Don't even try. Getting syphilis isn't worth the fun of fucking the whore.

the operator was excellent at following instructions and telling me what exactly he was seeing on the screen.

As someone fairly green on the helpdesk (just hit the 1 year mark), I must say that I appreciate ten times more a user who follows instructions and describes what's on their screen, than users who claim to be tech savvy, broke what they were working on, and can't seem to fix it themselves.

What I really hate are those users who never learned how to use their computer. They know how to operate one or two programs on the computer, but they always say "I'm not a computer person", and use that as an excuse for never learning the difference between the mouse, the monitor and the tower. The kinds of users who can't take instructions because they're unwilling to focus their eyes in unfamiliar territory on the the screen.

I'm fine with ignorance, ignorance can be fixed, and ignorance is honest. What I can't stand is when people call in asking for help, but refusing to say what they need help with, then when you pry it out of them, they refuse to follow the instructions you give them. Those are the worst users.

So yeah. Compassion is great. I do my level best every day to put myself in the users shoes, because I understand how stressful it is when your tools fail you. But there is certainly a point where the patience runs out, because someone who is asking for help (often demanding help) is not willing to be helped once they have my attention.

When I was in high school, I was very good at math but couldn't be bothered to actually apply myself and take the highest level classes. I picked up everything pretty quickly, and I remember it being hellish when the teacher would say "break into small groups." Nobody cared to actually do the work. Most of the time it would be me and 1 or 2 other people in the class who actually got the concept, and everyone else would beg us to let them just copy off of me. I never consciously let anyone copy off of me. Most of the time, the other people who got the concepts would let everyone copy off them though. To this day that kind of laziness sticks in my craw, and I simply refused to let people copy. I offered to re-teach the concepts one on one, with the stipulation that they teach what they learned one on one to the others. This made it so I only had to re-teach the class once, then I could do my own homework. It was nice in that I was recognized for my abilities, and I was a decent teacher. I'll be damned if my students just copy off of me, so I did my best to make them prove they could do the math along the way. I think the biggest problem was probably that none of my math teachers actually gave a damn about math. They were all football/basketball coaches, and teaching math was just their night job, really. So the jocks and the cheerleaders always got passing grades, (at least C-) and everyone was left to flounder, since the coaches were too busy chatting with their favorite quarterbacks, pointguards, and cheerleader captains.

Oh man. If my office had noise generators my sanity would crumble so quickly. It's bad enough my semi-cube is 10 feet from the corporate server closet, but if I had to deal with non-localizable static all day I'd be raving like a lunatic. I have pretty bad tinnitus from a youth full of fireworks and raves, and it'd probably get so bad I'd might as well be deaf in that kind of environment.

properly understood, Quantum Entanglement is at the core of all Quantum Physics

To a US English speaker, this phrase can generally be translated to mean "All quantum mechanical reasoning relies on quantum entanglement" which is false. But the phrase you state leaves room for interpretation and can certainly mean "quantum entanglement is one of the basic features of quantum mechanics" or even "quantum mechanics requires quantum entanglement to be true". It's just that the standard way the phrase is parsed makes it seem you're saying entanglement is the most important or most fundamental feature of quantum mechanics. You aren't wrong, but the way you expressed yourself can be a little confusing.

While technology and technological knowledge could certainly weather a large portion of the population vanishing, what do you think of the economic implications of a significant impact event?
How would the global economy react to a mile-wide rock hitting Manhattan? Or Hong Kong? Berlin? Tokyo? Any large city?
I have the feeling that there would be a global economic upset the likes of which has never been seen.

religion is what kept our society together in difficult times.

Y'know what caused a lot of those hard times in the first place? Religion.

I don't disagree with the general premise that the NSA would resort to torture if they thought that it would be in their best interest.
I'm stating that since the NSA isn't exactly a military organization (in a strict sense), and since the NSA is known for using applied science, it would know that torture (or more specifically pain driven interrogation such as water-boarding) doesn't give reliable results when it comes to intelligence gathering. It's a fine line. Overt torture causes the subject to say whatever they think will make the torture stop. Too mild, and the subject won't give up the goods. Legitimate interrogation methods are far more effective than torture in secret, when it comes to getting information vital to national security. It's been discussed in many venues and on multiple occasions that torture isn't effective in helping intelligence organizations do their jobs.
The NSA has been so corrupted by the mandate of its task that it has decided to "gather all intelligence" but this is both simply infeasible (since one-time-pads and horribly inconvenient methods of encryption exist), and ultimately a waste of energy and time.
They can record everything they wish, but I'm not sure it will make a difference in fighting terrorism carried out by those who have a moderate education in information security and encryption. Granted it's not particularly easy communicating in a way that's secure against a government organization bent on destroying all semblance of anonymity, privacy, or security in one's person and effects, but it's certainly not impossible.

Sorry if I'm being too literal here. I just hate ambiguity. So I'm defining my terms.

Mod this guy up. The NSA may not be looking for you specifically, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't be mad as hell that they're violating everyone's rights. They aren't torturing you at a black site now, but they could if they wanted to, because they have conspired to make themselves above the law.

http://www.copyright.gov/1201/

I assume it's illegal to make a copy and give away the original while retaining the copy. But what is true is that it is legal to make copies for personal use. Every 5 years the librarian of congress reviews requests for exceptions to the DMCA and this last time decided to allow copies for personal use and backup of DVDs as an exception.

that is a marginal loss to the owner of the copyright

You can't assume that's true. The friend the disk was loaned to may never have bought the movie. It's not a loss if the purchase wasn't ever going to happen. And like you mentioned, it might equally be considered a marginal gain, because the borrower could recommend the movie to others, and cause purchases that otherwise may not have happened.

Are you serious? Or trolling? You can copy the DVD image super easy, bit-for-bit, without breaking any encryption using a program like ImgBurn, and right now it's legal in the US to do so for personal use. You can then play it back on your computer legally using an ISO mounter like DaemonTools, and a legal DVD player program like PowerDVD. This is a legal chain of use. It's legal to backup a DVD by making a bit-for-bit copy of the disk. It's legal to mount the ISO of that image. And it's legal to playback that ISO with a piece of decryption software that is correctly licensed for it.

They can sue if they can show that your work is a derivative of the Disney work

Not exactly true either. They can sue without of the evidence of infringement if they're so inclined. They'll lose if the evidence is against them, but they'll still put a heavy financial burden on the party they'll sue. If Disney thinks they can bankrupt the defendant, and it's worth the cost, then they can sue with practically no standing.

That's why corporate ownership of copyright is a financially asymmetrical and unfair legal allowance. The richest media companies can buy up whatever properties they want and then tie up smaller parties in a civil suit subsequently incurring disproportionate expense on the defendant. They can then offer a settlement deal, and give the smaller party a cheaper option than winning in court. If Disney loses in court, it's objective is still realized by the bankruptcy of the defendant. If the defendant instead settles, they promise to censor their work irrespective of whether or not the work was infringing. If Disney wins, it gets to expand the scope of its intellectual property and bankrupt the defendant. Its a no-lose situation for Disney if the value of the defendant's property is equal to or greater than court costs.

Titan's not a planet, but it's fairly nearby (ie within the solar system), and has rain and mud. As long as you count liquid methane and ethane falling from the sky as rain, and tholin tar as mud.