Wait just a minute, WE pay for those services, not the telco. Haven't you ever looked at your phone bill and wondered what all those extra taxes they add on are for? I mean, besides enriching themselves by making us pay for their expenses?

In any other business, the taxes are included in the price as part of the cost of doing business. but cable companyes and telcos seem to feel that they're special, so they advertises lower prices and then make you pay for their business expenses. Does Wal-Mart make you pay an extra line item for ecach purchase to cover their taxes? No, that's all included in the price.

I don't WANT to talk to the people next to me, Mr. Advanced European. The people next to me are idiots. I don't want to hear them, either. I want to concentrate on my work and have a teeny shred of pretend privacy instead of being interrupted and distracted by everything going on in a busy office. If I need to talk to someone, it's hardly much of an effort to get up and go talk to them. It's infinitely preferable to be able to do that when I want/need to than be forced to 100% of the time. So kindly spare us your smug attitude. Also, we have "open plan" here for companys that don't care about employee productivity.

I couldn't agree more. For 20 years I've watched as good, happy technical people turn into lousy, miserable people by going into management. I saw too many stress-related illnesses, too many divorces, too many kids who didn't know their parents, too many people wasting their lives miserable and robotic. I vowed that I would never become one of them, and since then I've turned down every opportiunity to go into management. That's held back my salary, definitely, but I still make twice what the national average household income is, and I'm WAY happier. As the AC said above, why should I waste my life and happiness and free time and mental health working like a dog just so I can have a slightly shinier car or designer clothes? I enjoy living siomply and enjopying the things in life that mean something. Posessions do not make me happy. I've become a Budddhista nd I'm so much happier now that thinsg are in perspective. I honestly feel sorry for folks who can't see the foolishness of chasing maximum dollars at the expense of everything else. Earn enough so you can feed,clothe, and shelter yourself and your family at a reasonable level. Cut out all unnecessary expenses - the satellite radio subscripotion, the daily Starbucks, any car over $25K, the cable sports channels, you'd be amazed at how muchg you can dop without. Get a comfy chair and a library card and relax. Unless there's an absolute emergency I never work over 40 hours. If my boss wants me to work extra hours for free then I'll say to him "OK, when I can I expect you to come over and mow my lawn for free?". I don't buy into the "company loyalty" bullshit - it's a trick to get you to work harder for free. Certainly your company feels no loyalty to YOU.

The problem is that hackers ask a lot of uncomfortable questions that authorities don't like, such as "Why?" and "Is this ethical?"

I completely agree. I, also, have read most of Rand's works and when I was younger it seemed so clear to me that they were holy dogma. As I got older, I started to realie that theya re the epitome of "sounds good on paper". Her philosophy sounds nice in theory, but in the real world it not only wouldn't workl but would lead to pure evil. As doodleboy said quite nicely, "real life is a good deal more complex than that, and the binary distinctions favoured by ideologues like Rand in no way correspond with reality." Philosophies based on hate ARE untenable. And if you're perfectly OK with letting someone starve to death because you think they didn't work hard enough - you're full of hate.

In fact Libertarianism itself is pretty much the same deal - it sounds great on paper, and it would work just great if every cityien were and educated, intelligent, hard-working, self-reliant, accountable, honest, and all kinds of other things. But in real life most people aren't that way, so any society based on that concept can never work. Libertrianism shares with Objectivism the fact that neither owuld ever work in reality, but Libertarianism isn't as hateful, just naive.

Mod up! I'm so glad to finally hear that I'm not the only one who feels that the Scouring oif the Shire was pretty much the entire point of the whole trilogy, and leaving it out was a crime beyond imagining. Yeah, I guess it brings down the Hollywood-happy-ending thing a bit. Gods forbid we should have to grow or think or not always have everything end perfectly. Chopping the last part off completely ruined all character growth that was in the books and, iof you ask me, the most personal and intimate part of them from Tolkein (who, don't forget, was a veteran and deeply affected by the horrors of war, especially when he returned home).

I truly feel pity for obsessive germophobes like this. Life must be such hell knowing that everything in the world is absolutely coated in billions of germs and bacteria and there's nothing they can do about it except pathetic and useless meaningless gestures like putting a sleeping bag on a hotel bed and opening bathroom doors with paper towels.

You do know they wash the sheets, right? Why not just live in a plastic biohazard suit and be done with it?

It has nothing to do with "hatred of Jews". It has to do with hatred for ignorance, superstition, and mutilation. I disagree with anyone guilty of those things, no matter what religion. Nice try at the automatic "anti-semite" smear, though. Of course anyone who disagrees with what Jews do must automatically be a Jew-hater. How's that eternal persecution complex doing?

For thousands of years your ancestors were ignorant, superstitious savages. Nice job keeping up their ignorant, superstitious, savage traditions. And, yes, there are plenty of other, NON-Jewish people I feel the same way about. Lots of non-jews also maintain ignorant, superstitious, and savage traditions. So don't get your panties in a bunch: you just aren't that special.

Perhpas if you cared to mention in what way you imagine it's fallacious, your objection would hold more weight. Just saying "it's fallacious" doesn't mean anything.

Saying "if you don't like it, don't do it" is the fallacious argument. So I'm supposed to ignore peopel who are randomly and unncessarily mutil;ating helpless infants? "Oh, well, not my kid, I'll just let them perform whatever ritual abonimatin they want to...". So because the person is under 18 they don't have the right to rermain unmutilated?

"Because it's part of our ancient supertition" was never a good excuse for genital mutilation, either.

Even when the decisions are medically unnecessary?

What if I thought it would be wise to have my child's earlobes amputated? By your logic, that woule be fine. Just useless skin, right? So you think the parents should be able to have them amputated from their child?

The "less AIDS' argument does not hold up for one simple reason:

INFANTS DON'T HAVE SEX!!!

Are you planning for your infant to be sexually active? No? Then WHY NOT WAIT SO HE CAN MAKE THE DECISION FOR HIMSELF?

The pro-mutilation lobby always makes the issue seem like circumcision can ONLY happen right after birth when it can happen ANY time. Why not let your child grow up, and at puberty, explain about STDs to them and say "Some doctors think you have a slightly lower chance of getting an infection if you have part of your penis cut off. Would you like to do that?"

There's just ZERO reason for parents to ever make the decision to mutilate their boys this way when the person being mutilated has PLENTY of time to make the decision for themselves. That's what's left out of every discussion, the fact that a decision does NOT have to be made at birth. .You better believe that if this were a case of people wanting mutilate girls at borth, there would be a constitutional amendment banning it by now.

The White Wolf games (the ones which call their GM Storyteller) are by far the most story-oriented RPGS ever. It's not about pretentiousness; it's about games where the rules are designed to not get in the way of the story. Any RPG that has more than one short book of rules is way too complicated and players will spend their time rules-lawyering instead of being in character. The WW games were by far the most inteigent RPG experience I ever had, that's for sure. The rest were always what I refer to as "Details & Drudgery". WW sourcebooks are full of nothing but story details, characters, atmosphere tips, style tips, motivations, alternate storylines, and so on - not endless pages of stupid new "classes" and "abilities".

I can't believe how stupid people are to keep buying the same game (D&D) over and over because there's a new "edition". If you were enjoying the old one, why do you need to go out and spend a fortune on a whole new set of books? Because Wizards of the Coast needs more cash?

True, I'm afraid. Clearly poor cpu6502 has never had the pleasure of being in a really GOOD gaming group, just one of the unfortunate majority of them run by morons, for morons. A good game master makes ALL the difference between a boring dungeon crawl and a roleplaying epic adventure that you will be reminiscing about decades later with your friends. When done badly, RPGs can really suck. When done exceptinally well, they can be far more memorable and personal than any other form of entertainemnt - book, movie, whatever - could ever be. Because YOU were an actual part of it, not jsut a passive observer.

Alas, such excellent game masters are far too rare. I've only known one in my life.