Perl is actually one of the few languages (perhaps even the only one, but I can't be sure) that try to make sense to someone who's not already well-versed in the field

Hmmm, yeah, I can see exactly what you mean ...

The parent sued and got a small part of the settlement as part of a suit or the parents didn't sue and got nothing. Unless you have a lawyer, you're not getting anywhere.

Yeah, I think that's part of people's problem. "You got nothin'. We'll do it for you - what with our monopoly on such things - but we're taking the vast majority of the win. Don't like it? Well, you're just shit outta luck, huh?"

On average, lawyers make between 50-100K

Ehhh, not really. In 2006, the middle 50% of lawyers made between $82,000 and $168,000.

The clients themselves can dispute the costs if they wish. Again, the lawyers have to detail their bills.

That's great. And if they say "Phone calls: $2/min in telephony charges, plus standard rate for attorney, plus $30/hr for dictation", the issue isn't in the itemization.

This would be a serious ethical breach opening the door to a legal malpractice suit, disciplinary action, and potentially disbarment for the attorney.

It would be a serious ethical breach. It's also a highly subjective area, and lawyers and bar associations are notoriously difficult to persuade to sanction a lawyer, possibly from fear that they, one day, might be subject to sanctions for such a claim.

Legal malpractice is no joke. About the same amount is paid out in legal malpractice each year as medical malpractice.

Great soundbite. Then you realize that while there are 700,000 physicians in the US (not all practicing), there are 1.7 million active lawyers.

LMAO. You're having a laugh if you think that filing and court fees don't come out of your end of the settlement/award. If the lawyers eat any of that, at all, it's a token sum.

Cases like this are risky endeavors for lawyers. Clients don't have many choices in this kind of case because they are very difficult if not impossible to win. The lawyer and the client, before the case was even filed, assigned value to the risk in a mutually agreed to contract.

Wronged person has no opportunity for recourse other than to utilize services of lawyer at essentially any rate lawyer chooses, because some recourse is better than none. Other than choosing no recourse for a wrong (how about that, a society where justice has a price you have to be able to pay), that sounds almost suspiciously close to "duress", what with a legal monopoly on being admitted to the bar (you cannot represent 'yourself' in a class action).

Now that the risk has been played out and the plaintiff has won, the outcome looks unfair. Before the case, only a crazy person would take the case, even with the huge payout potential. After the case, that crazy person that went all-or-nothing when no one else would is lambasted by a bunch of uninvolved bystanders for being greedy.

Alternatives: crazy person actually is not all that crazy at all, and had a reasonable belief and expectation that there was a significant likelihood of success, however much lawyers like to pull out the "risky endeavour, very difficult if not impossible to win" card.

Or crazy person is entirely crazy, in which case is of suspect judgment. If you jump from a plane without a parachute, you're crazy. You don't become less crazy because you survived, to use your attempt at an analogy.

Yup... apparently they're even getting support for X58 motherboards and Hackintoshes this last couple of months...

Err, I was running a Hackintosh with an X58 board well over a year ago...

reestablished my open SSH sessions to my Linux box

Strange ... there I was thinking of that little KeyRegenerationInterval parameter - and just how an SSH connection would be re-established following a key mismatch. That is, of course, following the whole issue of the ClientAliveInterval, by default 5 minutes - no response received, connection dropped. Methinks your mind might be deceiving you ...

FWIW, the majority of PC laptops (with the exception of high-end and gaming laptops) have integrated Intel GFX hardware.

Hmm? As soon as you hit the heady heights of the ~$450 range, Dell laptops (for one) are offering ATI Mobility Radeon as their standard video card option...

Then you don't know anything about Amiga OS.

Workbench ROMs, all of which were copyright owned by Commodore and normally only sold with a complete system

Speaking of not knowing anything about Amiga. There was a huge market for Kickstart (the firmware, Workbench was the software) 2.0 ROMs and most people didn't buy a new system to upgrade.

Store policy on pre-optimized units (be they laptops, game consoles, etc.) is that if the sales person cannot "sell" the service to the customer, and the last units are all pre-setup, the customer does not pay for a service that they do not want.

Store policy may well be that. Reality, however, is not. As I've experienced on two separate occasions. "Sorry, we cannot provide the service for free, and it has already been performed."

Often times a customer will gladly pay the 40 bucks for a laptop with no trial software, a full battery charge and all updates

"No trial software" - I saw this once. They'd deleted the icons from the desktop. Not even from the start menu. "A full battery charge" - with LiIon/LiPolymer batteries, the last four laptops I've taken from their boxes had 99%+ battery charge on first plug in. "All updates" - potentially valid, but it's not like manufacturers don't slipstream.

a simple call to the corporate number would fix that issue if it ever occurred to you

I'm not the Best Buy Sales Policeman. Instead I'll go home, and buy it online, and Best Buy will get none of that sale.

Why not just admit that you work for Best Buy? You've posted nine comments in this topic, all defending the practice from various angles. Hell, four of your posts make the same point about network connectivity, which whilst valid, is most definitely in the very small minority - "people who buy a state of the art console, buy games that are as old as the console's original release date (and hence have no firmware), and / or have dialup Internet, or less". Okay then...

his is so far from the truth its not even funny. I'm a Geek Squad Agent and this is not the case at all. In fact if they are the only ones left and you dont want it, you get the service for FREE. You are NEVER EVER EVER required to pay for a service you dont want.

Utter BS. My wife bought a Netbook at BB. Surprise surprise, they were all "pre-optimized". None that hadn't been touched were in stock, surprise surprise - but they had six pre-optimized models below the desk.

I didn't want the pre-optimization (heh, what basically amounted to 'uninstall some Windows features, remove the System Restore image, and install a trial of Norton Antivirus').

They weren't willing to compromise, even at the cost of losing the sale. They lost the sale.

I think he'd be a borderline celebrity. Anyone who is doing a job that only a select handful of people on the planet will ever do, who are trotted out regularly for press conferences and PR, who appear before Congress, who have a TV channel dedicated to showing what they are doing can't really claim to be "a person of no public interest".

Sometimes. But definitely not always.

~ Yours, A Volunteer Firefighter

I'd love to get an even taller moniter... a 2560x1600 30" S-IPS would be heaven, but for the price you could buy half a dozen cheaper screeens.

This... I upgraded from an S-IPS (early model Westinghouse L2410NM) 24" 1920x1200 this week to a Dell 3007 WFP-HC 30" 2560x1600, and it is another world. Entirely beautiful.