I remember getting the occasional spam, and actually out of curiosity seeing how they would even complete their objective. Their objective? Sell you something that they are advertising. Many moons ago, I got one spam that had an 800 number. I called it and I couldn't even leave a message since the mailbox was full.

Spam = advertising. Advertising leading to the sale of a product or service. I noticed about 99% of the time there was no logical or easy way to make a call/visit a site,etc to present me with a product where I could buy it. You think grandma is going to de-obfuscate a URL(like slashdot's stupid email addy obfuscating filters) , visit the URL & buy your fake Lewis Vitton bags or whatever. Some spammers I swear are just spamming for the sake of spamming. Where's the money in that? There's ways around that like recommending I buy some junk stock that will be worthless in a month.

Then there was some Chinese individual who personally spammed me trying to sell me electronics. I carried on a good convo with him for a week until he told me to go to hell for wasting his time. He refused to tell me how he got my email address. In a funny coincidence, my gmail got hacked, sent spam mail out to everyone in my address book, including the spammer. He replied back saying he wasn't interested. yes, spam emailed spam.

BTW slashdot quit forcing me to preview, wait 2+ minutes to make a damn post on here. Or should I just go to reddit?

..some old fogey is working at the CIA who is 100% out of touch with modern slang came up with this name. ..or.. ..someone at the CIA has a great sense of humor. ..or... ..some 4channer is an insider at the CIA and thought they would do this for the ultimate lulz. It's not unlike Fight Club where you find out members of Tyler's gang work everyday jobs and can secretly add things to your meal.

Actually, you have a good idea.

We have a nationwide electricity grid, sending much-needed electrons everywhere.

Why don't we do the same for water? It can be even not-so-clean water & the treatment can be left to the last mile to deal with. Floods in one area? Drought in another? Let them work together to solve the problem. A nationwide water grid would be interesting. Surely it's already implemented to lesser extents somewhere in the world.

If I had mod points(remember those?) I would give them to you. I'm tired of these Slashdot reviews that automatically assume you know what obscure thing they are talking about. How about just a little bit of context? And no, please don't excessively hyperlink it. Just give me 1 or 2 sentences.

I'm sure this torrent would be much larger if geocities page authors didn't have so many broken image links included.

I'm sure the file would be much SMALLER if they could consolidate all the animated GIFs of the stick figure guy digging into the ground. In fact, with all the stupid animated GIFs, and about 5 sparkly backgrounds, easily compressible instances of text like "I LIKE CHRIS FARLEY", This could be a 20 meg file.

I fell in love with the Tumbler when I first saw it. It's a perfect blend of a Formula 1 race car and, um, a F-117 fighter. It makes all previous Batmobiles look like a joke. No useless neon lights or un-necessary bat logos everywhere.

I'm curious how he implemented the steering system. There's not really anything mechanical between the 2 front tires. Just a bunch of hydraulics with the steering rack way in behind, extending it with control arms?

Funny how this is in Las Vegas. Insert comment here how the slot machines have better auditing & reliability than the ballot machines do. Why? Money!

I have slightly different results. I bought a launch model EEE PC(the 701) and the display flaked out in about 4 months. It works if you bend the lid a bit. The 4 gig drive filled up quickly, resulting in an infinite boot loop.

The Acer Aspire One(150) I later bought fared a bit better. Only one time the bios freaked out(easily re-flashable) & Windows crapped out, but the hardware's solid. Oh, except for the battery(EEE's died too), but I just ordered a higher-cell one off of Amazon for $40.

Still love my Aspire One despite a few road bumps.

So they want someone to prove that it ISN'T harmful.

But is there any proof that it IS harmful?

Sure, it's normal to ban something if it's been proven to be harmful, but I can't think of anything that hasn't been banned because there's no proof that it isn't harmful.

Why is this edit box so god dang narrow?

"Ways of doing things that are confusing to a Windows user" - in regards to something like an app install, I agree.

In Ubuntu, I take a look at Synaptic, I am amazed at just how unfriendly and granular it is. You have your dependency hell, which means if you want to install A, you have to install C, D, E, F, and so forth. Some might install, some will fail with some weird technobabble. Many apps find it necessary to have SEVERAL entries. One will be the game's main files, and then you have to install another "Data files for xxx". Why can't they be in some hierarchy?

I also don't like it when many of the games to install require you to have the datafiles from the original. Try explaining that to your dad when he wants to install a game.

Better yet, inflate them with explosive gases. Something shoots at them, they blow 'up real good.

Probably the response to that would be to drop flachettes everywhere. Anything that doesn't pop when is real.

It's done to some extent at the toy store. German WW2 planes have the swastika removed. Lego Indiana Jones have characters just called as "enemies". They still do the goose-step though.

That just leaves all the similar-named me too Farmville & Mafia Wars clones that seem to pop up. Then you have to hide THOSE as well.

Then comes the event invites from people who are way too into Mafia Wars, where you get invites like "FREE AK47S GLITCH IN MAFIA WARS!".

The best way is to just defriend them.

If you see people with 1000+ friends, they don't have 1000+ friends to converse & be friends with, that's just 1000+ people they can broadcast to.

If you see someone that adds you as a friend, but never comments on any of your wall posts, you're just another viewer to their wall posts. It may or may not have commercial promotions involved.

If you have someone that adds you as a friend, but doesn't talk to you if you saw them in person, well, that's a mystery to me. Maybe you were interesting to them at one point, but lost your shine & been replaced by other recent adds.

Facebook isn't a tool to meet new people, that's for sure.

You are a hip celebrity & are having suicidal thoughts. Do you

1) Call 911

2) Call a friend

3) call suicide prevention hotline

4) tweet about it

If you chose 4, you are probably faking it so you can get on gawker.

It seems like every other day celebrities are reaching for a twitter client than hitting 911. This makes me think there isn't an actual emergency and things are a bit trumped up. "okay blood is coming out".