Exactly. I'm on the west coast- the Pacific Coast Starlight goes over 1500 miles with NO wifi access at all. And I can drive to Seattle faster in a Prius than on either the PCS or the Cascades.

I'm on the West Coast, you insenstive clod. The rolling stock of the Pacific Coast Starlight hasn't been upgraded in over 30 years.

Well, that's why I didn't explain the whole thing. You're not allowed to carry over anything normally. Except IF you asked for them and they were not granted. So, the loophole is to ask for them when it's impossible and then you can carry them over. Furthermore, those days carried over need to be taken before the 31st March. Depending on the company, you can agree with them that you keep them. Most allow that, or they pay you out. (Which to most people is the desirable option, to me it isn't as I'm pretty well paid resulting in insane taxation) The alternative is having no staff in February/March ;-)

But yeah, I have enough vacation and never know when to take them. Being in Europe doesn't help much against that.

I don't hear about nightmare housing situations where 20% of a country's homes sit vacant while nearly the same number of people are homeless.

No, you don't hear those... They do exist. I live in Luxembourg, which is -granted- a quite peculiar place to live. In the capital (which is small, by any reasonable standards), there are 2900 homes empty (source: Près de 2900 logements vides dans la capitale. Link is in French). I don't know how many homes there are in the city, but given a population of 80000, with an average of 3 people per home (wild guess), we're talking 11% vacant. People want to live there, but it's simply cost-prohibitive. Owners don't want to rent cheaper: they'd rather have their buildings vacant than getting less than the perceived market rate.

I'm well paid, so is my wife (she actually makes more than I do, if she would work full-time) and we did manage to buy ourself a small home. We need to work both, though, and we did get a significant financial aid from my parents. Alone would be impossible. This brings me to another example: the house we got, is newly built. Formerly a big house was on the terrain, which was split for three smaller houses. This particular big house, was built in the mid seventies, and had been vacant since 2000. We just moved in our house, so, that's over 10 years completely vacant. The reason? Nobody can afford these kind of houses any more, especially if they're require some restoration. I don't even live in the city, a house like mine in the city is unaffordable, even for people in my income class.

Personally, I have no idea how, let's say, a cashier married to a bus driver (which is surprisingly well paid!) can even subsist in our country. I know as per fact, that many people with lower wages, just leave the country. Sure, it's not all that hard to do, given the country is so small.

I'm pretty sure, you'll find situations like these in many locations with high real-estate prices: Paris, London, etc...

It ought to be a law that they have to pay you for unused vacation, especially if they don't allow you to use it.

In my country, that exists (in some form, too long to totally explain the details). I simply don't want that. Those are taxed so high, I would effectively be paid lower than minimum wage. So gimme me free days? Can't... Fine, as long as I don't lose them... I'll take them later, or when I quit.

A dozen... It can be done manually and I ain't getting a server, even if I wanted one. The mantra of my boss is: I pay you anyway, you can do it manually. So, that's what I do. Windows on the desktop is okay in a business setting, but on the server I really rather have Linux or another Unix. WSUS should be implemented on *nix, so you can avoid Windows on the server entirely. Of course, I do realise that's wishful thinking.

Can I have a WSUS server that doesn't involve shelling out for a Windows Server license?

It's pretty bad, with all the "improvements" that they've made. I still get by here every once in a while - more, lately, in fact - but there's not much to see.

I hope things are well with you.

This isn't for Developers to receive funds. This is for developers to make products they sell through the market to retailers in farmer's markets, who sell goods to take funds through paypal.

Hmmm....An idea. Tie this SDK to an SDK for instant background checks, and make an app that allows dealers at gun shows to become compliant with firearms background check laws.....

Two options there that I've used with his stuff:
Free, Librivox.org. Kind of boring and robotic, but loads of Chesterton audio books there. YMMV in terms of quality, as Librivox is read by volunteers, but there's one pretty good one who has done lots of the essay collections.
Slightly more expensive, Theater of the Word. Kevin O'Brian is an excellent Thespian, and a member of the American Chesterton Society, and his theater company has done both the Philosophy and the Father Brown Mystery series in audio books, as well as selected scenes. The debate video I posted was one of theirs, and for just plain Chestertonian-commentary-on-Modern-American-Philosophy, you can't beat the original videos of Stanford Nutting and his rather theologically diverse family (almost as diverse as the non-denominational Guitar Mass Catholic Stanford himself).

480 comments, and nobody mentioned the Calapuya of the Pacific Northwest, who used to use field burning to get their top delicacy- roasted grasshopper.

No physical attribute, but human beings are not purely physical (if you were, you wouldn't be able to create anything). Of course, neither is a computer, but a computer isn't programmed to have a soul either- a computer is a tool, nothing more, and we're a LONG way from granting free will to even a dog, let alone a computer.

Silicon isn't compatible.

Soul is Software, wetware is hardware

Most of his books are available in e-book form cheap or free- they fell out of copyright in the 1950s.