I made a brown dwarf after my second cup this morning, small universe.

I went to high school in the 90's. We had a bunch of mostly functional PCs from a local manufacturer. By 10th grade I was on paid IT staff, with four or five of my geeky friends. We were paid to do NT4 admin, cabling projects and to support the staff and students. I came in to summer school one year and several of my friends saw me and figured I was there to get my grades back up like they were. I walked into the class with them and sat down. The teacher then introduced me as someone they could ask for help on their computers. They got weird looks on their faces and I went back to IRC.

I have a friend who has recently begun training to be an EMT and for fire service. Several months ago, when he began his schooling and training, he told me he had to clean out his facebook account. I figured it was a good idea, since they could look at it, but I told him he could just change his privacy settings to keep anyone that wasn't on his friends list from viewing his wall/timeline. He then explained to me, that on his application, he had to supply his facebook login and password. I was immediately appalled at the notion of handing over your personal social networking credentials over to any company/organization. I told him it was very illegal, but he didn't want to start any trouble as a new recruit. I told him to make a fake account, but he wasn't having it. Now there's a specific law making it illegal, I made sure to tell him the second I read this article. It is a shame we need a specific law for this...

On the up side, previously over crowded tourist spots will be less crowded and worth visiting again?

I started reading Slashdot some time in high school (late 90's), this was the beginning of my career in IT. I was hired sophomore year to be a member of the paid IT staff and never looked back. I'm also part of a loyal bunch of pot headed IT folk by the name of "Smokedot". We've been around for almost as long, but consume a lot more dorritos.

Thank you Slashdot, even though Rob called me a noob at LinuxWorld a while back, I still love you.

Oh, it's been verified.

Thank you mikael, I couldn't agree more.

Also, how many of these comments are coming from people with Rx medication in their medicine cabinet? hypocrites.

Oh man, yeah I got a subscription in the early 90's and was so very excited every month when it came. Kids my age had a collective shitting of bricks when the SNES came out and promptly developed some Nintendo thumb. It was a great magazine, but I have no idea what happened to it after the 90's.. I suppose that other company bought it?

Oh, good, I was just about to turn down my caffeine IV drip. I suppose it's time to turn it up!

I've lived near Santa Rosa, the location of Sonic.net's HQ for my whole life. When I started using the internet in 1997 they were there with local dialup and a free linux shell to all subscribers. They've been nothing but incredible since then and I'm very glad to see Dane in the headlines once again. Kudos to you Dane!

I used Sonic.net from the first year they opened until about 2006 when I had to move out of their service area. I had the pleasure of working in their data center several times whilst working for a local peak oil think tank. Although many things can (and are) be said about the owner, Dane Jasper, he has created the best "mom & pop" ISP in California hands down. The support is amazing, they have a variety of different broadband products, including fiber in some areas (you may remember an article recently about their fiber installs if you're a Norcal native). On top of all this.... they're the highest rated for privacy by the EFF.

If you live in the area and you're not a Sonic customer yet, maybe you should think about it :) No, I don't work for them, sadly I was passed by every time I applied for their support team. They have an arcade in the office too!

Oh man, fuck, I did not see this comment coming. Kudos to you sir, I'm laughing my ass off. Nothin' like neck hole rape to keep you going on a boring afternoon.

TOR is The Onion Router, it routes you around using other hosts on the TOR network. It's very slow and you really don't know who's running the exit nodes, best to stay away from it. If you don't want your traffic slowed down or possibly spied on by weirdos or the US government, check out a paid VPN service in Sweden, or any country outside the US/CAN/UK with decent privacy laws. vpntunnel.se / ibvpn.com / anonine.com / ipredator.se are all decent services to look into. Encrypted traffic, very little slow down and it's quite affordable.

"You know I've noticed a certain anti-intellectualism going around this country ever since around 1980, coincidentally enough. I was in Nashville, Tennessee last weekend and after the show I went to a waffle house and I'm sitting there and I'm eating and reading a book. I don't know anybody, I'm alone, I'm eating and I'm reading a book. This waitress comes over to me (mocks chewing gum) 'what you readin' for?'...wow, I've never been asked that; not 'What am I reading', 'What am I reading for?' Well, goddamnit, you stumped me...I guess I read for a lot of reasons — the main one is so I don't end up being a fuckin' waffle waitress. Yeah, that would be pretty high on the list. Then this trucker in the booth next to me gets up, stands over me and says [mocks Southern drawl] 'Well, looks like we got ourselves a readah'...aahh, what the fuck's goin' on? It's like I walked into a Klan rally in a Boy George costume or something. Am I stepping out of some intellectual closet here? I read, there I said it. I feel better."

-Bill Hicks

Thank you sir, I know a great deal of slashdotters know the first 10 seasons of The Simpsons as well as I do, but so rarely do they regurgitate these wonderful quotes. That's a great episode.