I think you mean "Areology" specifically about Mars. Xenogeology would be foreign planet study, but the Geo prefix specifically applies to Earth. Therein lies the problem with basing modern scientific parlance on ancient languages ;)

In light of my signature, I really must point out the above AC isn't me.

When education, to escape the McDonalds job's pay, costs more than your average home loan, what other option is there?

Oh, right. Rich and influential parents who can make sizable "donations" to the educational institute.

I'm reminded of a scene from Ugly Americans:

Twayne hands Leonard a checque, and says "I'm going to give you this, you're going to give me your company"
Leonard crows "A BILLION DOLLARS! WOOHOO!" (or something to that effect)
Callie slaps Twayne in the back of the head and says "You IDIOT! I said give him a THOUSAND dollars!"
Twayne: "Doesn't a thousand have nine zeroes?"
Callie: "JUST HOW RICH ARE YOU?!"
Twayne: "Ionno... How much is twelve zeroes?"

Not that this is actually relevant in any way, just felt like sharing with the class.

All the investors who put their money in at gunpoint, raise your hands!

Right, all the others, when we're done with Nokia, let's bring a suit in Vegas for all the money we've lost in the casinos, too!

It was a bad business decision. If the investors thought so at the time, they wouldn't have invested. If they decided to practically give someone their money, then there was an inherent risk in that. Just because they lost doesn't mean they have the right to sue Nokia for this. They probably have firmer grounds to sue Microsoft because their operating system wasn't up to snuff (not that I really think they could do that, successfully).

I'll count Star Craft 2 when I get more than a third of a game for my $90.

Don't get me wrong, I think an online Elder Scrolls game would be great, but does anybody remember playing Warcraft? No, stupid children, I don't mean "World of Warcraft", I mean "Warcraft", the franchise your beloved time-sink came from.

As soon as WoW became popular, hope of a Warcraft 4 went down the toilet. Blizzard doesn't make games, anymore, they just push expansion packs for World of Warcraft. The exception to this rule being Diablo 3, but it'll be an expansion-factory for the next ten years, too. The Elder Scrolls Online means there will probably never be a TES:VI.

But will the fallout shelter protect you from Fallout Online when that happens? (and you know it will, if TESO goes well)

I'll believe the price increases are due to currency and economy shifts, and not "because we can", when they lower the Australian prices by about 60%.The Australian dollar is fluctuating a few cents either side of the US one, depending on numerous factors like the colour of our respective head of states' underwear each day, yet the prices seem even slightly higher than they were when AU$1 = US$0.50.

Insert obligatory reference to Idiocracy. Modpoints ensue.

Personally, rather than buy ebooks (been there, done that, not happy with the results), I buy all tree-books, and then jump on #bookz on Undernet, and grab an e-book copy of it. In many cases, the pirated ebook IS a better product, and not just because of DRM. I was looking at buying an ebook on programming, the official release was clearly scanned pages, the file size was enormous, and there were words lost in the shadow on every margin. Tankfully this was plainly visible in the preview. Rather than waste my money, I had a look on #bookz, and THE SAME BOOK was a nicely formatted epub, with the images in tact, text flowing correctly. The publisher should pay THESE GUYS to do their ebook editions, instead of telling the janitor to scan a stack of books.

And who do you blame when the one you didn't take seriously is real? The Boy who Cried Wolf has two morals, you know. One for the child, to not make frivolous cries for help because someone may not come when you really need them to, and one for the adult, to treat every threat as credible, because this one could be it.

You don't want to be a pirate with your DibLoons? Digital Loonies for all! Yarr!

When I said that movie lacked depth...

It may not be sophisticated, but MHDD is what I use at work (among a couple of other tools). Other tools are more reliable in different circumstances, but my first stop is always MHDD, because it will give me a comprehensive R/W delay test on a disk. Extremely practical for a workshop, perhaps not practical for a data centre.