Ah.. really classic gaming.

The Colecovision baseball that had the specific controllers was a lot of fun.. until we learned the pitch that was a strike but couldn't be hit. Then games became a challenge of who could continue to pitch that exact pitch without making a mistake.

Man the intellivision had some great games though... B-17 bomber was awesome with the voice module. Tron Deadly Discs was a marathon game if there ever was one. My friend was the best at TDD and could play for hours until it finally got crazy hard.

When the entire RoadRunner residential IP spaces were blocked, I just got a virtual server (now a Linode) and simply run that as my MX. Helps on inbound mail as well for any times my home connection goes down.. it'll queue up there. I use trusted certs for relaying from home and send mail via authenticated SMTP (TLS required) for mobile devices, via the same virtual host avoiding issues with connectivity to home (which was rare, but now I don't have to worry). I also have the connections between the VM and home box use a port other than 25 to avoid any blocking of port 25 by my ISP (which, for San Diego at least, hasn't happened in years).

It comes down to $20 a month for the size of vm I got (I also started using it for a few other things too). I also do my greylisting and other anti-spam measure there before it even tries to deliver to my server at home.

I'll have a Big Mic please.

501(c)4 is different and you can engage in political stuff (apparently) as long as it's not the primary focus.

Moveon.org is an example of an existing 501(c)4.

I recently completed my PhD in computer science and hit the job market. I did not think I would have difficulty finding a job...

So you spent all the time only going to school and not working on getting at least a low level job in the field to have a foot in the door and to gain experience? That was huge mistake #1.

The PhD was on a very technical topic that has very little practical application and so working on it does not seem to count as experience.

Because it's not experience, by the very definition of experience (as related to working).

You specialized in something with very little practical application rather than looking at the job market for what would be worth something to employers? Huge mistake #2.

Have fun paying off those huge loans I'm betting you have now.

They did ultrasounds on me for a few years (they still had no idea how long to check for) and I actually got to see some of the evolution of the machines. I remember seeing the first time they started measuring the blood flow with blue and red representing directions of the flow.

It was such an unknown thing for so long, that I was turned down when I tried to donate blood at age 18. The nurse at the blood drive even called their central office to ask, but since no one knew what it was, they decided to err on the side of caution. Enough knowledge about it became more common over the years, I guess, as I was finally able to donate during a blood drive at work several years later.

I was actually diagnosed with it when I was 12 (back in 1985), same type of "process of elimination" diagnoses. First they thought I had Chicken Pox, then they thought it might be something else, then they finally settled on KD. My own fever actually hit 105.4, and they had to give me an ice bath (you don't know the meaning of cold until you've had that happen).

My fever was so high for so long that I burned from the inside out and my skin peeled over my entire body. I had no idea that could happen. Spent a few days in the hospital. It was unsettling that they'd bring in the student doctors from UCSD (I'm in San Diego) to examine me because they really had no clue yet, and were both looking for any ideas and anything that odd is a learning experience, I guess. About the only positive of the hospital stay was they actually let me avoid the IV hookup as long as I drank enough water to stay hydrated.

My family had our carpet cleaned shortly before I got sick, so I've heard the related idea too. Though I didn't hear it as the chemicals but something to do with the dampness after cleaning. And I was the type of kid that loved to lay on the floor while watching TV and such. I've also read up on it now and then and notice when it's mentioned. They didn't really treat me with anything specific and just focused on fighting the symptoms with, initially Tylenol, then switching to aspirin later on.

I'm still bummed all these years later that I missed 6th grade camp with all my friends because I was still just barely getting over being sick.

The only "bloodsucking bastards" sucking money (and constantly trying to suck more and more) out of my pocket are from the government.

This has been one of the things that I've liked about Apple.. they don't continually promise you the moon, then eventually release something that only gets to about 10,000 ft or so instead. At least not in the last decade plus. Not so sure about the pre OSX days as I was never much of an Apple user before OSX 10.4 or so and my first other Apple product was a 3G ipod.

What you're saying, that usually the "missing" features are only things that were rumored is exactly true. Look at things like the AppleTV. Most every complaint are things like, "It doesn't support codec $foo," or "It can't run $bar." Things that Apple never said the device would do. For Apple stuff, if you like the features listed, then you'll be happy. If it doesn't have features you'd like, don't buy it. Simple. Me? I've been happy with my Apple TVs, my ipad and my iphone. I'm a linux admin for work (and have my own linux boxes too) but the feature set of the Apple products is good enough for me and don't require me to have to essentially admin my devices, or root them or whatever. Would I like some of them to have some other features? Sure... but I knew what I was buying and have gotten what I was promised (no having to send my iPad back for a few weeks to get feature that was originally promised out of the box, for instance). Can't really complain about that.

Personally, I much prefer the Apple way of telling you exactly what their products already do, or will do in a very short amount of time (already in production as someone said) vs the crazy promises then half-assed actual delivery, often much later then promised as well. As time has gone on, they'd often added new features in new iOS releases too. Bonus.

Much the same has happened with yield signs. We tried to get a yield sign put in at an intersection in our neighborhood and our city traffic engineers (San Diego) said they won't put in yields anymore. The reasoning is apparently because people just blow through yields and now too many basically treat stop signs like a yield.

Technically incorrect. If you enter an intersection, even on green, and cannot clearly/reasonably exit the intersection before the red light (usually meaning traffic is piled up in front of you) then you can be cited. Presumably it's for blocking traffic vs running the red, but it might be up to the officer and/or judge.

Not the same situation, but it would apply on a yellow if you cross the line before red, but there were cars in front of you keeping you from exiting the intersection before it did turn red.

I picked up a refurb'd Aspire One off woot a couple weeks ago to play with. The default XP install definitely feels slower then the Ubuntu NR install I'm playing with. But overall it does feel way underpowered for any "real" use, i.e. aside from casual browsing. Though the keyboard is awkwardly small enough to make it not good for heavy typing anyway.

It barely can play some video files I encoded ages ago... might be good for watching some of those vids on a plane vs on my iphone though.

You think they won't find a way to charge a tax on an outside purchase? Right...

Seriously, already in CA, if you register a vehicle that was bought in another state within some time limit, you'll have to pay CA tax on it, or at least the difference.

You must get some whopping deductions for your kids, or have a hell of a huge mortgage. I don't have kids, but have the mortgage interest deduction and still am paying about 15-17% of just pure fed income tax. I'm not as high up in the earning % either.. though top 20% I think.

I've gotten nailed by the AMT twice now too. Both times in years I cashed in some stock options. That's partly because I'm in CA where state taxes (hence the deductions for them) are high enough that AMT kicked in (yay). At least that's how I understand why AMT hit me before.