My fee to friends and family is generally a six pack of beer. If I'm not in the mood, or if it's just the user not learning how to not screw up his system, then my fee is a 12 pack. People usually figure it out before I start charging a keg per repair.

Some numbers for my own comparison... KPWR (A popular Hip Hop radio station in Los Angeles) transmitts 25,000 watts of power. This article claims that it can pull 50 milliwatts. If this technology became standard on all cell phones, 1 million cell phones in Los Angeles would be able to pull a collective 50,000 watts out of the air.

Wouldn't this draw energy out of the radio signal, thus making it weaker? If this becomes popular in Los Angeles, will a radio station's not be able to broadcast as far because a million people are leeching power off it's transmitting power?

As a transfer student at Berkeley I am guaranteed student housing for one year. In fact, they even have a dormitory set aside specifically for transfer students. I applied for housing at this dorm. Freshmen are guaranteed housing for two years.

Social peers is all to often a nice waying of saying "hang out with the half wits". There is a lot of value being put on "functioning well in groups" that for certain people mean they get to learn that they really don't want to be part of any group that they haven't selected for themselves.

Why do you gotta be a dick? Do you get to choose who is around you at all times? Probably not. Knowing how to interact with other people is not a useless skill.

All those "half wits" may not have the scientific and technical knowledge you have, but at least they aren't assholes. Everyone has specialized and does something much better than you can I'm sure. If I want to have a thoughtful political or scientific discussion, a Slashdot member would be great for that. If I wanted a crew mate on a fishing boat? Someone to help build a house? Someone to help me realize that I spend way too much time on the computer and that there's a shitload more shit to do before I die? I'd rather take a "half wit" than you!

I went to a California community college. This fall I'm transferring to the math program at Berkeley. There are a lot of reasons to go to a community college, and California actually has an excellent college and university system! (K-12 leaves a lot to be desired.)

Community colleges are cheaper. There are a lot of people who work full time and go to school full time just to pay for tuition.

Community colleges are local. Moving to a new location can be an enormous hassle. If they can get general ed requirements out of the way and stay with family, why not?

Perhaps best of all, the community colleges allow ANYONE at ANY AGE to get a higher education. The entire community college system has worked with the entire university system in California to make it really easy to transfer. General education requirements for ANY California univeristy can be completed at ANY community college. (Check out Assist.org & IGETC.)

I cannot stress this last point enough! I am a high school drop out. Yes, that's right. I took a test to get my high school diploma at the age of 19. However, that was almost a decade ago. I've learned a lot since then. For example, I've learned that school is *easy as shit* compared to working on the deck of a fishing boat or 60 hours a week at a crappy desk job. The California community college system has allowed me to go back to school and has given me the opportunity to transfer to the mathematics program at Berkeley. I feel that in most other states and countries I would've been screwed for mistakes I made as a teenager. I am really thankful that California has allowed me to try again for a degree, even if it's a decade late!

Personality - you need one. Get a personality and what to put on your web page comes naturally.

Why do you gotta be a dick? Have you never asked someone for advice? What's your advice to people who ask technical questions? "A brain - you need one."?

For others of us, while we may know some HTML, and perhaps can even do some php and database programming, we just don't have the time to build a web presence from scratch. The guy even stated he's looking for a free app to help him out. He is experiencing a TIME issue, not a PERSONALITY issue. If you ask me, refactored (260886) is the one with a personality problem.

How about redirecting to your Linkedin profile? It's quick, costs nothing, set-and-forget type thing. I know there are plenty of people here who could come up with all sorts of interesting and imaginative ideas, but sometimes we just want something that works and move on with our life, right?

/facepalm

your != you're

Maybe I should head over to Digg... >.<

Most people would think your an ass to try to teach them a computer lesson for Christmas. That this comment reached "Score:5, Interesting" shows how nerdy (and I mean that in the socially awkward way) much of /. members are. I only reply because I am a huge introvert, and little realizations like this have made big differences in my social life.

I haven't bothered to pirate games yet. FYI I bought mine to be a SNES emulator. That feature alone is what sold me on the PSP. (You mean I can get a portable Zelda: Link to the Past, Chrono Trigger, Secret of Mana, etc.? Holy shit I must buy that!)

Nintendo should blame Sony for millions of dollars of profit lost in lost Super Metroid sales.

Growing up, and trying to deal with my diet, I realized at some point that all these drive-throughs kill people. You can't live off of McDonalds. If you ate Burger King for every meal you would die. Yet this food is marketed more, cheaper than, and more convenient than going to the grocery store. Going to the grocery store to pick up some fruit takes longer and costs more than stopping by Del Taco. Something is wrong here.

(To you people who can't live without your fast food, I just say this as someone who struggled with obesity, you diet is a huge part of your health. It's not easy. Going to drive throughs too often KILLS YOU.)

I've thought about this and similar subjects a lot (such as smoking cigarettes) and I think society has the following options.

1. Let fat people (or smokers or whatever) just have a worse quality of life than everyone else. Bad habits will most likely be passed on down to their children. Here we blame the fat kid with fat parents for being fat. Hopefully the fat kid learns some will power when he grows up, because he sure won't learn it from his parents.
2. Ban cigarettes and food not passing "nutritional requirements" completely. This is the fascist option. This removes the requirement for thought from the population.
3. We take steps to encourage citizens to be healthier. I prefer ongoing education over generations in the hope that eating fatty fast food becomes a rarity in culture. If options 1 and 2 are the extreme responses to an unhealthy population, this option is the middle ground. We already sin tax cigarettes. Heart Disease is America's top killer right now, and it is natural for the government to try to think of ways to combat that.

Re: Fat Tax. It doesn't sit well with me. However, I admit that this tax will affect some people who might get something from the grocery store instead of ordering Pizza. It will make fat food cost more than healthy food. (I almost like this tax for this reason alone.)

After thinking about it, I realized I wasn't so against a fat tax as I thought I was. But damn, if you're gonna make a fat tax then lower some other goddamn taxes! Make my fucking carrots and apples and oranges tax free! (Oh god... who gets to decide what food is "healthy" and what food is "unhealthy"?)

What really surprised me was that I saw the options to block ads, and I thought to myself, "Slashdot has provided me with much thoughtful discussion for years. Meh, I'll leave the ads. Hell, even I click on some random thinkgeek advertisement every blue moon."

"WTF? I just decided to KEEP ads? WTF is wrong with me?!?"

And now as I'm typing this I'm thinking I STILL have left the ads here. And all I gotta do is check a damn box! >.<