People have short memories, but it is just possible that the Conservatives will piss off enough people by the next election. They're already alienating their hard-right religious base by not re-opening the abortion debate in any way, shape or form (not because the prime minister is pro-choice, but because he knows his party is toast if they do). Anti-abortion advocates went as far as mailing flyers denouncing Harper in his own riding. Talk about biting the hand that feeds you.

The Conservative attack ads against the new Liberal leader are also backfiring--the Liberals (and the charity the ads attacked by association) haven't seen this level of donations in years.

As for a possible housing market collapse, I predict there won't be a US-style collapse, but it will see a significant downturn between now and the election. In the national capital, there are new, expensive condos being built (or completed) left right and centre... but the historically steady (or growing) number of people they depend on to buy them are disappearing, because of significant cuts to federal government jobs.

Of course, Ottawa isn't the whole country, but the major cities where mainland Chinese are gobbling up properties as foreign investments have a different problem--the housing market is becoming too expensive for locals to buy into.

Some of the government job cuts can be justified... except the Conservatives are wasting millions to create an entirely new and utterly pointless Office of Religious Freedom, with all the bureaucracy that brings.

They more or less have this where I live--at least if it's more than one lane each direction. As you approach the intersection, the dividing line between lanes goes from broken (can change lanes) to solid (lane changes prohibited). The point at which these become solid is roughly yellow time multiplied by speed limit, under ideal driving conditions. AFAIK this isn't officially mentioned anywhere, because people will use that as a rule rather than a guide, even if it's raining or snowing, and ignoring their own vehicle's braking characteristics. It's pretty consistently accurate though, whether it's 40, 60 or 80 km/h.

One thing stopped me using Google+ more when it was the rage a couple years ago: lack of an events calendar.

At the time you needed a separate calendar account and then tie it to Plus. I had zero desire to do this. I logged in recently and IIRC this is no longer required, but it was a huge momentum killer among my circle(s) of friends.

I had this for awhile after cutting TV portion of the cable bill, but keeping internet. Eventually they put on something that was enough to leave all the basic channels as snow.

Which was fine. I can still get the 4 or 5 key channels over the air (the very same channels I was limited to until 2005, when I moved out of my parents' place). I'm not even sure a Netflix subscription is needed, in the last two months I've turned the TV on less than ten times.

Does this work when family members with TVs in different rooms all want to watch something different? Or would each nettop PC need a separate computer running XBMC?

Not that I advocate a TV in every kid's bedroom, in fact just the opposite, but it's a definite and common use case.

A great example of winning the battle (cheap Windows netbooks almost totally replaced Linux ones on store shelves) but losing the war (iOS and Android devices destroyed the netbook market and is eating away at the traditional PC/laptop market).

On the other hand, Microsoft is making money off of Android device sales thanks to patent royalties...

If Gene Roddenberry had stuck with "remotely realistic", the original series wouldn't have had Japanese, Russian, and black officers (a *female* black officer, even!) on the Federation flagship. Gene Roddenberry specifically wanted to portray a human society that was more idealistic, and had left some of the "realistic" baggage behind. And despite having powerful weapons and shields, TNG's Enterprise-D was not a battleship.

As for DS9, I enjoyed watching it, but you can thank Babylon 5 for DS9's going in a direction with far grittier and more "realistic" portrayal of human and alien society, warts and all.

It's even possible to hit a moose on the highway and drive another 40km without noticing your injuries or the severe damage to the car.

While the card itself isn't linked to you by name and so can be passed around, wouldn't paying for the top-up require credit card or some other electronic funds transfer which could be linked to you (or someone close to you if they're topping it up)?

I suppose you could withdraw $500HKD in actual cash, then use that to pay for the top-up, but that kind of defeats the purpose of these cards...

I get 10 or 20 "free" debits a month, but never use debit except in emergencies. With debit, your cash is transferred out almost immediately. With credit, it's moved later. In theory, you'd get disputes resolved much easier if the merchant doesn't already have your cash.

Like golf...

I think that term has been diluted from the original outrageous ratings grabbing event, to simply mean something is past its prime.

As I noted in another comment, neither was true--the ending of the epic war to deal with more mundane matters back home was just bound to deflate a lot of people.

"Yes"
- Kosh

Unlike other shows that claim or have the appearance of pre-planning (Lost, Battlestar Galactica), B5 truly did have a fully-planned 5-year story arc. Obviously it had to change a few times to accommodate real-life events (Michael O'Hare leaving at end of season 1, Claudia Christian leaving at end of season 4).

As a fan, there was never any shark-jumping. That's a very specific act of doing some over-the-top sensational act to make up for lack of stories or loss of viewership.

However, my *engagement* lagged a bit in in the middle of season 4 as the focus shifted to Mars and Earth. This is probably the "jump the shark" you thought had happened, but when you go from super-epic villains to more typical villains, some let down is unavoidable.

They weren't promised a season 5 so the story arc was compressed... and then when S5 did get picked up by a different network, it was a double-edged sword because one particular storyline that was supposed to run simultaneously now had to stand almost by itself, for too many episodes, plus deal with an entirely new main character. The last half of S5 was good though.

The computer graphics, which had greatly improved season-over-season, also took a noticeable backwards step during season 4, and was especially pronounced in parts of season 5. This was my observation at the time, not through the filter of having watched more recent CGI-heavy shows like Galactica. I found out afterwards B5 had switched CGI companies, and there's some question as to whether the original left B5 or B5 left them. Either way, it didn't benefit the show on the CGI front, IMHO.

Don't let them use Chrome either then. Automatic data collection sent to google.

As administrator on the machine you can turn it off? Well, you can turn off most of the data collection in iOS too. And even if you cranked up privacy settings in Chrome, do you trust Google with your search or autocomplete data?

Submitter wanted to stop giving direct access to what he considered the worst option, Windows. But Linux, the obvious alternative, was already considered and dismissed. Leaving aside more complex solutions like virtual machines, this leaves... What, exactly? Firefox on Mac?

Submitter's use of the word "compromised" was deliberately provocative. There are enough reasons an iPad might not be ideal for guest access, the Apple-violating-privacy boogeyman is not one of them, especially for the short time periods on someone else's device that we're considering here.