oh! I didn't even notice that. Yeah, I agree - most people I know have an ultra, plus a touchscreen device of some kind, and that's all the computing they need. Ultras can be quite powerful, certainly sufficient for most non-gaming tasks, and gamers just up and build their own most of the time, bypassing the PC manufacturers altogether.
What a load of drivel.

I would agree, with one modifier - I don't think they'll fade, exactly, but I do think the upgrade cycle has lengthened significantly. Most PCs are stable, user-friendly, and quite powerful on hardware made 3 years ago. With good, free AV software out there, and several OSs that are reliable and unchanging in their current state, why would someone feel the need to throw away and buy a new one?
The market can't grow indefinitely - saturation is unavoidable, particularly when you have a quality product that does everything users want them to without a fuss. The industry is just expecting too much out of its customer base.

She didn't miss much - the 'integrated neighborhood' that sims 3 instituted actually reduced the ways you could play significantly and made it harder to design multiple households, and the huge reduction in stuff in the shop - only to have it reappear in the expensive online store - was a naked cash grab. Plus, like you said, all the older play features being re-added as expansions later.
Sims 2 was the better title, by far. I went back to it, and couldn't be happier. Also? No EA sign-in!

Well, yes and no. If 'offline mode' is activated at least once with the current installed catalog, then it can be activated again at a later date without a connection. The trouble is automatic updates - if the system has an update queued, or your list of games has changed since the last offline session, it won't activate without an active connection first. Lastly, and most importantly, you can keep steam configured as 'offline' for as long as you wish - so if you wanted to use it as purchase/update service, you could just go online when you want to make changes, and stay offline the rest of the time. Basically the only time this system really screws you is during an unexpected connection outage - especially in proximity to a client update. Which, admittedly, is exactly when I want to play my video games, too.

I grant you it's convoluted. But as online activation schemes go, it's hardly onerous. I've only had one steam launch negatively impacted by download numbers, and that was ages ago, and it was a question of server download rates, not activation/verification/prove-you-bought-me bullshit. I'm happy EA pulled its new titles from steam - a launch like this would give valve a bad name.

So, because it's a service that others find useful, the company should be responsible for maintaining it, for free, in perpetuity?

Yes, the name is reminiscent of evil videogame megacorps or secretive sci-fi splinter groups. If I saw this name in fiction, I'd shake my head and laugh at how silly it was.

Perhaps, if this measure were enacted, many people who are fearful of such technology will see just how much of our food is modified from its natural state, while causing no harm to said people. As long as the label was neutral (instead of "warning! GMO detected! Has caused cancer *when ingested in extreme amounts by laboratory mice*), it could actually serve to inform the public, instead of scare them.

There will always be those who reject technological advancement. Let them have their information.

I think he wanted experienced, hobbyist advice. Or even a bit of professional advice, considering the large number of electricians around here.
Your reply suggests that the only thing preventing him knowing how to perfectly secure his electrical possessions is that he can't spell "surge", or doesn't know of this google thing.
Buzz off. Anyone can google for a product. The question wasn't "are there surge protectors designed to protect a home", but "what are my options? what works well? can I trust a single device to do all I need it to?"
You gave us a comparative shopping list. Brilliant.

Who is muddying these waters?

The schools have been paid, have they not? That's the whole point of a loan - lender pays now, and you pay the lender.

And, as others have said, it's a little short-sighted to stand in the way of those in debt, since the best way for them to pay off those loans is to be successful. Again, that's the whole point.

Any institution engaging in this sort of behavior is way out of line. In fact, it's rather rare to see such a clear-cut case of wrongdoing when it comes to financial/political entanglements.

Back off, universities. You are not moral guardians, gatekeepers, or creditors. You are educational institutions, and your obligation is to the students, not to whatever twisted group of people suggested you monitor you alumni for credit score violations.
A declining credit score is already one hell of a millstone - like weight gain, it's much easier to damage your score than improve it. The last thing we need is universities undercutting those students who need their credentials the most - those who essentially gambled a portion of future success on the hopes of a beneficial education. Do they want us to pay our loans off or not?

Even hospital personnel with only occasional, incidental proximity to x-ray devices wear film badges. I'm honestly surprised that people operating technology that emits ionizing radiation aren't wearing exposure devices already!

There are 8 sonography machines with embedded keyboards in my lab.

Mainly because he's giving people peptides, and ingesting someone else's half-metabolized enzymes does fuck-all, so he hasn't been convicted of anything more serious than fraud. Ironically, if his 'drugs' were more potent/toxic, he'd have been responsible for a few injuries, and arrested for them. That said, he's already been sued for not meeting FDA approval, and there's a complaint lodged in 2010 by the Texas State Board of Medical Examiners against him which, once it works its way through the courts, will surely mean the suspending of his license to practice.
This show's almost over, folks. Just takes a while - at this point he is 'treating' very few, and these suits from him will probably be the last we hear of him doing much more harm. I hope.

And there's plenty of middle ground in-between: Anyone who posts their political affiliation, sexual preference, religion, graduation date and place, home town, phone number (PHONE NUMBER!?), voluntarily, does so with the specific intention of letting others see it. Things like purchases and browsing habits, personal and unsolicited data mining are somewhat involuntary, and are legitimate privacy issues. Things like getting political ads because you posted your political party affiliation on the page of a public, ubiquitous site, are not legitimate privacy concerns, because you have already chosen to make them public. They wouldn't be on facebook, otherwise: it's not as though you need to put it on paper to remind yourself of these bits of information, and 'close friends and family' would likely already know these details, so on some level it's pretty obvious that you want people to know these things about you easily. That includes corporations. Don't like it, then don't post it. The only thing facebook requires of you is name, age, and an email address. And I've never gotten one bit of spam or directed mail to that address.

Maybe I'm just not on the right wavelength, but what sort of danger are we talking about here? I mean, yes, on a personal level, intentionally creating something close to actual lighting is going to be potentially dangerous to those in immediate proximity, but this is no nuke. Early rocketry exposed its researchers to explosive risks, but it didn't take long to anticipate and accommodate those risks, such that most of the time, the only casualty was a chunk of ground and a little pride.

Build your lighting tower, charge 'er up, and go really far away. sensor packages and telephoto lenses, and who could really get hurt? There's plenty of desert in this country, where localized RF disruption hurts no one, and the ground is so unchanging its practically a constant. We've tested all sorts of explosives in the middle of nowhere for far less noble purposes. I think understanding lightning as a natural phenomenon is a reasonable goal with acceptable, highly localized - and mostly predictable risks. Bring on the lighting machines.

^ This IS good advice, particularly at this stage. Buying a full featured DSLR because the smartphone's pinhole camera isn't very good is basically brute forcing your way into better quality pictures - with money. While I WOULD recommend stepping up from where you are (in terms of lens size), all it sounds like you need is device that's primary purpose is taking pictures. The rest is technique - and if you want candid shots, a fast finger on the button. Better to toss 20 digital pictures for the one great shot than to take one OK picture, and wish you had more.