Barq's is my favorite rootbeer. I discovered it while in college down south. I was pleased to find it had reached the west coast before I returned.

However. I have noticed recently that some of the Barq's in this area is being sold sans caffeine. It is strange because it doesn't seem to be consistent. I can still find caffeinated Barq's sometimes, but I have to check the labels now to make sure it is the caffeinated sort. I haven't put enough thought to it to determine if it is a certain chain of stores, or a specific area that is affected. But it throws me for a loop every time I don't check.

"Well, thats your opinion. The Apollo astronauts knew they'd be home within 3 days if everything went ok. This is a whole different ball game." The folks on the Mayflower knew they'd never be seeing home again, yet they set sail for a new land, and new opportunities. Adrenaline junkies? Maladjusted? No, I don't think so. I think your perspective may be skewed by a fear of the unknown and a desire to hold on to your current standard of living. Not everyone is motivated in such a way.

There is a lot more universe out there to discover. Some of it is across a mountain range, or across an ocean. But some of it is across a vast expanse of space. Let's go check it out! See what we can find. It just might be amazing.

Yet.

I don't need to be on a domain to make full use of Outlook. Outlook Anywhere and an internet connection means that whatever device i can install Outlook 2003 or newer on, I can log into my Exchange server and check my mail, calendar, tasks, etc.

This is a bit off topic, but I noticed something that made me smile, and I couldn't let it pass. I know it was a typo, but i think it works better as you posted it.

each trying to make themselves the lessor of 2 evils.

So much meaning.

I'm a fan of a good old fashioned Conspiracy. They are always entertaining! I have the most fun poking holes in the theory, and by the end, it sounds so ridiculous it is impossible to believe.

Now I don't want to add any credence to this theory, but I wanted to point out a couple inconsistencies with your skepticism.

First off, the FBI is a domestic agency. Their scope does not extend past the borders of the United States. To snoop in other countries, you need to go talk to other TLA's.

Second, "a few hundred million iOS devices in the wild" describes the global saturation, not just the US. The US population is currently about 314 million. So unless you are suggesting that every man, woman and child in America owns an iDevice, that number is much lower. A quick Google search indicates about 37 million, so having a list of 12 million devices is not unreasonable. (Roughly 1/3. About the same ratio you suggested in your comment)

That doesn't mean the list came from the FBI, just that the idea can't be dismissed based on the reasons you provided.

Part of designing a launch vehicle and a habitat plan will need to include sufficient storage space for food supplies. In order to know how much space your food supplies need, you will need to know what food will be included, thus the need to plan the menu.

Or are you suggesting that you don't need to know how much mass and volume your foodstuffs take when designing a launch/transport vehicle, and habitat?

And you don't think hiring people to design and manufacture the equipment for such a journey would create jobs?

Where do you think Microsoft stole the idea?

That's not what he taught them at all. If my son is about to stick a fork in the electrical outlet, and I yell "stop," I don't want him to decide whether or not I am right, or if he doesn't care and wants to do it anyway. He is about to engage in a dangerous, life threatening activity. I want him to know that when I yell stop, that means right now, no questions, just stop. We can have a discussion about how I'm a terrible father, and how i never let him do what he wants afterwards, but in the immediate moments surrounding the event, thinking has no place.

There's a safe time and place to discuss the virtues of, say, not running out into the road without looking. But when the child runs into the road in front of the moving car, you NEED immediate, unquestioned obedience, not free thought.

It isn't that I want him to be a mindless automaton, but that I want him to obey when it matters, and he may not be aware of when it matters. If I'm a terrible parent, i might abuse that, but that is a different discussion.

Children's minds develop over time. They are not immediately capable of critical thinking. That is why babies scream, and throw fits when they are hungry. It may be counterproductive, but they can't comprehend anything beyond "feed me." They get better at it as they grow older, but it takes time. Most of the High School students I have known over the years struggle with the logic problems from Geometry class.

Press Windows-L. That'll lock it. or you can just click the start button, click the little arrow next to "install updates and shutdown" and choose lock. no keyboard required.
Right click on the taskbar next to the clock. That will get you a context menu with Task Manager listed as an option.
Most people use the start menu to shut down and reboot the computer. Did you miss that 90's joke?

While Ctrl-Alt-Del is still around, and still available for quite a few things, such as the previously mentioned functions, it is no longer required.

It's that way in Pro and Ultimate as well in stand-alone/workgroup. The only time you lose that screen in Windows 7, and get the Ctrl-Alt-Del, is when you add it to a domain.

And of course there are ways to make it auto-login and bypass the ctrl-alt-del screen anyway. I've been doing that since NT4.0. It's a built in feature of XP.

Uh, no. All that would happen is your taxes will be raised to cover the additional costs. If there is enough political support to back this kind of project, there will be enough money and power behind it to obfuscate the tax increases necessary to continue funding it.

You can't fight the government by wasting their money. They perfected that process long ago.

Someone somewhere will come up with a study showing how these kinds of crimes have not increased in frequency since they started monitoring for them, even though they can demonstrate an increase in relevant search traffic. See how much additional crime they're preventing!

Has the behavior of the TSA taught us nothing?

I don't think his point was that every game needs a story, but that there needs to be a reason to keep playing.

Tetris is one game that has amazing game play. He wasn't suggesting that it needed a story to make it viable, but that people need a reason to keep playing a game. Games like Tetris can survive on gameplay alone, but that is a very rare thing. I'm sure anyone here can list dozens of games like Tetris that are just great games, but in comparison to all the simple, no story games with mediocre, or worse gameplay, they are rare.

But that is how these games keep players coming back. One more round, one more block, one more turn, I'll stop after I build this next item.
,
Great story based games are equally rare. They are just as hard to create. There are still thousands of terrible ones out there, but every now and then we get a game that has both an amazing story as well as great game play. People that don't care about story can ignore or skip it, and can keep coming back to play the game they love, people that want the story can revel in the cut-scenes/lore and immerse themselves in a world that is deep and rich.

I believe that too often game developers realize their grand design is too shallow to hold interest, so they throw a story on it, and hope that glosses over the shortcomings. Just because some people do it wrong doesn't mean that the whole concept is wrong.

So you are right, not every game needs a story. But every game needs something compelling to convince players to come back and play again. For some that is a well told story. For others, it is an entertaining premise with amusing mechanics. For some, they fail on both accounts, but produce the game anyway.

What I took away from the article was that he is incapable of writing a story that translates well into a game, so in order for more of his games to sell, everyone should stop creating compelling interactive entertainment, and just stick to the basic concepts of mindless smashing/shooting/crashing games that he makes.

I looked at the list of games he has developed. None of them interest me, and I haven't played a second of any of them.

Either he thinks I'm not really enjoying the games I purchase, or he is pouting because even though his games seem to sell well, They don't get the accolades or attention that story driven titles do. My opinion is that his games, while probably fun, are forgettable, since they have no story, or characters to take away with you when you're done playing. Once the euphoria of smashing stuff fades, there's no remaining idea for your brain to dwell on.

Let me be the parent that is contrary to those you have talked to so far.

I want my kids safe. More than anything else, I want my kids safe. But I also want them safe from the intruding eyes of some semi-anonymous individual in the government, or it's subcontracted security services.

As the parent I take the safety of my children very seriously, and I am not willing to entrust that to another individual, or organization. Individuals and organizations have reasons for existing that may not coincide with my own. They have their own agendas that may or may not include actually protecting my children from harm. I'm glad the police forces exist, and I welcome any assistance they can lend towards the protection of my children. But I do not put the responsibility on them to protect me and mine.

A police state isn't the solution for anything but laziness and blame shifting. If you need a police state so you know who to point the finger at when you fail your children, perhaps you should be focusing on things other than procreation.