Why does a government regulatory body need to know who your customers are? Are you kidding?

So I guess Russias enemies have never had the idea to simply have compromised servers/equipment inside the Russian border... Oh No! I just gave it away! Russia's doomed!

People who thought a virtual item could be unique and valuable find out the hard way what anyone with common sense knew all along?

Not being Scottish, I have to say that I'm relieved. Granted, if I lived there I'd probably have voted Yes. But from the outside? How would that split have worked out in the end? The UK would swing wildly right... Quickly get involved in lots of wars, crack down on "terrorists" etc... Scotland would have swung wildly left, and quickly bankrupted themselves with social programs. Balance is a good thing, even if you're currently getting the short end of the stick.

I'd like to say that perhaps the powers that be can now see the discontent and will change things to keep Scotland happy enough that this wont come up again. But that would require long term thinking and I don't see that as something modern politicians are capable of. Is some Tory going to do something that will cost him the next election just so his grandson can win one in 20yrs? Not on your life.

I suspect that after a few years this will come up again and you'll win. I'll be glad for you. But keep in mind, getting what you want is rarely as great as you planned. And some (but not all) of the conservatives concerns regarding "What you want" will end up being dead on. Starting a new government is never easy. Just ask Iraq.

Both are disconnected from real life. You get that rich and you start believing your own marketing teams blather. There seems to be this idea that "Real" musicans are hurt by piracy. It's not even remotely true... most real musicians can't get a record deal or a show because Bands like U2 have the industry locked up. They are part of huge machine that produced devices that could play their music for them (CDs) then locked that format up in such a way that no regular musician could ever afford to produce one. The one album I was involved in back in the 90s cost $20,000 to finish. We got 600 copies and sold them all making a little over $6k back. That market only worked for huge bands like U2. And local bars don't have live music anymore because local bands aren't allowed on the radio. Bands like U2 pay to have their music played, which gets the public accustom to those songs even if they would have like the local bands better... So now the bars playing a CD they had to pay for AND pay royalties back to the RIAA. Often the live band would have played for FREE! But still can't get a gig.

Now... granted, my Band at the time was DeathMetal. So yea, our lack of gigs had a lot to do with our choice of styles. But this is true of pretty much all live music. I've been in dozens of bands since, from Blues to Bluegrass. It doesn't matter. It's a club and the doors are closed. But, unfortunately for them, they've made it far too easy to consume their product. Now people don't even want to pay for it!

The real solution? You can't pirate a live show. Go do some gigs U2.

There are plenty of small hardware stores around me. Dozens actually... I'm always at the hardware stores. They thrive specially because Home Depot doesn't have everything... They only sell things that are of high profit and easy to sell. If you have an account with them you can order pretty much anything you want and have it ready for pickup in a few days. But stop in for some odds and ends? Good luck. Better luck at the local hardware store.

I, unfortunately, live blocks from a home depot however... so I'm on occasion lured by convenience.

I'm currently on the phone with my bank dealing with this.
Thanks Home Depot!
After you're done cleaning up this mess, could you clean up the bolt isle so I can actually find what I'm looking for should I ever decide to return to your store?

I order a lot of stuff from Shenzhen via Alibaba.
I've never had a problem, and what I order seems to be of high quality and all the vendors I've dealt with have been reasonable and even accepted returns. Long story short, they're as good as any US vendor I've dealt with.

True Story...

I wanted to do this when I was about 30... We have a very prestigious college here so I went there, to the physics lab and sat down with a professor.

He said if I came in with strait A's in math... maybe... otherwise it was an unqualified "No"
He went on to say that if I didn't have strait A's in math to go to the local community college and take math courses that were specifically linked to the University. They have classes that do carry credit at the university. If I could get a 4.0+ in advanced math classes they'd let me in. He said if I was older, I'd qualify as a "Returning adult" and would have lower requirements... 3.0+ I think "returning adult" is in the 35+ age range. But you'd have to contact your local college.

Then I asked if I could at least push the button on the accelerator. That also was a "No" but he at least chuckled.

It might be different at your local school. I wouldn't know.

I believe that he is referring to the Universal Service Fund (correct me if I'm wrong) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U...
If that's the case, these are fees the Telcos are required to pay to the feds, who then turn around and redistribute to "Target" customers. Generally the poor or Rural customers. For example, Lifeline (which AT&T hilariously advertises as their own charity) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U...

So, to call this a "Bailout" or subside is kind of misleading. The telco industry charges more to everyone to pay into this fund, and then the feds award the fund to areas where service would otherwise be too expensive. There have been federal initiatives to fund broadband expansion. Namely Obamas program that basically failed miserably. There are areas of this country that will likely never get wired broadband due to cost. They'll have to wait for wireless services to mature.

Per the study they tested saccharin, sucralose and aspartame.

It's still very popular here. Though, I live in hippy central. I know a lot of people that refuse to eat fake sweeteners and corn sugars. They're switching to these "throwbacks" and, for example, Hunts Ketchup because it has regular sugar. Anecdotaly, none of them have lost weight as a result that I know of. But they certainly have gotten more annoying.

Netflix requires sivlerlight. And, I suspect, 99% of the people out there with silverlight installed, only have it for netflix. I can't think of a single other reason I'd install it. And I specifically banned netflix in my house because of the silverlight requirement.

And you don't need vaccines to be free of the Flu, just a handgun.

You don't need any of that.
Get a LiveCD of any os you want. Burn it, you're done.
You boot to the CD/DVD and its a clean OS every boot. They can't break it because they can't write to it.

To be really safe, tape the DVD drive shut.