If we produce better products or produce them more efficiently, we make the company more money...

Now, if I work my ass off and Initech ships a few extra units, I don't see another dime. So where's the motivation? And here's another thing, Bob. I have eight different bosses right now!

How could or would TSA respond to such a thing?

With a full cavity-search, probably.

This is why level 3 never got finished. With all the loose pixels, there's no way they could tighten up the graphics in time for release...

All fine and good unless you live in a place similar to mine. Incinerating your own trash is illegal. Oh yes, and to make sure you're not tempted to do so, the convenience of weekly trash pickup is mandatory. And the sole company that services my area seems to change every couple of years.

wonder why they dont go subsidized via tmo

Take a look at T-Mobile's 3G coverage and see if you still have questions...

AT&T should make setting up a password the first thing you do on your voicemail. Set it initially to say, the last 4 digits of your account #, then change it from there. The current process is as follows:

1. Press 2 for Administrative Options
2. Press 1 for Passwords
3. Press 1 to set a password
4. Set your password
5. Get dumped back to the main menu
6. Press 2 for Administrative Options
7. Press 1 for Passwords
8. Press 2 to turn your password on

This device complies with part 15 of the FCC Rules. Operation is subject to the following two conditions:

1. This device may not cause harmful interference, and
2. This device must accept any interference received, including interference that may cause undesired operation.

Meaning that the FCC won't do anything if your microwave is making your router go wonky. But since there is something causing outside interference to multiple people, they WILL track it down, as that means there is a device somewhere in your neighborhood that is violating the first part of the above condition.

Looks like a younger Hugh Laurie in a poorly made Assassin's Creed costume.

Are there any non-Apple laptops that are over $1000?

Thinkpad T60 bought 4 years ago.

• 1.8ghz Core Duo
• 1gb RAM (later upgraded to 3gb)
• 100gb SATA HDD (later upgraded to 320gb)
• 14.1" 1400x1050 display
• Mobile Radeon x1400
• Intel PRO3945 A/B/G Wireless
• Intel PRO1000 Gigabit Ethernet
• 3x USB 2.0 ports
• Bluetooth
• Fingerprint reader (just becoming standard at the time)
• 9-cell extended capacity Li-Ion battery
• Nifty little LED lamp above the display for working in poorly lit areas

$1500 with shipping back then. Currently dual-bootint Ubuntu and XP Pro. Oh yeah, it can run Leopard as well. =P

Journalism is hard though. If it was easy everybody would do it.

Judging by the number of self-important blogs out there, everyone TRIES to do it anyway. Proof that both the best and worst aspects of the Internet are that everyone has access.

With all due respect, "colonizing the New World" is a fantasy. Consider this: How much money, time, and resources would it cost to move 10,000 people (a miniscule fraction of England's population) "to the New World" in a manner that they could survive for 10 years (a miniscule fraction of human life). Put them 1) on a ship, 2) on an island, or 3) on the mainland. Have them 1) be totally dependent on England for equipment, resources and tools, 2) dependent on England for only half, and 3) completely self-sustained. At the end of the 10 year period, they should be completely self-sustained in any scenario you choose.

Please don't make extensive use of the old "we don't know what advances there will be" trick to pretend that at some point it will all be really cheap and easy. Historically, that has never happened. Larger, more advanced sailing ships have always been expensive, and this particular case will be no exception. Creating large-scale colonies is also always expensive in direct proportion to the inhospitability of the environment and its distance from the resource support of the crown.

Nobody is saying that it will be cheap or even easy in the remotely near future. But is that really a valid reason to not even make the attempt? You have to start somewhere, and it will NEVER be cheap/routine if we as a society don't start working toward that goal. Along the way, we can use the technological advances derived from such exploration to (hopefully) better life for those here on Earth. Even something unrelated to ship construction or propulsion systems (such as a self-sustaining food/oxygen supply) could be scaled up to benefit people in the more remote regions of the world.

Administration officials have said that, in hindsight, the central failure in the attempted bombing of an Amsterdam-to-Detroit flight on Christmas Day, involved inadequate sharing of information.

You mean IGNORING of information. How much more intel do you need to screen someone when their own father calls in and says "hey, my son is on a flight to your country, and he's been hanging out with known terrorists. you might want to question him"?? That was simply a case of there was a legitimate threat, and PLENTY of warning, but they chose to flat out ignore it. As a result, you end up with some dickhead trying to set off an underwear-bomb instead of getting detained by authorities.

I do the same thing. I only use them for paying rent, and for paying utilities (since the ass-backwards utility company wants to charge a $5 "transaction fee" to pay with a card online). For everything else, there's my debit card or (rarely) cash. Of course I don't sit and wait for my balance to update, either. Once the card is swiped or the cheque leaves my hand, that money is mentally gone. Whenever I get home at the end of the day, all receipts are entered into gnucash, and that's the balance I go by. That way there is no looking at my online balance and having to adjust the numbers in my head for things that have not yet processed.

Now is the time to send a message to Ubisoft that this sort of intrusive DRM will NOT be tolerated. If the servers had stayed up and people just refused to buy the game, they would have written the poor sales off as being caused by "pirates." Now, you have a chance to prove otherwise. Every single person who bought this game on PC should return it to the store. Yes, most will attempt to deny the returns due to policy, or to exchange with a new copy since that one is perceived as damaged/defective. Do not stand for this. Tell them that yes, it is defective, but ALL copies are defective. Let them know that the software itself works just fine on your computer, and in fact ran EXACTLY the way it was supposed to. However, you are forced to return it because it does not work properly on yours or ANY system, because Ubisoft's servers weren't online to allow you to play a game that you legally purchased and met all the requirements for being able to play.

Ubisoft won't be able to shrug it off as "piracy" when their sales numbers for this game begin to shrink due to returns and angry retailers. THIS will hit them in the pocketbook more than a simple, dubiously effective boycott. When they are forced to start handing money back because of their failures, that will speak much louder than never having been paid that money to begin with.

Yes, that is a problem, but I also feel it's part of what makes Portal so great. Sure, there's interesting puzzles, dark humor, and top notch design. But it's all the additional stuff you can find OUTSIDE of the main game if you take the time to look that makes it so appealing. I love how you can play the game and enjoy it on its own, but if you wish, there's also a whole other dimension to it that makes the story straddle the line betwen FPS and ARG.