I find this response by the government to be completely hysterically funny.

Society has been pretty much unbearable since more than one person has been in a group. Before that, loneliness was unbearable. And yet, most people aren't clinically depressed.

I said depression is a rational response to an unbearable society. Most people aren't depressed because most people aren't rational.

Depression can be cured, or let's call it remission if you want.

This is a big lie promoted by psychiatrists and the pharmaceutical industry for their own profit. Many of them probably believe it, but it's not supported by the evidence. Antidepressants can be effective in partially alleviating some of the symptoms, but only for extreme cases of depression. And in those extreme cases, the benefit is only marginal. The vast majority of people on antidepressants can be expected to show no clinically significant improvement.

Nothing psychiatry has to offer can be clinically shown to make depressives feel normal. They only make the extremely depressed feel marginally less shitty, if they're lucky.

Sadly, a lot of the treatment plans for depression seem to be keep throwing things at it and see if something sticks.

Or you keep throwing things at it until it gets better by itself and the psychiatrist takes credit for it.

And that kind of reasoning is exactly why there is no hope for America. If you keep voting for what you don't want, you'll keep getting it. You have to realize that the differences between the two parties are negligible. Then you will be free to vote your conscience.

I don't understand why anybody thinks that as Facebook products/users, they'd have any ability at all to influence Facebook. Seems pretty silly for me to use a service for free and think that you'd be able to have any say as to the quality of the service. I think that some people forget that they're not the customers, but the *products* that Facebook sells to customers. This guy seems to think that Facebook is some sort of public utility that regular people have some sort of rights to influence.

I was thinking slot cars. I had a set when I was a kid. Lots of fun.

Earthquake Surfing! An Olympic sport by 2026.

Microsoft has been reluctant to release Office for iOS and Android because Office on an ARM platform cuts into their Windows sales. People and businesses will ask themselves, "Why should I pay $100 for Windows when the only thing I use it for is Office and web browsing, and now I can get Office on my non-Windows ARM device?" Microsoft's preference is that you buy a PC so they can double-dip (sale of Windows + Office), so they're trying to slow down the transition to ultra-portable ARM platforms. Either until Intel figures out a way to make x86 competitive at the low-power end, or until they can figure out a way to leverage their PC market dominance into ARM market dominance.

Windows RT is another facet of the same thing. They ported the Windows API to ARM so that if the world does transition from Intel to ARM, they're set and ready to continue to sell Windows licenses. That it isn't selling now doesn't really matter. What matters is that they've got their bases covered regardless of whether x86 or ARM wins on the hardware front.

This inter-department loyalty is really hobbling their business. It's rather ironic that Microsoft would've been better off if they'd lost the anti-trust trials of the 1990s, and the FTC had split them into a separate OS company and an apps company. A Microsoft apps-only company would've put out a version of Office for iOS/Android years ago. By trying to use Office to preserve their Windows franchise, they're doubling down their bets. Their delay opens up the possibility that if ARM wins, something else will replace Office as the de facto productivity suite. Much like Office replaced WordPerfect and Lotus 123 during the DOS -> Windows transition. Then they'll be stuck without Windows nor Office.

This. I've been telling people this even before the iPad came out - tablets are going to replace the clipboard. Think of every task you or a business does which involves writing something down on paper while walking around, then entering it into a computer later when you're sitting at your desk. A tablet will let you just enter it straight into the computer while walking around. No more double data entry (once on paper, once in the computer). That's why tablets are not going to be some passing fad. Once the price of a decent one drops below the ~$100 range, the clipboard is doomed.

How the hell do you expect Democracy to work if you cannot tell The People about the activities of the government they're supposed to be in charge of? It's not a very difficult concept to understand.

I don't believe anyone has ever claimed that the NSA, CIA, whatever other alphabet soup agencies need to disclose everything they do.

I do. Everything every government agency does should be open to the public. If there's a need for operational security, some secrecy may be appropriate, but it should be extremely limited in scope and duration.

No one argues that the need for secrecy is warranted in most situations.

I do. How do you know that the need for secrecy is warranted? Only because those who want the secrecy tell you it is. That's a pretty profound conflict of interest.

how do you propose to keep the country safe

How do YOU propose to keep the country safe from criminals who cannot obey the Constitution?

Mandating them would be stupid, but they're useful for a lot of people right now. And batteries made from unicorn farts? I mean, where do you get the unicorns? Srsly

If you can't do it without oversight, it's too dangerous to allow. Our own corrupt government is a bigger threat than any foreign enemy.

If you don't know what you're doing, you have no business eating mushrooms, period. It doesn't matter what the return is if you can't reasonably evaluate the risk.

With that said, there's a number of books which are pretty useful on the subject, like "All that the rain brings".

It's exceptionally important to note that changing geographical location changes your mushrooms dramatically, and you might find a mushroom in another country (or possibly even the same one) which looks just like one you're used to, but its toxicity is reversed. The only 100% sure way to know your mushroom is to perform a spore print and look at it under a microscope. IIRC you need at least 1000x magnification to make a good ID... and whole tomes of documentation.

In Lake County, CA it costs more to permit a one bedroom house than it does to buy the materials. And right now, you'll have a good time trying to recoup the cost of either.