I'm glad you've found something else you really enjoy, like board games. That's fantastic that you find them more mentally stimulating and all that.

However, to demonize the game or anything like that because you felt like you played too much... it's not the game's fault. And I'm not trying to demonize you, either. It happens. I had a bout with WoW addiction as well and luckily managed to overcome it. Now, I play for a few hours at night, go to bed at a decent time, and get up for work in the morning and put in a productive day.

I love WoW now for the entertainment value. It is fun for me, and if I found whittling small wooden penguins to be entertaining, I would do that as well... but I don't. What would I accomplish by whittling? For me, it would be a waste of time. It wouldn't be fun, and at the end I would have nothing of value to me. Playing WoW for 5 minutes? I've done a quest, progressed my character, learned some lore, etc. Nothing material, but I had fun and was entertained for those 5 minutes.

So I guess what I'm trying to say is do what you enjoy, and everything within moderation. Don't enjoy WoW or can't play it in moderation? It's great that you've mustered the strength of will to remove all your connections to the game in an effort to not play it anymore. That is truly admirable and there are people that wouldn't be able to do that. But to say that one must "justify" their WoW playing "because of 20-40 other people in your guild wasting their lives away" is a little silly.

I think the article's content is more along the lines of "this new theory explains how Saturn's rings were formed, with their particular composition, while also explaining the other nearly-pure ice moons in the vicinity". The theory in the article is a little more comprehensive than "Saturn's rings were caused by a collision" (even though the summary was lacking information and seemed to imply that... go figure).

Agreed. The reason WD40, baby oil, and rubbing alcohol all work great (as opposed to water) is because they are much more non-polar than water and dissolve the adhesives and other goop from the stickers much more easily. Anyone remember "like dissolves like" from general chemistry?

Rubbing alcohol is my preferred goop cleaner because, as the parent says, it's cheap and lasts for years.

If complete combustion were possible, sure. But it's not, and it's good to try and do productive things with unwanted byproducts of the incomplete reaction.

Cars powered by natural gas is an already proven technology. Why do we keep inventing more "alternative" energy sources when we've got ones that work now?

Unfortunately, just because it "works" doesn't make it a viable alternative. This article talks about converting a product of incomplete combustion (carbon monoxide) into something useful. Adding a piece of equipment that could do this to a car that already runs on gasoline could make cars pollute less and run further on a given amount of fuel. It would be relatively easy to adopt, instead of having to create an entirely new fuel delivery infrastructure like using natural gas would.

Amen to that. The University of Michigan's College of Engineering has an honor code such that the professors and TAs are not even allowed in the room while the students are taking an exam. It'll show in your work if you cheated your way to a degree, especially in engineering. I'm curious what other universities have such policies.

And yes, universities do have an incentive to reduce cheating (they don't want other graduates to suffer from guilt by association) but like you said, it's nice not to be treated like a criminal by default.