Same here, after years of owning PPC macs and never having a problem, I've had endless trouble from my MBPs.

The first one I had was a first generation one and I kinda expected the worst, but it lasted three years with two trips into Apple Service (logic board replaced twice). The new one (last of the previous body style MBPs) is garbage though, it's been non-stop odd behavior that I can't pin down to any one thing. Crashes consistently and runs slowly with Linux or OSX. Won't buy another one.

It's not really fine. Well, sort of. The health care system has major problems because no one can really afford it without insurance. In fact, if you try and purchase medical care, the hospital will charge you more than they would charge an insurance company.

Funny, that. Most of the Blackwater guys that were here after Katrina were wearing plain clothes and weren't (AFAIK) deputized. They were just out of town thugs with guns, not too different from the local thugs with guns. The only way you could tell them apart from the local thuggery was that they had better weaponry.

I wasn't actually referring to Blackwater, even though it is of course applicable here. I was more referring to the NOPD guys that beat the schoolteacher up during Katrina, the ones that mug you, the ones that guard warehouses full of cocaine, the ones that in 2008 opened fire at an inspection sticker station because they didn't feel like waiting in line. People like Antoinette Franks and Len Davis (both NOPD officers and on death row).

Come to New Orleans. The only difference between the criminals and the police is a uniform.

Try Movable Type. It's maybe not what I'd really call "lightweight", but it isn't huge either.

As much as I'd love to work in the EU, it isn't that easy. I seriously looked into it a few years ago (and still do from time to time) only to come to the conclusion that many EU employers really don't want Americans working there. They'd much rather take care of their own and employee EU residents. Sucks for me, but I do see the truth of it.

While I think a reasonable punishment for a crime is great and all... what happens when an innocent person is convicted of a crime? What happens when you're walking home from the club/friends house/work and you get stopped by a police officer who's having a bad day? When he says you're stoned (even if he can't prove it), you're going to get caned, fined, beaten, imprisoned, and/or possibly executed (not in that particular order).

There's no such thing as an accurate and fair justice system; the least we can do is make sure that punishments aren't so horrible that they have a long term negative effect on your life when you're falsely convicted.

I'm just going to have to pass on the countries with harsh penalties like caning, even if other aspects of them are great.

Actually there are three Uceprotect RBLs - the first one (which is the one I use) only lists single IPs. It's pretty conservative and gets very few false positives.

It's the second and third ones that block entire ranges/ISPs/ASNs/etc. I couldn't really imagine anyone using these two in any kind of production environments.

> It is SORBS that I have an issue with. SORBS was created out of pure spite.

No, you're confusing "spite" with "greed". There's a difference. Spite is blacklisting a spammer's ISP in a fit of anti-spam zealotry. Greed is blacklisting a spammer's ISP hoping to extort a huge amount of money from them so their customers can send email again, and then blacklisting them again right after you un-blacklist them (yes, SORBS does this).

Good riddance to them. They've done nothing but tarnish the reputation of legitimate RBLs.

Spamcop, Spamhaus, and Uceprotect are plenty of RBL for me.

Out of the 68 open positions on Dice for New Orleans, a significant percentage of them aren't even IT at all (engineering). Add in the crime problem, government corruption, terrible streets, and high'ish cost of living, and I'd think it would come in at #1 on the list.

So a few years ago the PSU in my Mac G5 died, and it's under warranty. Unfortunately, the only Apple warranty shop around at the time (right after Katrina) was Circuit City. So I go to drop the box off...

Not an hour later I get a call from them telling me they need the passwords to both the admin account and my normal user account, and any other passwords (email, etc) present on the machine. The reason given? The power supply is actually a special piece of software and not a piece of hardware at all!

Obviously I didn't give them this; I wound up driving two hours away to take it to another shop.

I'm so glad that company is dead and gone.