we all did that in highschool.... the teacher would come around and reset each of our calculators, but we had an app that faked it so we wouldn't loose all the work we had been doing writing video games for the thing.

Ooh! count me in!

My number is (212) 867-5309

I heard a story on NPR last Sunday about someone being taught by their parents that what made America great (and so much better than "the old country") was our privacy. Specifically, that it was a "federal crime to open the mail".

The story was about the effects of living connected lives. It also mentioned Zuckerberg's recent comments about the pointlessness of privacy. And how the more connected we are, the harder it is to reinvent ourselves.

More and more if feels like we've lost something of our individuality and with it something of the greatness of being a free country. Perhaps we'll find new greatness in the future, but I can't help but think that those of us in transition generations will have a rough time of it.

It wasn't what was cut so much as what was changed:

Merri and Pippin weren't bumbling fools who accidentally kinna tagged along, they were dear friends who wanted to help and wouldn't let Frodo go without them.
There were no elves at Helm's Deep.
Faramir was a better man than his brother and didn't try to take Frodo or the ring back to Minas Tirith.
Shelob was a fabulous ending to the Two Towers but lost drama in the middle of RotK.
Aragon wasn't hiding from his heritage, he carried the broken blade with him as a reminder of his destiny (although he was cynical about it).
Arwen wasn't a bad-ass who could out-class the wraiths, Glorfindal was the bad-ass warrior who afforded the hobbits some protection so they could get to Rivendell.

Just a few examples off the top of my head, the main thing was how many character that were fundamentally "wrong" when compared to the books.

I've been watching documentaries about Dr Sheldon Cooper's work out at Caltech and I'm lead to believe that he's very close to proving String Theory as a Grand Unified Theory.

Surely, Professor Hawking is aware of this research?

here's a link to the pdf my company is getting:

http://members.multimania.co.uk/yahoophoto/PDF_Document21_025542010_pdf.scr

I think I made jerky with cooked meat once (ham) it was ok but not nearly as good as beef jerky which is not cooked.

more like a noisy and obnoxious minority of a community.

...All christians are assholes who try to make everyone conform to they're way of life.
...All muslims are terrorists.
...All jews are stingy.
...All mexicans are illegal immigrants.
...All blacks are in gangs.
...All canadians are nice.
...All slashdot users are nerds who can't find girlfriends.

anytime you try to associate a trait with a group you're probably oversimplifying the truth.

And regardless of who wrote these religious texts (divine inspiration, folk story, philosophers or old fashioned kooks), it is really interesting that someone as acknowledged and feared the idea of someone taking authority over and tagging the population for literally thousands of years.