i had more depression trying to work for a living than i do collecting social security. when you face insurmountable problems there is a lot of depression... when you don't realize you're causing the insurmountable problems it leads to failed suicide attempts because lets face it, you're gonna try pills and you'll do it wrong.

i am better now and i am on medicine. it feels good to be alive now. and the only problems i face are ones me or others put before me. and since i am not fabricating evil self destructive thought with no one to stop it, well i can actually do things to feel good about now. i was very very depressed when i was younger because i played out in my mind doing bad things to people, the darker my thoughts the worse i felt but at the time it felt like striking out against the world the man etc. when i put the pieces together i realized i was actually sabatoging my own well being it took a long time, because in my social life i looked for the 'right words to say' instead of the 'right way to tell people what you want from them' so there was a lot of darkness in my life because i was causing it. it took time and medication to fix, and now i am much happier. i don't have may friends except online but i am much better now.

Woooooosh

am i the only person still using wired controllers? what benefit does adding a battery a radio frequency transceiver do for real end users? besides not having to have break away cords on the original xbox so violent players and people tripping over your cord to get your attention doesn't have? i don't like wireless unless it really is needed. my tablet immediately drops traffic if my desktop wifi is on as it is, and i don't live in a big city. sometimes the laptop wifi interferes with the tablet too, and these are licensed devices that supposedly cause no interference, and must accept any interference. if it wasn't rental i would probably drill holes and run wires but that is a real pain but i guess so is the microwave interrupting signal too. wireless everything is a nightmare in battery cost for no good reason the wires are cheap and recyclable.

it reminds me of cell phones, they started with free cell to cell calls and then they started phone subsudies and then smartphones hit, and they found a new cash cow, data plans. now i know there are ways around this, like tracphone etc. or flexible plan switching.. or not owning a smartphone but compared to cable's pricing for data there is no way to use drmed apps from ios store or from google play that don't let you do anything without internet. fine when you're at a wifi site but awful anywhere else. cell phones cost much more than cable tv internet and voip phone and they try to make you pay for software to tether devices like laptops... it's dumb this isn't 1980 why can one company make money charging 40 a month for internet when cell carriers cant not even in their home markets? i realize wired networks cost money to maintain but cell towers don't cost as much as they used to and some places are going 'no land lines' except for cable... they like lying about how expensive it is, because the government auctioned a lot of wireless spectrum to make a fast buck... and it still sucks...

As someone who has Amazon Prime (I got it for like $39 as a grad student and it's still good until this summer) and uses a Roku, I can tell you that I would definitely not be paying for a "KindleTV" + Prime if they dropped my Roku.

Why? Because their library sucks, the interface is fucking terrible, and the way they don't group show seasons together into one show is just wrong.

Amazon doesn't need to work on a Roku replacement, they need to work on a Prime Video replacement and pronto.

If they could now re-design a furniture store where customers would buy furniture which would be then delivered to their homes already assembled would be a huge step forward. Oh wait...

School districts do this to when levies don't pass. They immediately cut athletic programs and bus service.

My bad, I meant to include the source: http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/budget_bib_fy2011.pdf

Behavior Detection Officers (BDOs): An increase of $20M and 350 BDOs (210 FTE) is
requested to further enhance TSAâ(TM)s Screening Passengers by Observation Techniques
program. The FY 2011 request includes a total of 3,350 officers, to enhance coverage at
lanes and shifts at high risk Category X and I airports, and expand coverage to smaller
airports.

[...]

Transitioned validated multi-cultural indicators of hostile intent, and demonstrated a
mobile device that enables TSA Behavioral Detection Officers to record observations,
automatically calculate behavior-based scoring, and share information among peers
and with supervisors in near-real time. This potentially saves TSA an estimated 60 -
120 FTEs.

I did my masters thesis on this subject and the TSA is doing the same thing the Israelis are. In fact, they spend a lot more than you would think on doing it. The problem seems to be that because people A) don't recognize this effort, B) because it's just as expensive as the machines, and C) it's just as ineffective because it ignores the fact that terrorists could walk into the building strapped with explosives in front of the screening area and kill hundreds+ of people.

So I was bored and decided to watch a few of the pilots. As someone who loved Netflix's House of Cards, I was excited to see what Amazon had in store for us of similar caliber. Well, suffice to say that spreading their dollars across numerous pilots instead of one single show gets you what you expect: utter trash.

Those Who Can't, a story about three teachers (gym, history, and Spanish) was utterly terrible. They hated a jock in the school who was constantly annoying them and being the stereotypical douchebag. The script was jerky, the acting was bad, and the entire premise was overdone. Not impressive in the least, in fact in many instances it was downright painful.

Alpha House starts out great with Bill Murray getting arrested and John Goodman watching as he freaks out but it goes downhill from there mostly because Murray is not on the show after that first 45 second cameo. The vulgarity (something I don't mind in the least and use regularly myself) is there for vulgarity's sake, not because it makes sense in the dialogue. The show itself is slow, boring, and pointless. It's like Amazon was trying to make fun of House of Cards on SNL but failing as SNL tends to do so well.

While I haven't watched all the pilots yet, I really don't think I have much desire to do so. I am still waiting for more House of Cards and certainly more Arrested Development on Netflix but this Amazon shit is just bad. They need to get their shit together and up their game if they think they're going to compete with Netflix's first-run flagship.

i have been using ubuntu for over a year now. i don't game as much but my laptop is coping just fine without windows. my laptop still can boot windows, but it doesn't need to, because everything else is easier and more open than windows. i did recently replace a cheap gaming desktop with a windows 7 custom built rig (built right by myself the other i obtained through people who didn't know what they were doing) but i only game on weekends (because i can only handle so much gaming time) so most of the time i use linux and android devices. i just bought a tablet to see if a tablet with a keyboard can replace my use of a laptop during the week, the phone is too small a screen, and hooking it to the tv only works well for streaming netflix.the laptop is over 3 years old, so i have some time to decide if i really can make due with a tablet, or if it's just yet another toy.

Mild cluelessness?

Political correctness has turned into a witch hunt that makes the Spanish Inquisition seem preferable.

There are many, many people being persecuted because they say or think things the state has deemed dangerous.

Toronto, in particular, has become surreal. The iron fist necessary to maintain their multicultural paradise is at times shocking.

Canada has ceased being a civilized country. It is now a totalitarian dictatorship, which means it simply won't last. Expect the country to break up in the years ahead.

The important answer is: whatever the government says it is worth.

Steve Forbes is an idiot, and he simply does not understand how money functions in an advanced economy. His idealized vision has NEVER existed.

Money is the primary projection of sovereign power. When a country collapses, so too does its currency. A sovereign is only as powerful as his ability to force people to use state currency, which is usually done through taxes. This is why tax collection was so important in ancient times - it literally was the only way cohesion of large empires was maintained.

Within a generation of the Roman Empire collapsing, and hence the tax man no longer being a problem, people stopped using currency and reverted to barter. In the 19th century, the British engaged in all sorts of social engineering to get Africans to work for money. It's really a counterintuitive thing that exists only due to outside coercion.

There is zero evidence that the Economics lie of efficiency every occurred.

56kbps was half way decent when i last used it. i wanted faster but with hardware compression of headers and full content text would send at 114kbps and computers then were mainly shipping text. with online drm and online updates and streaming media though things have changed. to stream you need a bit more bandwith but 6Mbps is fine really you only need 3Mbps to stream standard definition. hdtv takes more but giving one individual user 1gbps is a nightmare if they get struck with a virus that is 0day.