This is a great informative read: http://archive.lewrockwell.com...

It all ended on August 15, 1971, when Nixon closed the gold window and refused to pay out any of our remaining 280 million ounces of gold. In essence, we declared our insolvency and everyone recognized some other monetary system had to be devised in order to bring stability to the markets. Amazingly, a new system was devised which allowed the U.S. to operate the printing presses for the world reserve currency with no restraints placed on it — not even a pretense of gold convertibility, none whatsoever! Though the new policy was even more deeply flawed, it nevertheless opened the door for dollar hegemony to spread. Realizing the world was embarking on something new and mind-boggling, elite money managers, with especially strong support from U.S. authorities, struck an agreement with OPEC to price oil in U.S. dollars exclusively for all worldwide transactions. This gave the dollar a special place among world currencies and in essence “backed” the dollar with oil. In return, the U.S. promised to protect the various oil-rich kingdoms in the Persian Gulf against threat of invasion or domestic coup. This arrangement helped ignite the radical Islamic movement among those who resented our influence in the region. The arrangement gave the dollar artificial strength, with tremendous financial benefits for the United States. It allowed us to export our monetary inflation by buying oil and other goods at a great discount as dollar influence flourished.

The san Francisco bay coffee company makes keurig compatible coffee pods that are 97% bio-degradable. http://www.sanfranciscobaycoff... I like their "fog chaser" version. they tend to be less expensive than other brands at my local store as well.

You've got a point there.

"Their "competition" for the best video about the effect of big money was such an enormous debacle and a clear showing that their true goal was not to get money out of politics, but to get Conservative (and even libertarian) money out of politics"

And worth mentioning. If you look at the top 10 spending SuperPACs in the last cycle, you'll find that the left-leaning PACs outspent the right-leaning PACs by more than double.

The top 3 super pac disbursements this cycle were from the left: NextGen Climate, Senate Majority, House Majority. They spent over $160 Million combined The next 3 were from the right: American Crossroads, Freedom Partners, Ending Spending Action. They spent less than half of what the left spent at $76 million combined Rounding out the top 10 we have: NEA Advocacy (left leaning) $18 Milllion Congressional Leadership Fund (right leaning) $16 Million Americans for Responsible Solutions (left leaning) $16 Million Independence USA (left leaning) $15 Million Which totals another $49 Million on the left, and $16 Million on the right The grand total for the top 10 equals $209 Million for the left and $92 Million for the right.

http://realtime.influenceexplo...

It says right in the summary that it is open to any software repository. I'd be surprised if CodePlex isn't supported immediately.

I've had nothing but a great experience with my Buffalo router preloaded with DD-wrt as well.

MS is making windows available at no cost for these small screen sizes.

That was a bit confusing but I think you are mistaken. The article is talking about them announcing new tablets AND laptops. I think they are just pointing out that the laptops wont have a touch screen, but the tablets the OP is about will have one.

"IE, well ... treat IE like the thing you use for work when all else fails. Because there's always another exploit around the corner."
Meh, I don't recall ever having much of a problem with IE. On the topic, there is a whole "tracking protection" section under IE accelerators. I block most all of it with these 4 easy to add addons:

http://easylist-msie.adblockpl...
http://easylist-msie.adblockpl...
http://www.privacychoice.org/t...
http://ie.microsoft.com/testdr...

Heh, I actually did mean the latter. I used the term because he was the first guy I ever heard use it that way. It was raining and I suggested we bring in some chairs from under the rain to under our cover and that segued into his story...

I was having a safety meeting with a guy when he told me how he had been hit by lightning once on a construction site. I said, "what'd you do?" He said, "I got up and ran! The only thing I could think of was that I didn't want to get hit again!"
He seemed like a normal enough guy, but he was adamant about not wanting to get struck again, that's for sure.

Indeed, developing apps for blackberry is a pita -- at least it was the last time I did about 2 years ago. Win Phone apps are quite a breeze by comparison.

"And the WP8.1 Developer Preview sure wasn't running nicely on my Lumia. I could not make any calls after the phone had been on for a while."
I had that problem at first as well; it turned out that it was turning on some new? feature called "Wi-Fi calling" by default. After I turned that off and set it to prefer cellular calling I had no more problems. 8.1 developer preview is great.

I think you are greatly underestimating its effect. I have been sent many a link to it by my wife (non-geek) and have heard many of her girlfriends and female relatives discuss things they have seen on the site at social gatherings. It has definitely generated traffic to the store, as I don't think this is some isolated experience. I (a geek) wouldn't even know about the site if it wasn't for the nongeek women in my life.

Good to know. I've been using you guys for a long time now; its a great service. Best of luck with the security services.