As another former soldier (also honorably discharged, as a Specialist), I'm calling bullshit on your call of bullshit. I read the parent's reply and nodded with each and every complaint he had. My MOS in the military was that as 92G - Food Service Specialist (I maintain this as the biggest mistake in my life). Basic was a joke, I never should have graduated when I did as I spent the entire first week in quarters (this alone should have forced me to restart the cycle, IMO); I only did so for three reasons:
A) I barely hit enough targets
B) I barely ran fast enough
C) I didn't make my drill sergeants too mad at me (excelling only in book learning and Land Nav, I took an otherwise heads-down approach)
From our company about two dozen people fell out of our final victory run (6 miles, IIRC), and the pace was moderate at worst.

I was Whiskey (you know~) Co. at Ft. Lee, VA (I forget which BN, the one for Quartermasters, doesn't really matter now). It was a continual, downright embarrassment. Day one, after everyone else had gone to their training unit, my group of 70+ people waited for four hours for our sergeants to arrive. Then we sat in our common room for four hours, doing nothing. Then they realized that, hey, we might want to have dinner, so they managed to scrounge up a box of MREs for us. Much latter in the cycle, one of my and another platoon's SSGs came quite close to fisticuffs, in front of both platoons, over who would be able to use the bus to move their platoon. My platoon had to go to a training center on the other side of the post. The other platoon had to go four blocks, and apparently the other SSG didn't want to march his 98ish person platoon (yes, 98) the four blocks. (That's nothing, an incoming platoon the week we did our final field mission was 120 or so, I believe.) During this time I learned enough to basically work at a Golden Corral, if that. I had to relearn most of the actual cooking once I was assigned to my final unit. My final PT card was falsified, a fact which I found out only after arriving at my final unit, and I only knew this because the sergeant that filled it out put down the wrong time to get the minimum of 60 points (the time he put down would have actually given me 55 or so) and did not put down the right number of sit ups (he once again put down the minimum, when I know for a fact I did 10 above that).

At my unit, the first E6 I had (who is now the only E7, from talking to friends still in) for us cooks was atrocious at any kind of leadership and taking care of her soldiers, preferring to accommodate requests from anyone above her rank, even those she couldn't realistically fulfill (such as promising an extra meal we did not have the supplies for at a time after we were to head back to the rear; thankfully another SSG stepped in and ended that one). After a nervous breakdown one night (which began the path to my discharge) I straight-up told her that I had planned to kill myself, and wanted to see a psychiatrist or maybe even check into the psych ward (I had come out of a deep depression, but did not know if I'd go back in). Her reply, literally, was "Well, soldier on." Later she gave me a card with the number for 1 Stop (I think that was the number, whatever they put on the ACE cards). My BN commander would sometimes get on the radio during field missions and curse out a SSG or SFC who had the audacity to confirm a conflicting order from their own 1SG. Dates for field missions often were not confirmed until two or so weeks before the actual start (an issue for us cooks because we had to put in UGR orders 30 days in advance). My direct CO called my direct SGT a "fucking retard", to my face. One of my squad members was dealing with depression and I was worried he was going to lash out at someone and even threatened many times to do it; I talked to his SGT (who was one year younger than I) multiple times about this and, to my knowledge, nothing was ever done. They drilled it into us in Basic to not salute in the field, and when I walked past our BN COIC, gave the greeting of the day, and kept on moving, I was chewed out by a SSG. Asking around, no one could give me a firm answer if I was right or wrong. Later, when I saluted a Chaplain, a SFC chewed me out for doing so (thankfully, he was one of the reasonable ones I admired, and after explaining he just told me that the SSG was a "fucking idiot").

Cooks would come in to work drunk, have disheveled (or, worse, dirty) cook whites, and more, yet they would just be told time and again to fix it and nothing more; in the entire cumulative year I was at that DFAC I saw maybe one cook get a counseling statement. Sometimes they would be forced to bring in all their whites and iron them there, but that just meant they'd have enough fresh whites for a week, at most. Meanwhile the entire morning shift would be made to stay late because one person f'd up their meal, regardless of how admirably the other sections were (yes, we try to help each other as much as possible, but that's not always possible). And, thanks to Congress and the budget, CFI wouldn't always have the proper size shirts/pants when ours would invariably get stained, and despite even bringing back notes about this and checking every week an E7 would still go off on us now and then.

On one of my last field missions I was awake for nearly 72 hours straight because our E6s couldn't be arsed to A) figure out a proper plan, B) have the trucks packed properly (i.e. meals are put depending on how soon they will be used) which any of the drivers at TISA would be happy to help with if asked, and C) actually do some damn work themselves. And then they would both take the trucks to go to the rear for a resupply, and would always choose the same two or three soldiers to go with them (which almost always included both of our female SPCs). They would take hours upon hours, having the opportunity to actually shower, sleep in a bed, and do laundry.

Then there were the soldiers (E1-4). I read those stories about puppies (dead or alive) being thrown off cliffs, soldiers taking a shit on someone's Quran while searching homes overseas, and more, and I thought "That can't be all soldiers, we're just hearing about the worst cases like the news only talks about the worst car accidents." But, in my experience, the majority of the soldiers I met weren't far from such acts themselves. Gook, nigger, spic, raghead, all the names were used widely (and even in mixed company, if said company did not include the race being referred to). Many were either dumb as a rock or absolutely selfish (if not both).

As for the Advil thing, I agree with him. Unless you had a bone sticking our of your skin or were actively bleeding profusely, either sick call didn't care much or your chain of command thought you were trying to bail out. Not that I could blame them that much, because there were plenty of soldiers who would go "I don't feel like running, I'm going to claim a sprained ankle and go to sick call instead".

Maybe you've been in for a while; I have a theory that anyone past E6 P suffers from a form of Stockholm Syndrome, where they've deluded themselves that all the bullshit is good and intentional (especially hearing them threaten people with how horrible "civilian life" is). Maybe you've been lucky and were stationed with a good unit and good troops. All I know is that I went in hoping the military would drive some good habits into me and give me a sense of purpose, and instead all that happened between going in and coming out was a complete loss in both how disciplined I thought our military was and my faith in humanity. Call me a pussy if you want (I won't disagree), but the bullshit I went through drove me to the edge of suicide, and now I'm on medication for depression (and told that I will likely be on it my entire life). I knew some good SSGs and SFCs; I worked with one closely near the end of my Army stint, and we had some good discussions. But they were a small minority of the overall crowd, and will never get promoted because they don't spend all their time kissing ass and looking busy doing nothing.

Do you happen to have a link for this quote? I would love to share the source with a number of my ultra-religious relatives on Facebook. (None of them think he's a secret Muslim, to my knowledge, but I'd still be interested to see their reaction to this.)

I did mean it as a joke (which I hoped would be obvious, but from some replies might not be), but there's a reason they wouldn't apply Funny: Funny doesn't apply any kind of karma bonus, but Insightful/Interesting does. So at times mods will use those moderations in order to also give a karma modifier as well as +1, if someone has already modded it Funny. Since my post has more Insightful ratings than Funny ratings, it's marked as "Insightful".

(I don't need the karma, I have more than enough in my account, but it's still a nice thought on the part of the mods.)

No, because your UID does not meet the requirements set forth (UID.length<5). Once that fifth digit hits, it's anyone's game! :)

His (her?) UID is less than five digits, of course.

I've had a few conversations with employees over the years, mostly suggesting bands to add or asking (or complaining) about features they should add or removed. I wonder if they have flagged some accounts as "lead users" (or "problem users") or something like that, and have ads excluded from our accounts?

I wouldn't be surprised. I was having an issue with their web player where it would get part-way through a song and suddenly jump to the next one. No stuttering, internet lag, or anything else to communicate the issue. I contacted their support and, likely from the techie details I sent with the first response, one of their people got back to me and asked if I could help them troubleshoot; apparently it was an issue affecting a small amount of users, but they had no clue what was causing it. I was happy to do so, and over three months or so I tried various configurations of browsers (both versions and types) and Flash versions to see if we could at least eliminate the issue. In the end we didn't really make any headway, but they had a bunch of data to work with and asked for my home address; as their way of saying thanks for my help, I got a free Pandora hat (very nice looking until I left it sitting in my car rear dash for weeks, good quality material).

I subscribe to their Pandora One service now, and feel it's quite worth it. Their desktop player is missing some of the web player features (such as moving a song to another station), but I have no problem using the web player since it's always at work or home, anyway.

(Apparent) penis enlargement.

Especially considering it's a personal anecdote, this seems like one of those "causation vs. correlation" things; like how more intelligent children tend to have households with more books per person than less intelligent ones. (There are plenty of studies on the effects of TV on youth, and to my knowledge they all make a negative correlation, but I can't be arsed to find any right now.)

In both cases, it's not that the child is reading a crap-load of books or that the child has completely avoided any sort of media (unless they were Amish, I'd be freaking amazed if the children of those five families had not watched TV or a movie once before puberty), but that they have parents who not only take a vested interest in their child's upbringing, as well as have the time and resources to accomplish such a task. (The former for sure, the latter possibly.) They likely also made sure they got healthy meals wherever, got them interested in a number of topics, at least tried to get them to learn an instrument and play a sport regularly, and so on.

I wouldn't say that TV itself is destructive, but unchecked TV can be. If the children aren't being taught that much of what they see on TV is fake (I'm not even talking about sci-fi, I'm talking about things like CSI and soap operas), they'll come to expect that as being normal/expected because as they grow they take in everything they can from their surroundings to build a world basis upon. If they're watching copious amounts of TV, it means the parents don't care to make sure they are introduced to a large variety of activities, or perhaps they are a single-parent household where the parent has to work multiple jobs without being able to afford a babysitter (or the sitter in question allows such TV viewing)--both these things can be detrimental to a child's development, even without a TV present.

A little late, but I wanted to throw my hat in with support.

I'm 230ish (haven't actually weighed myself in a while, but my body size hasn't changed much). Three weeks ago I moved from a location almost a half hour away from work to a location a quarter mile away, and in a super-bike-friendly city. I now bike to work every day, and in addition I bike home for lunch (and a short-ish nap) as well. In the three weeks since I started, doing only 20 minutes of light biking per day, I've found myself with a huge burst in energy[1]. I go to bed at the same time but I wake up earlier (which is helpful in getting the time for the nap). In addition, since it takes more energy to go get fast food for lunch/dinner, either I save money and just don't get any, or I bike there and burn at least some of the extra calories I will take in doing that. Once I get my leg muscles up to speed I will be biking around town for the majority of my errands, as well. I'm sure that after a few months of this (assuming the winter doesn't completely destroy my ability to bike) I will have lost at least some weight without changing my other habits (I made soda a rarity months ago, at most I'll have one 20oz per week).

Not everyone can move that close to work like I did, but the point is that if you can increase the amount of energy you expend each day you will find that it will help you feel better and thus become even more motivated to work out more. After just two weeks I up and decided to just bike for a while when I left work. In the end I biked a mile or so--no great amount at all, even if I had been running, but that one bike ride was still more exercise than I had in the entire month of August (or between May and August, for that matter).

Try parking further away from work. If you have a bike and a bike rack on your car, drive most of the way and bike the rest (this will be handy if you have a crowded lot, little/expensive parking, or just want to save on gas). If you don't but have the money, seriously consider getting such a setup. Even doing errands, park as far away from the doors as you can (taking into account whatever you might buy). Use a hand basket instead of a cart when doing grocery shopping to both give your upper body a little extra work out and to force you to be more choosey in what you buy (since it's far harder to overload a basket than a cart.) On that note, make a list before you go shopping and buy only what's on that list--this is something else I did a while back and found myself doing a lot less junk food and impulse purchases (also make sure not to go grocery shopping while hungry).

There are a lot of little things like what I listed that can be done to make up to a larger goal (if you're a coder, think of it like taking a large function and breaking it into multiple, smaller functions that each do a simpler task.) If you go into weight loss thinking that you'll do a gym membership with daily lifting or jumping into P90X, you'll quickly find yourself overwhelmed and give up. You can do it! Just start by looking at the every day and asking how a task could be modified to help you with weight loss.

[1] Full disclosure, I've taken a huge downturn this week in energy and sleep pattern; however, I believe I am (successfully) fighting off either a cold or a severe seasonal allergy attack, so I don't consider it a failure of the changes I've made.

My point wasn't that it should be touch-screen only. My point is that by incorporating the regular layout with an otherwise-familiar touchscreen, they bring in the "too complex" factor that can scare off casual consumers, especially the older crowd. I don't think it's a bad idea for a controller, but it's not helpful to capture the casuals. (Also that having a touchscreen isn't a big deal these days.)

I actually like the idea of controller with a touchscreen; I was quite sad that the GamecubeGBA link didn't go very far. However, I don't think Nintendo's implementation is a good one. But the question being asked here is if Nintendo can capture the casuals, not about the merits of the system overall.

No. But it goes beyond just the law, for a number of reasons:

• Economy.
  Wii was introduced before the housing bubble burst and long before the global economic recession. People had the idea that they had money to spare, whether or not they actually did. This helped fuel generic consumer interest along with the "newness" that is motion controls. In addition, the new price points puts Nintendo out of that "sweet number" they had in 2006. The $250 price point for the Wii at release in 2012 dollars is $285; the cheapest model is $299, and wages haven't kept up with inflation.
• Wow-factor.
  Motion controlling was a big thing when the Wii released--while it was not exactly new tech, Nintendo managed to mainstream it and make it work (sort of, the Wiimote Plus greatly improved this but still had issues.) Furthermore, the controllers for other consoles were seen as "intimidating" to your average consumer due to the myriad of buttons and inputs on them (whether or not this is true I don't know, but it was common thought both then and now). The Wiimote was extremely simple and could be used as a controller harking back to the NES days.
  The Gamepad doesn't offer anything in the "wow-factor" to pull consumers in. Touch-screens have been around for quite some time (the original DS had a touch screen, after all) and everyone is tablet-crazy these days so it acts like a me-too. In addition, it integrates all those scary buttons. Furthermore, at least to someone like myself who is a regular gamer, the controller looks horribly clunky (my understanding from reading testimonials of those who have been able to hands-on is that it actually works decently, but that's not going to stop perception of those on the outside.)
• Power.
  The Wii U is, from my understanding, about as powerful as the 360. While I can understand that Nintendo wants to focus on user interface, they can't ignore that having a lower-powered system hurt them greatly this last gen. It wasn't the controller, it was the system processing power that kept a lot of otherwise-multi-console games from coming to the Wii (and when they did they were relatively bad). Nintendo has caught up, but as soon as the PS4 and XBox720 come out (supposedly in the next 18 months), they'll be lagging behind once again. Furthermore, by tipping their hand this early, it gives Microsoft and Sony a chance to integrate whatever features into their next system and likely do it better (the Kinect and Move have their own issues that will likely be firmed up and integrated better for the next console cycle).
• Games.
  A big selling point for the Wii was that it came with Wii Sports. The Basic (read: cheap) version of the Wii U comes with no games (except whatever demos or utilities they have on the system, like TVii), which only intensifies the economic issue. This may be intentional, though, as the tie-in (how many game were sold per console) for the Wii is extremely low, especially compared to the other consoles. By forcing "casual" consumers to buy games off the bat they can increase that number this time around; many bought the wii, played Wii Sports, and then never bought another game.

Nintendo also has a lot of uphill battles with 'core' gamers, too:
--Their online capabilities seem to still lag entire generations behind the competition (those horrible friend codes will apparently make an appearance on Wii U)
--Aforementioned power
--A number of AAA games they have announced are mere ports of games have been out for some time
--Internal Storage is limited to a max of 32GB, important as digital sales increase; however, this can be expanded (supposedly easily)
--Games, games, games, games. Nintendo didn't learn from the 3DS, apparently--the launch window library is fairly "meh", and we don't even know launch titles except for NSMBU

I've been a devout Nintendork for my life, fighting many a troll online for the Gamecube and trying to shoot down nay-sayers before the Wii was released. However, Nintendo is making a lot of mistakes with this generation; I'll still buy a Wii U at some point, likely, but there is nothing that makes me interested in standing in line day-one like I did for the Wii. I hear echoes of this in the online circles I run in. If gamers can't even get excited for the console, why should casual consumers?

Well, there's an easy solution: Go around cutting grass and smashing pots until you have enough rupees.

(You may have to buy a bigger wallet at some point, though.)
(Also be careful to not accidentally hit chickens while doing this.)

Ah, a kindred spirit. I feel for you, brother.

I am on depression medication as well (generic Celexa), was incredibly awkward in high school and the majority of college, and only recently have I started to mostly comprehend social interactions above ordering food or asking directions. I had some crushes early on, especially near the end of College, and I chickened out on all of them (one of which I still greatly regret, because I think she was crushing on me as well after we had a few private, nervous conversations--but that could be rose-colored glasses). Five years hence and I've given up on any kind of romantic interaction or interest. I was on one date (at the other's request) a year ago and it went horribly for a number of reasons. I feel that even if I could find someone I'd be interested in and could muster the courage to approach them, I wouldn't want to hinder them with my disconnectedness, depression, and overall pessimism.

In fact, I keep most people at arm's length, including the large number of family I have living in the immediate area. I have no friends and spend my days at home playing vidya, at work (where I sit and code for 8 hours, or post on /.), or, for four hours a week, volunteer at a cat shelter. (Interestingly, my job there is to be the initial contact of anyone who enters--helping them pick out a cat to adopt, answer questions, and explain the rules--and, as far as I know, the director and others are quite happy with me. So I can interact with the public, I just don't want to.)

I haven't tried actively being a dick to attract women, but anytime I am an asshole (usually out of nervous reaction more-so than intention) I feel horrible about it afterward.

Not the parent, but most places only require $5 or $10 down for a pre-order; while that's still not "free", ten years after the fact of that deposit and not having to pay the remaining $40-$50 sounds relatively "free" to me.

I'm American, and I plan on voting for Gary Johnson, the Libertarian candidate. I'm not a big fan of the party, nor am I a big fan of his (though according to various political "match ups" I agree with him more than any other candidate), but I'm casting my vote to a third person (who I know will not get elected) to make the other two squirm. I believe that just as even competition leads to a better market, it can lead to better politics. If people keep voting for one or the other because of party lines or (worse) because "he's not the other guy", the two majority parties will happily continue sitting across from each other at the table, shaking a fist at each other above it and exchanging handjobs below it.

It's going to take a major incident in both parties at about the same time to make the American public really change their voting habits to the point of electing a third party; however, in the mean time, if we can get people to diversify their voting (especially to the person instead of the party), it will put extra pressure on the Republicrats to actually, you know, represent those who elected them and shape up a little bit.

I believe in this so much that I am going to put a Gary Johnson support sticker on my car (and it will be the only one), but only if I can easily remove it or it's magnetic because I hate bumper stickers in general.