to which I should add, these functions are just carried out by staff whose salaries that are not astronomical. Believing publishers about how much these services cost is about as smart as taking pharma at their word, when they quote enormous research costs but refuse to tell you how much they spend on direct marketing to consumers.

Umm, the editor and proofreader are part of the publishing organization. It is not at all uncommon for $1 to go to the author of a book that sells for $14.95.

I agree with you, but you have no idea how many job seekers fuck all that shit up. It's painful.

Abso-friggin'lutely.

And I, for one, would gladly sacrifice the 3 or 4 talented writers that pop up every year, if it meant we could be rid of the millions of wannabes and the writers of Moonlight fan fiction.

I think you're on the right track. What's interesting is that in other odd areas, e.g. the occult, fringe religious movements, etc., engineers are also extraordinarily common. I think in part this concerns personalities that look for simple answers to complex problems, but the reasons are not all negative. Most of these pursuits require an above-average intelligence, but they concern matters that an engineering education does not prepare one to tackle. So, a young engineer, whose life experience has yet to expand his intellectual horizons much, can pretty easily get caught up in a world view that ignores a myriad of other considerations and data.

In most cases, it's a phase, and let's face it, undergraduates and recent graduates of all disciplines are, well, idiots, but in situations where people are exploited by those who know how to limit a person's awareness and make it look like they are making their own choices by controlling what choices are available, we can get extremely negative results.

True, it's not like a car full of middle-aged, affluent men have never griefed some guy with a lousy job, because they felt entitled to less inconvenience.

Yep, 250 people. One should also keep in mind that the corp is a fully owned subsidiary of the foundation, and thus not the same sort of entirely profit-minded machine as a regular corp.

It's not just the legislature; it's the stupid freaking proposition process. Time and again demagogues convince the ignorant populace to mandate a certain amount of spending on this or that. Often, annual increases in spending are mandated regardless of changing revenues. Just brilliant. So, at this point, about 85% of our budget is locked without any legislation. You simply cannot govern with so little control.

They aren't just getting swamped by the mundane bs; SEO, especially the black flavor, tends to drown out many searches, unless your strings are really unusual.

Can I just ask, aren't most abuses that come in the form of lawsuits worded and represented by lawyers? Accordingly, how does being a lawyer make your lawsuit more worthy?

I had a SciFi reading class in my Sophmore Year of HS back in the 80's. Haven't thought about how fortunate I was until now. Of course, my HS was lousy overall, but we got to read Science Fiction and finish the course by watching Blade Runner. I even got to host the movie, seeing as I'd watched it 30 times by then.

I probably shouldn't mention that the girl who sat next to me had...well...it was a stimulating class in many respects.

I don't think implementation was Roddenberry's forté. He had a large number of rather vague and disconnected ideas about things.

I think Star Trek on television is pretty much dead. For all its cheeziness, DS9 was a real step forward, having embraced the concept of long story arcs. Enterprise just took things backwards and nosedived. The writers seemed to resent the idea of long story arcs or consistency. They constantly gravitated towards the episodic and attempts at striking moments.

It's the way the information is structured. It's linguistic convention, and it has a point; it's not a matter of "social niceties." Information is transmitted in the way language is structured as well, and structure facilitates its reception.

More importantly you clearly have difficulty imagining any form of written communication other than the few you regularly come across. A single-page business letter that is magically attached to it's envelope for all time is one possibility. It's a rudimentary example.

Googlebladder would come in handy. I'm also waiting for the day, when we check Google-RealTime-Full-BodyScans to determine pregnancy rather than having our women use test kits.