Maybe you misunderstood what I was saying.

This doesn't affect me at all. My job is production based so as long as I do what I need to do, I'm good. While there are bad weeks where I have to put in 60+ hours, a fair number are great and I only need to put in 20-30 so it balances out well. They're also good about time off and vacation so for me there aren't many worries.

I got to this position because I earned my Computer Engineering degree and work as a skilled laborer. There are many people that have jobs that are far less skilled making them more and more expendable. Some people like this are in a position where one of the only things they can get going for them is the knowledge they can be walked all over.

And you can unionize unskilled labor all you want... When it gets to pricey, it'll just be moved away like so many other jobs to governments who give even less of a f**k. Even skilled labor can run into problems if there's decent competition.

Perhaps add this episode of This American Life to your playlist to see how depressing that situation currently is. It talks about Shenzhen and not just worker rights abuses there, but human rights abuses faced by employees.

While my job is largely production based, the unemployment rate is currently 8.5%

I think most people would rather not be seen as being in the bottom 50% of workers where they are for fear of layoffs or any sort of cutback.

I think most people would rather take a small increase in work-stress to forgo a lot of financial related stress down the road.

Thanks to major increases in flash density, my IPoAC connection achives well into the "greased lightning" category as they now are capable of carying several 32GB micro SD cards!

I just wish the latency was better.

Awesome Idea - until the person beside you is using the cell network to navigate and is quietly listening to directions until the cellphone stops working.

Then distracted by the lack of directions starts messing with the phone to fix the problem getting far more distracted from the road than they already were.

Or someone who is texting every couple of minutes... instead of hanging on to the phone for a few seconds at a time they'll now probably study the phone until the text goes through... which will be far longer.

Or worst yet, someone who needs the phone for a true emergency.

Man, that sounds like it will make drivers less distracted *rolls eyes* And don't get me wrong - I don't advocate actively using your phone while driving at all, but your "solution" will at best do nothing, and at worst just create a bigger problem.

Easy Proof
Which is harder to read:

This first sentence which is typed correctly and is correctly formatted...

oR thIS SeConD seNTeNcE wHiCh yOU PrObaBLy doNT reCOgNiZe thE ShaPe oF?

Thanks to annoying people on facebook, I'm sure we all already knew this.

One size does not fit all.

There are valid reasons that memory should be a primary concern for upgrade just as there are valid reasons your processor, video card, or hard drive may be more optimal for immediate upgrade. While this is an extreme example, I guarantee an old Duron processor running in a server motherboard with 16GB of ram will lose every benchmark test to a new i7 running alongside 2GB of ram.

It also depends on what you're doing:
Is it a file server for a small set of files? - the solid state would probably be better.
Is it a gaming machine? Perhaps a video card or better processor would be more cost-effective.

I'm not saying that more memory is bad, I just hate it when people think it's a one-size-fits-all scenario.

Agreed - seems about as obvious as some of the patents microsoft pushes. *BOOM*

Besides, hundreds of rollercoasters just like this have been designed before...

It was called Roller Coaster Tycoon.

I used to have this same mentality. At one point in my college dorm I had 7 different computers running as everything from a homebuilt linux router to a fileserver to a compile server I could offload long compile jobs to. Sadly both marriage and no longer having free unlimited power have changed that. I have to justify having the computers around that I do and many of the old ones get pruned out by my wife. I've found out that having an effective virtual machine setup on a couple higher efficiency new or new-ish computers is actually cheaper in the long run than keeping old ones around. Afterall - instead of paying between $20 and $30 per month per additional computer for any ~200W always-on system in addition to your main higher-end computers, it's much more cost effective to buy a $400 tower (or cheaper in many cases) and conglomerate all of your always-on functionality into VMs on one box. I personally save up to $60 per month just by combining a few of my lower horsepower boxes and only running 3 now (mainbox / DVR / VM taskbox.) it makes up that $400 cost in very little time at all.

Don't forget about the tinfoil hat wearing /. community that insists that pharmaceuticals are a plot by the government to brainwash you into buying American products so they can spy on you.

*pops meds*

Man I feel like getting some Coke from McDonalds. TTYL /.

In other words:

"And now, for something completely different"

Since the article is down, I figured I'd share my own custom 404 page:

http://capitolimprov.com/uea

Not always true - in fact, a lot of the larger breweries got to where they are by making at least one stellar beer. (not always true as Coors and Anheuser-Busch got to where they are by making a popular beer with lucky marketing breaks and a hefty profit margin)

With that being said, the quality control at larger plants is generally much stricter than a microbrewery is capable of.

That's not to say that microbreweries are without merits - My cousin is capable of producing nearly the legal limit of beer as homebrew without being classified as a microbrew and he has made 2 of best I've ever had, not to mention the various Microbrews I've been blown away by, but with that being said, there are treasures all over with the big breweries too. Guinness (Guinness), Fat Tire (discontinued, formerly Anheuser-Busch), Michelob Amber Bock (Anheuser-Busch), BlueMoon (Coors), Yunling (Yuengling brewrey - mid-size) Much of Leinenkugel's offerings (Leinenkugel brewing co. - mid-size), Almost anything Dogfishhead makes (Dogfishhead - mid-size) and a good chunk of what Sam Adams makes (Sam Adams Brewrey, mid-large size)

Unless it means they get free computer repair.

Agreed - even 48 hours is a bit long in today's digital world and the government would only be a middle-man to who the information needs to get to as you were saying.

If the legislators knew anything about computers, maybe they'd do something smart like require auditing software which detects mass-retrieval of data. That way, in most instances, the leak can be detected immediately instead of potentially not at all like some companies.

Heck - I think it would be better to require them to notify the government and their consumers within 48 hours of the breech regardless of whether or not they have detected it and subject them to a fine based on the severity of the retrieval and how detectable it should have been if it took them more than 48 hours to detect and report.

It won't stop data breeches, but it will make sure decent audit systems are in place.