Operator: Can I help you?
Skype: YES, all of our peer-to-peer servers just went down. We have 23 million users offline right now.

Actually it's more like this:

Skype customer service. This is Peggy.....

The mark of the beast is 616.

If this is so, it explains a lot. 616 is the original area code for Western and Upper Michigan. This has now been split into 4 area codes, but 616 still covers Grand Rapids, Holland and Wyoming. If you want to look for the most extreme religious fundamentalists in Michigan, that's where they still are!

Now why did I get rid of my tricked out Apple 2+?

google totally sold out and lost their mojo.

I get link farm sites from the first page that SHOULD be weeded out

1. First, the idea that you could substitute some sort of "herd" mentality for the evaluation of web sites instead of actual ratings by real subject experts is bunk.

2. Google does not care. They crapped up net-news and don't care. 99+% of the usenet groups I still read are drug and counterfeit merchandise spam posted through google groups and/or g-mail accounts. You would think with all of the supposed AI and computing power available to them that it would be easy to filter out newsgroup spam. I new read net news using a news reader, but the g-mail spam is so overwhelming that even the news server's filters don't keep it out.

3. Even when I do read net news through google, the quality of ads on the right side of the page is abysmal.

4. As a business owner, I have voted with my wallet. I will NEVER do business with Google. I will never buy ad-words. I will never spend a dime on anything that even remotely smells like SEO.

Why do people say "the Ukraine" and "the Netherlands"? You don't say "the Russia" or "the Spain".

For the same reason people say "the Bronx" and Brooklyn.

"When the U.S. embargoed oil to Japan in July, 1941 it was almost a certainty that war would soon follow."

Only because of Japanese expansionist imperial policy and the invasion of Manchuria made it clear what Japanese goals were in the pacific. And their attack on Pearl Harbor later that year didnt help.

I was not trying to justify the actions of the Japanese at all. I once studied the diplomatic history of the events leading up to Pearl Harbor in geat detail. My point is that the US could have been better prepared for war.

My second point is that nations do go to war over such things, even if there are other factors involved.

"And then World War 3 was fought over dirt."

When the U.S. embargoed oil to Japan in July, 1941 it was almost a certainty that war would soon follow.

Just wait for lawyers to start patenting their particular model of "lawyering" and then the fun REALLY starts. :p

I can't wait for James Sokolove to get a business method patent.

But aren't these risks, for the most part, kind of obvious? It's sort of like saying your employer might exploit you for free labor from your unpaid internship. Duh!

How is this situation different from any other so called "talent" contest? Look at the dancers who did not win on "So You Think You Can Dance?". It's the same reason for the spread of "reality" TV. These shows are inexpensive to produce - just like game shows were.

I cringe every time I hear the word 'tweet'.

I cringe whenever Slashdot blows up whenever I try to post.

When I hear the word "Twitter" or "Tweet", on the other hand, the first word that comes to mind is "twat".

I cringe every time I hear the word 'tweet'.

I have to restrain myself from calling the "tweeters" twats.

The article in USA Today has a nice little gem in it: "The authors acknowledged possible inaccuracies in the survey from the fact that participants were asked to remember how much and on which ear they used their mobiles over the past decade. Results for some groups showed cellphone use actually appeared to lessen the risk of developing cancers, something the researchers described as "implausible."" Now, I don't know why, but something about this statement seems kind of important.

Using a survey after the fact is not a particularly reliable way to quantify exposure. It may also lead to "recall bias".

This type of study is usually better at finding possible risk factors rather than determining the relative effect of a particular factor.

If you want to read something alot more entertaining and you're happy with it being spread across multiple pages, read the pages at TV Tropes instead: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MagicalComputer [tvtropes.org] It includes all the ten tropes in the list, plus many more, without obnoxious advertising.

It's much funnier, has exhaustive examples, and will ultimately ruin your life.

Yes, the linked website hits one of my favorite classic computer no-nos "slot machine passwords". Remember the movie "Wargames"? In it, the WOPR locks on to individual characters in the pasword, one at a time. Tension builds as 9 are guessed and finally all are guessed. Of course such a keyboard search would take almost no time at all in real life.

I don't think this is just a case of someone pointing out a contradictory law.

"Forcing our schools to instruct children on how to utilize contraceptives encourages our children to engage in sexual behavior, whether as a victim or an offender," he wrote. "It is akin to teaching children about alcohol use, then instructing them on how to make mixed alcoholic drinks."

I think he very much believes that it just shouldn't be taught.

I suspect the DA believes that pregnant girls should end up in the "Seven Sorrows of our Sorrowful Mother Home for Infants" in nearby Necedah, WI. When I lived in Madison, ads for this facility were displayed inside many city buses.

Which all sounds like a polite way of saying that kids these days have been spoiled. Instant gratification, be it through next-day felivery net-based purchases, simplistic video games or instantly downloaded media, means they have no patience.

I've almost completely given up on replying to questions in newsgroups because of this. The most annyoing ones ask "How do I do X?" or even worse "Can U do X?" without any real details or any indication of work done.

Oh, and get off my lawn.

I learned to program when cities did not have ZIP codes.

I firmly believe that you prefer what you're accustomed to hearing in the first place. Most kids today have grown up hearing nothing better than highly-compressed FM or low-bitrate MP3 music. They don't know anything better, and given the option of hearing better music, perhaps even uncompressed, with a much larger dynamic range and noise floor, they'll gravitate to what their ears and brain have been trained to appreciate.

This certainly holds true at my office. My wife is a doctoral audiologist who prescribes and dispenses hearing instruments. A good number of patients who have worn hearing aids for many years prefer the older analog technology to the modern digital. Some of them certainly have become accustomed to the distortion and peak clipping that happens when analog hearing aids are pushed too far.

At one time, there *was* a price difference, but no longer. Digital is no more expensive, in fact it is becoming more difficult and expensive to have old equipment serviced.