Between the spam and viruses, perhaps the time has come for some sort of digital postage? Its been discussed and shot down before but its reached a point where the ongoing costs of fighting spam, viruses and malware are outpacing previously proposed pricing for emails. It just seems ridiculous that I end up spending so much time and effort with my clients just trying to keep up with idiots who want to fuck up peoples computers and dealing with the ignorant (who admittedly shouldn't have to know all about that kind of crap) who find new ways to get infected on a seemingly weekly basis. Its not my favorite idea but what else can be done?

After owning all 3 at some point during this generation I've decided its my last console generation....I never thought I could be lured back to PC gaming after a long absence but the wii is just too casual, paying to play online with live is ridiculous considering how little I play multiplayer and Sony's issues up through their dismissal of their network security have made me think that I can really just do without consoles.

Not sure how this is "insightful", I dont know if I'm going to get the 5 or not but after switching from a droid to a captivate and finally to an iphone, I have been quite happy with it and would likely give the 5 the first look if and when I decide its time to upgrade. If it works well and its reliable I dont see a problem with sticking with something you already have experience with.

For some multiplayer is "where the fun is at" but please dont generalize all of us into that category. Many feel that with the current state of gaming, multiplayer is simply an excuse for developers to half-ass storylines and AI.

Most I have discussed this with have talked about this being their last "console generation" if even half of them follow through and go back to pc gaming how do you think the publishers are going to explain away lost sales. Back when I was still console gaming a few years ago I would occasionally buy used games and when good they usually enticed me to buy the next title when it was released. Most that I know that buy used do so because they aren't willing to pay $60 for a game so they wait until it hits a price point they feel comfortable playing and either buy used or new depending on what drops first. I dont see this doing much to raise revenues if anything I see it dropping initial revenues and then maybe if gamers attention spans last long enough increasing the sales when it hits bargain bins.

I dont think that would be gaining marketshare but simply trading it and I would imaging the power user market is far far smaller than the average consumer one. I really dont think Apple cares to be number one or about catering to everyone, they have found a niche and those that have them seem to love them and those that dont are free to find something else.

Roundabouts are great when drivers actually use them as intended the problem is there are too many rude asshats to make them practical. Here where I live there are 6 of them, I cant count the times that I watch people just whip around them without even looking to see if other cars are coming or if there are other cars already waiting to turn into them. I had a guy plow into me at one last year, he claimed that since he had a yield sign at the entrance that meant I was supposed to stop in the middle of the loop for him...actually made the point to argue that in court when he was issued a ticket. Drivers around here are idiots though, thats why we now have stop lights at freeway on ramps...people were too stupid to realize that if you leave no room for cars to merge into traffic eventually you just create enough congestion that no one can go anywhere.

$63 million to $600 million isnt going over budget, its running a scam. What is more perplexing than the current actions is that the govt allowed things to get that out of hand, in most cases when a project goes over budget by more than about 25% there are questions to answer and more often than not firings, beyond that and fraud is brought into question...this should have been figured out about $500 million ago.

Why dont we do one better and to extend protections to the RIAA and others just flat out ban copyrighted material from the internet...we could go back to the days when "lawlessness" ruled the internet but it was also inherently more useful.

Most of the problem with the legalization ballot measure in California was the campaign against it by the Humbolt County types who are currently "legal" growers...basically they pushed hard and begged for support from the public when medical mj was up for vote, but when it was opened up to the idea of real legalization they saw it as potential competition and profit loss, developed a "fuck you I got mine" attitude and turned on those they begged support from to start with.

This wont go anywhere even though the wording of the Bill should actually be attractive to states like Texas, Missouri, etc that are decidedly conservative but are currently suing over "obamacare" on the basis of states rights. This simply lifts federal law and puts the issue in the states hands as it should be...but there is far too much money in the "war on drugs". The prison industry and law enforcement agencies at both the state and federal level rely on the war on drugs far to heavily to just let it go without a major fight. People tend to forget that the US has the largest prison population per capita of any country in the world (including all the govt's considered oppressive and anti-human rights) that simply isn't sustainable without the endless war going on.

That happens more often than you think, Its actually happened to me twice..once with a telco I worked for where my department was eliminated as a cost saving measure, my department had 16 people when I started, was down to 2 engineers by the time I was let go. Within two weeks they were calling both of us to try and get us to come back, we both refused to come back in a salary position but offered to come back as contractors...shit was bad so they paid up, I spent a total of one month in two cities and made more in that time than I made in 6 months while I was working there.

The second time was two years ago with my own business, a client decided I was too expensive and decided to "go a different direction", the guy they hired was a relative of one of the company's partners and over a holiday break they managed to have their main server go down after a storm. Their new IT guy kept trying to fix the old machine with random parts, turns out he was hiding the fact that he hadn't had a good backup in over a month. I got a call saying they needed my help, I explained that they had ditched me, and that it was a holiday break (my biggest client closes for a week during the holiday season), they said it didn't matter what it cost they just needed their data. I told them I would do it on an hourly basis on the condition that the idiot who was now in charge just stayed out of the way. I billed them at 2.5x my standard rate, I kept backup hardware of all my clients gear on hand and still had the board and raid card that matched their system at home. Got the new machine up and didn't even have to restore anything, fixed the backup problem made a good backup and presented them a nice bill. They offered to "bring me onboard" again, I told them I didn't have time but wished them luck with my replacement.

A few generations until seeing a paper book is as rare as seeing a lion? Thats a bit absurd, I dont know anyone who has thrown out their book collection after getting a kindle. I have a rather extensive collection and though they mostly collect dust now I have no plans on ditching them. I can see a day where new books are no longer published but just expecting all of the old ones to just disappear is ridiculous.

The problem with my local news broadcasts is their insistence on filling 2 hours with 15 minutes of real local news and a bunch of fluff or national news from yesterday. The worst part is the break it up into segments so if you want local events you have to watch the first 15 minutes...if you want weather its about an hour in and finally if you want local sports you have to wait until the last 15 minutes. In between they run the expose into the dangers of sniffing paint, how copper thieves could steal your air conditioner and other paranoia pieces along with the latest stories about puppies, kittens or how local businesses donated a computer to a handicapped kid.

Oh yea I forgot its not really about getting people to quit smoking (negligible sales drops = success) its more about tax revenue...cant really be serious about getting people to quit.