See what happens when we ignore the Prime Directive?

I love it when I can start my day with a Star Trek reference.

I don't see a problem with this -- as long as each employee gets a severance package worth $200,000. I'd view it as a retainer worth about 2 years of salary.

If the severance is not enough to act as a retainer for my services, then (as others mentioned) I would conveniently forget my old job if ever asked for help. I would suggest (off the record) that a substantial payment at that time could jog my memory, but without further compensation I just can't be bothered to try.

I did sign a 3 month retainer agreement when (voluntarily) leaving a job. It turned out to be a good deal for both parties. They needed me exactly once -- but wow, did they ever need me then, LOL. Of course, if you are leaving voluntarily, you are in a much stronger position to negotiate, since you have a waiting position and are not facing unemployment and needing a reference.

I hear they eat a lot of donuts while on guard duty.

What's good for the gander would appear to be good for the goose!

But then, I suppose is depends on what your definition of "is" is, doesn't it ?

Even if the manual says that Win 95 no longer needs to be rebooted everyday like Windows 3.11, it's still a good idea.

Next time I have to stay late at the office, I can just tell my spouse I was kidnapped by the drug cartel to work on their IT infrastructure. I wonder how close one must be to the border to make that look legit?

It would be a good excuse if you want to leave it all behind and start up somewhere new - "the drug cartel made me do it!"

Wait! You're saying Charlie's Angels had a plot?

Off to watch some reruns to verify this . . . .

I'm biased, having homeschooled our 3 children and have seen the results first hand. That said, nearly 100% of the benefit of home schooling can be summed up in 2 words -- "parental involvement". I never look down on those who choose to utilize the public school system, or any system. The reason our kids "turned out well" is because we worked very hard to make it so. It's certainly no guarantee, but if you spend time looking at options and choose the option that seems best for your kids (and by extension, best for you, you are heavily invested in them), you will be doing the right thing.

Like many things in life, you will get out of your kids schooling, what you put into it. Don't abandon your kids to the school system, that guarantees a bad outcome. Take control and be an active, involved parent, and whatever option you choose will be great for them.

. . . with frickin' lasers on their heads.

When will Hollywood wake up and give us a movie featuring an imminent earthquake cause by fraking and a team of brave scientists that buck the public denials and create a fantastic plan to stop if and save our planet!!

This is exactly right! Why do I never have mod points when I need them . . .

I have long felt this way too. As others have pointed out, the US is all about capitalism, so take away some of the shareholder dividends by making the power company rebate money paid for service when the service fails and the problem will solve itself in an efficient manner. Gradually increase the penalties on a fixed schedule so the companies can plan for long term upgrades where the infrastructure is at the highest risk (rather than where the the PUC officials live - which is, I suspect, a large part of the equation now). Mandating improvements on a monopoly only results in government fines that the company officials use in the cost benefit analysis about infrastructure improvements. Give the money back to the customer and that will reduce the "sting" of a power failure.

Imagine if you got 1 day of free electric service for every hour of downtime? I'd be very happy with that and easily convinced that the power company was doing their very best to restore service quickly because it was hitting them squarely in the pocketbook.

Or it would be a good name for a band . . .

I gave up trying to do this on Comcast and now host my email at Zoho. It's free for the few accounts I need. I now it may not work for everyone, but I got weary fighting those battles.

There are 2 types of recruiters, those with "skin in the game" (like in house recruiters) and those only trying to make their quota so they can keep eating.

There are 2 types of candidates, those who need a job bad enough to work with any recruiter, and those that can get a job easily because they have "in demand" skills, they don't need (or want to deal with) the second type of recruiter.

Luckily, I'm the second type of candidate and I will never again deal with the second type of recruiter. I love captive recruiters, even if I don't particularly care to work for their company, and I will happily give them referrals if I can. But the independent recruiters are all scum, and I choose that characterization carefully, I've never met one that was not, though interestingly they all swear they are different than the others. I'm working on a form letter to send to the scum recruiters, but I'm too nice to actually send it, so I'll just continue to ignore them. Like telemarketers and spammers, I realize they need to make a living, they just aren't going to get any help from me.

Do the credit card companies hate that you pay your balance in full each month?

You (and I, since I do the same) are the ultimate easy money. The Visa/MC brands make money off the margin they get from each purchase and the banks make interest (and some margin), but the banks also collect interest. They charge a high interest rate because of the risk that you might default. You are very low risk and churn a lot of money through their fee-extracting process that they would not get if you paid cash.

Therefore, they still like you, a lot. Now, the people who always pay cash or use a debit card, those they hate (or more likely just ignore).