Even worse - I get letters and calls from companies looking for someone with my name. Apparently there is a guy who lives in the same local area that has not only my same first and last name, but also my same date of birth. Only the middle names and SSN's are different. Most of them seem to think I'm him and just moved to my address.

I actually had one collector who even after I had him call out the last 4-digits of the SSN they had on file and VERIFIED that they weren't mine, still suggested that I pay the other guy's bill to "clear up this mess".

More than likely the local assessor's office, rather than the IRS. Generally property taxes are lower for properties which are owner-occupied versus "commercial" properties (which includes residential property being rented out). Around here the tax bill is pretty much cut in half if you live in it.

I actually work for a county government, and we have an external company contracted that specifically looks for this type of fraud (in exchange, for the first year after its identified they collect 30% of the increase in the tax bill).

And YOU are ranting based on words that didn't address prescribed drugs. Which makes you drama queen with no reading comprehension, and someone having a shrill hissy fit over which I imagine your late mother would be embarassed, since observations about the hemp-obsessed subculture have absolutely nothing to do with the nature of her demise. I do like your fantastically ironic bitching about arrogance, though. Fine work.

Well that's just, like, your opinon, man.

True, though. But this is still just about stoners looking for another avenue. A familiar refrain from the crowd that thinks they'd be better off with a tires, a spouse, underwear, and air craft carriers all made out of hemp.

But this is where I think we disagree. A print is an object. Making a photograph is a process. There are many routes to that print (or projected slide, or gird of pixels on a tablet, etc).

No, photographs (here, sticking with your notion of not referring to digitally captured images as photographs, only things that use something chemically photosensitive) are manipulated. Every single one of them. Film speed and tonal behavior? Lens behavior like field curvature, chromatic smearing, and non-infinite depth of field? Choice of chemistry? Grain? Paper stock? How it's all souped? Filters to deal with color temps? The photographer's own choice of exposure method? The use of reflectors or supplementray lighting?

Every projection of the scene by a lens onto a two-dimensional surface placed by the photographer somewhere that records that projection according to his or her thoughts on composition is a manipulation from beginning to end. The entire concept of a "real" image is just silly. Chemical production of grains that are patterned after the projected light, or variations in a grid of pixels pushed through an A to D process ... a distinction of no distinction other than the need to master a different set of tools.

Bad analogy. Criminals steal cars - expressly for the purpose of using them in a crime - all the time.

Really bad analogy. Your implication is that we could stop people from having sex with children by banning children.

The analogy you're looking for is that just like we have laws that carry penalties for abusing kids, we have penalties for killing people. Using rifles, or using blunt instruments like pipes and bats (which are used far more often than rifles to murder people, says the FBI).

So yes: we have laws that "ban" murder, by making it really suck to be a murderer that's been caught having murdered someone. Just like it sucks to be someone that's been caught having abused a kid.

Public employee unions.

Yep - and that's the problem.

Most aren't willing to admit it, but its the "treadmill" concept of these games that keeps people coming back.

Make it absolutely trivial to get whatever you want and people won't be interested in playing the game. You've got the Uber Epics Sword of Everlasting Awesomeness? Well sure - everyone has one - and there's nothing left to do to get the EVEN BETTER sword.

The treadmill concept tricks people into thinking they're working towards a goal, and its what keeps them playing. It also is what makes most eventually quit when they realize that the goal keeps moving and they're never going to get there.

WoW got particularly bad with this when the concept of daily quests were introduced. I saw tons of players resort to "just logging in to do my dailies" at that point, which is bad when you really analyze it. You're logging into a game nearly every day to do the EXACT same thing to make one number go up (gold or token count) just so that you can eventually buy a bunch of pixels that make another number (stats) go up - all so that you can be more efficient at killing things to make the gold tokens go up. Its a vicious cycle.

That's pretty much exactly my situtation. I was a WOW player myself for about 3 years there. Not "hardcore" by most definitions, but I played about 15-20 hours per week. Prior to that I wasn't into much multiplayer. I'd play maybe 3 or 4 single player games per year to completion and be done with them.

When I finally got bored of WoW I actively didn't want to start playing any other MMORPG. After seeing the time investment such games took I really wanted to avoid them altogether. Now I'm back to playing the occasional single player game, which lets me enjoy video games but also other things in life that I had been missing.

The honest truth is that while i liked video games and still do, I don't want them to be my primary focus in life - and that's nearly what it takes to stay current with most MMORPG's.

Is there a way that can be tightened back up?

Single sign on, and tools like Active Directory aren't just in beta testing, you know?

Did you see the outfit that ERP was wearing? That general ledger module was WAY above it's knee. And I think the CRM middleware was wearing a lot of perfume. Totally asking for it.

No, it's a cultural thing. Some demographics seem obsessed with being seen having one in their ear, and some just break them out when it's actually useful to use one.

I live in the DC area. This is a very easy thing to observe, over and over again, as you move from one demographic to another. It's strange, but it's plain as day.