Do you have any idea of the notoriety of this incident? It was caught on video, I suggest you watch it. The officer was out of line, and he did walk up to people, who were sitting, immobile, and pepper sprayed them in their faces. They weren't "surrounded."

Here is an image:
http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/09/26/14112860-university-of-california-to-pay-nearly-1-million-in-deal-with-21-pepper-sprayed-uc-davis-occupy-protesters?lite

Video: http://youtu.be/WmJmmnMkuEM

As in smart sandwich ... that's what my brain told the rest of me that word meant in the first few fractions of a second. And frankly, I couldn't care less about a smart watch ... but am now obsessing over the idea of a smart sandwich. "What you want, when you don't even know you want it! SMARTWICH!"

Useful != necessary.

I contribute to wikipedia and archive.org.

There isn't a website that has yet existed that is necessary. That could also apply to every movie and television show that has even been produced, and most books. If your content is valuable, it will generate value. You just have to find out how.

If I visit a site where ads ruin the experience, I'm gone. There is no content that can justify that reality for me, so I act accordingly.

I find advertising to be reprehensible in its mass form. It conveys the very worst of us, and exists upon, and strengthens, a platform of dishonesty. There are exceptions, yes, but that is the general rule IMO.

I block ads in every way that I can - if I find a site with great content that interests me, I pay for it. That's exceedingly rare.

Point being: if you want to exist, find a different revenue model. If your users are blocking ads, that should be communicating something to you - and very strongly at 50%! Change your behavior, don't try to change theirs.

Many times, I've considered creating a project that is an Open Source, Apple product related, DIY bullshit thing and just taking the money. Heck, I still might.

Congratulations. You're a dick.

Kickstarter is set up in a way that there's no incentive, at all, for anybody to do anything once they get the money.

Except integrity.

Worse, you can't leave windows box without antivirus, so you're screwed

Yes, you can. I've been using windows since the mid-90s, in addition to MacOS, linux, and unix. I've never used AV, and I've never contracted a virus. The performance degradation is unacceptable, and thus far wholly unnecessary. I used to manage an enterprise level AV vendor's product (on a Solaris server, amusingly) and saw firsthand how utterly useless it tended to be. Unless an old virus variant was making the rounds, it was effete. In that environment zero day viruses were far more common than viruses for which the software contained definitions, so what was the point? Maybe things are different now, but I fail to see how. Are the black hats sending definitions to the AV companies before releasing them into the wild?

Watergategate?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vB9JgxhXW5w

Athletic prowess and superior intelligence are not mutually exclusive.

SF: not terribly old, but doesn't get a ton of notoriety, particularly when compared to her other books, is The Faded Sun trilogy by CJ Cherryh.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faded_Sun_Trilogy

Fantasy: another book/series that doesn't seem to receive many accolades: The Master Of The Five Magics (and sequels) by Lyndon Hardy:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_of_the_Five_Magics

Others have mentioned The Foundation series by Asimov, both the original trilogy and the later sequels are fantastic, though they are pretty well known.

Another fantasy: The Reluctant King series by L. Sprague de Camp:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Reluctant_King

SF: I'll second (or third or fourth or whatever) The Berserker series by Saberhagen. Not high prose (but what in these genres is?) but entertaining:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berserker_(Saberhagen)

Most experts count roughly one percent of the population as psychotic. The researchers want to take methods used to analyze the language of psychopaths and apply it to the general population using social media.

Psychotic != psychopathic. These are two entirely differing diagnoses.

For the record, most experts count roughly 4% of the population as psychopathic, though a much smaller percentage actually commit violent crimes.

Oracle has been alienating its customer base (particularly small to mid-level organizations) since they acquired Sun. Our university (mid-size 'business,' fairly large university) is jettisoning Oracle as a hardware/software platform, and I know other organizations that have already done so. Previously we were Sun/Oracle across the board, hardware (including SAN), software, and DB. While our hardware refresh cycle wouldn't be hurt by this decision, I can easily see many organizations which would be hampered to adopt new functionality in perfectly functional hardware. Adieu, Oracle, adieu.

An ad hominem attack/argument is never salient in a rational discourse, regardless of a stated bent from the source. In rational discourse, ideas are the thing.

What have the Huffington Post and its supposed bias to do with this particular issue? Nothing. The mere question posed by the respondent allows those conditioned clods to skim a few posts, see "left bias" and click "ignore" in their brains ... exhibiting one of the three C's representing the nemesis of any reasonable or rational discussion (confirmation bias - cognitive dissonance and communal bias being the other two).

Also, your wading into the next respondents past comment history is a clear indication of emotional investiture on you part, and an ad hominem attack in and of itself. His/her previous comments have no bearing on this point HERE.

You link the OP with "tribalism/partisanism/racism/sexism/prejudice" as a method to disparage his/her opinion.

Wrong. Ad hominem attacks were linked with those traits, and validly so.

In my opinion, that is about 10x worse than what the OP did.

How surprising.

Not sure how long it would take me to get bored of that!

Not long (IMO). I had a bunch of manual labor jobs before (finally) going into IT: Tree work, construction, furniture repair and delivery, etc. There are some of those romantic notions about those jobs, and some of them were a blast, but that stuff takes its toll on your body, you do NOT get paid well, and the benefits usually pale in comparison. I also got wore down by the treatment you receive from others ... the assumptions made about intellect, etc. It was nice being outside and in the sun for a bit, but the joy of that was fleeting. Of course, IT bennies can blow too, but as much as I get bored from time to time, and get annoyed by the political jockeying and the decisions that are made based on personal relationships and nepotism, I count myself fortunate to be in this position (higher ed IT).

the mailing lists full of flaming personal attacks leveled by closet bullies empowered by semi-anonymity

Says the anonymous coward amid a blast of insulting generalizations.

All snarking aside - this is a case of CSRs forgetting who they work for. They work for Verizon - NOT the customer. They have to keep "what is best for Verizon" in mind when dealing with customers.

100% agree. Anyone working in any "customer service" department of a business is not there to look out for the customer's best interest, they're there to look out for the business's best interest.

Looking out for the customer's best interest in terms of the services that the business offers is in the best interest of the business. Making a simple mention of valid service offerings an action that can lead to termination can NOT be reasonably defended or justified. If those CSR's were actually telling customers how to game the system, then and only then does your statement and the one above it apply.