Look, I'm just at the point where I realize that fretting over shit I cannot change because more powerful people don't want to let it happen and my 'peers' will not get off their asses is useless.

I will do my darndest to insure my family survives and fuck the rest of you all. But I'm not gonna let you people ruin the relatuvely good days also because you think I need to be scared of your pet peeve.

Frankly, what are people so concerned about? Climate's gonna change, people gonna die or relocate, society will have to adapt, animals will die out... But nature will adapt qnd so will we. It's gonna suck a lot but it's not gonna be a tangible end to anything.

I find it highly interesting that an individual could just decide not to pay and a judge would just quit trying to make him.

I mean, when someone like you or me doesn't pay their bills, just not paying AND keeping all my assets aren't options, either, are they?

Also the thought comes to mind: At what point in time has the law failed you enough that, ethically speaking, you're well in your rights to just go bash the other guy's head in to at least get some satisfaction?

I wonder about the thought process behind this.
Our competitor launched an offering that blows everything out of the water that we offer. Let's provide a product to compete! But here's the catch: Let's make it suck! That'll show 'em.

Are consumers just that dumb or is AT&T just that arrogant?

Nice! For once the bad news passes me by! I use my Panasonic plasma TV merely as a monitor for DVD, BluRay and mostly my own mediacenter pc.

It's 42 inches and since I've never thought "gee, having a bigger TV would sure be nice), I'm guessing if I ever have to replace it it's going to be with a computer monitor, which get bigger by the year anyway.

No SmartTV nonsense. All I need is a HDMI input of some kind.

Look, you can joke all about how I'm just too stupid to use it but the fact is I am an IT professional and I'm not incompetent at what I do. Which means that technical concepts do not leave me in the dust by default.

And yet, every few years when I try to get into the swing of all things Linux, it ends in utter frustration.

Make of that what you will. And when you tell me I am at fault because I am unwilling or incapable of hurdling that learning curve, I will throw back in your face that a good product is also defined by usability considerations.

Linux is a pain in the ass. It is good at a broad variety of tasks, but so are other OSs that make my life less of a living hell.

"Yeah, well just put more disks in it..."

Nice idea. Only: TCO is not just based on initial spending and maintenance. There is also rackspace to consider and did I hear anyone talk about green IT?

If my day to day considerations were that one dimensional, my employer could save a ton of money on my salary.

The direction I don't care about. I care about the fact that they have made yet another "solve all problems with firepower" franchise out of something that has dealt with so many important and/or taboo topics in the past.

First kiss between white and black actors, knowingly keeping a gay actor on, solving problems with diplomacy, observing the wishes of a people and let them die, even though it goes against your own moral concepts...

This is a US made show that dared suggest that a society that has relied on cloning so much they're basically inbred need to band together with a society of hillbillies and had to effing ditch monogamy to survive! The question over Data's and the Doc's sentience or do the Borg enjoy the same considerations as other species... can the Borg even be considered a species... The list goes on and on.

They took EVERYTHING Star Trek had which let me hope for a brighter future for once instead of the pretty redundant apocalypse mindsets and turned it into fucking space cowboys...

So do excuse me if I shed a tear over the clusterfuck Abrams created.

Cosmonaut? ;)

*Load management

You are not wrong, but this can be taken to extremes also. I mean, you probably could retire at 40 if you worked two jobs and lived in a one room apartment where you went only to sleep.

There is a point where working for that early retirement takes so much out of you, that you'll be broken by the time you manage it. Lead management is an important factor in your life: Sure, it makes sense to procrastinate as little as possible and quit the habits that give you little but cost much, however you cannot just do without all amenities of life. You don't know whether you will survive to your retirement goal. If you don't, you'll have lived only for work and a dream you didn't get to enjoy. At all.

I am all about being correct. And in this case, Islam is no more or less violent than Christianity is, if you judge it according to the respective holy book.

Muslims take their holy book very seriously... I know that is an alien concept for Christians.

What you could say is that the people, where Islam is predominant, seem to be uncivilized bastards, that would be another matter.

But let me just remind you that it was the US that initiated a coup in Iran that unseated a democratically chosen head of state to install a US friendly dictator.

Let me also remind you that it was a religious leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, who rallied the people to take their country back without the use of force against, I believe, the fifth strongest army in the world, after heavy armament through the US.

Many a muslim country, once pretty stable and forward thinking, has been destabilized by US politics in order to cement US influence to the detriment of local population opening doors for extremists to take power.

There aren't that many shootings or hostage situations, actually. The US is working towards 300 million population, I believe. The things that do happen are high profile but by no means regular occurrence.

Also, the shootings that do happen very often happen in gun free zones where the good people that do obey the laws leave their guns at home.. just saying.

Same goes for Sydney... What was the situation? About 20 to 30 hostages and one armed terrorists that would sometimes doze off?

One armed civilian would have been enough.

Oooooh, shots have been fired.