masters in a STEM field (Chemistry), and I make about 60% of the salary of the HR drone who happens to have a degree in History. The job market is so shitty for new grads in science that my company is starting chemists with undergraduate degrees at $13 an hour. This is not atypical for the industry, at least in my state. Trust me, I've been looking.

My friends that went into the trades already have houses and are making families. Those of us that went into science are living with roommates and scrounging by like we're 20 well into our 30's.

Don't get me wrong. There still are some good jobs out there. But similarly to what apparently (from my reading of slashdot) is going on in the software field, these positions require 15 years experience in a technique that is 12 years old.

That $13 an hour job I was talking about earlier? We received 63 resumes for the position. 63. The pay was listed. As was weekend work and mandatory overtime required.

Another interesting tidbit is that as health insurance continues to become a larger portion of the cost of the employee, the employers are experiencing a higher sunk cost per worker, shifting the sweet spot of overtime versus staffing up to higher OT values. My lab has cut two positions and moved to mandatory 45 hour base weeks, with mandatory additional overtime up to 55 hours.

The number of part time positions that are capped at 39 hours per week are also increasing.

Go into a trade. It isn't for dummies. Ignore your cultural bias.