Agreed. I was in Singapore when they were going through their election, and they have basically 2 weeks of campaigning and that's it. On the day before polling begins nobody is allowed to run ads or do any campaigning at all. 2 weeks should be long enough for people to watch a debate or two, read some articles, and make a decision. Of course the parties would still need to make a decision about which candidates will run, but surely they can hash that out in less than 18 months. But much like everything else in politics, it comes down to money. The longer the election cycle, the more money comes in from donations and more money goes to tv networks and media outlets that run the non-stop attack ads with no information that could be considered useful towards making an informed decision.

Sometimes it's just nice to have instant access to channel flipping, sports, and news. I still use Hulu to watch shows that I miss, or sometimes download them. But I can't watch a college football game live without cable unless I want to watch a low-quality stream on the computer. And as much as news channels tend to spout crap on a regular basis, I just like watching CNN while I'm eating breakfast or if a major event is happening. For $40/mo I get 50+ HD channels, so I'll hang on to cable a bit longer.

I've worked from home for 5 years. Never once met my boss. Everything is handled with Skype, GoToMeeting or whatever works at the time. The main benefit financially for me is transportation savings. The gas savings are obvious, but what really helps is that my wife and I only have one vehicle. Factor in payments plus insurance and you can save a lot each year. The real issue is the non-financial benefits. These include:

• being able to wake up at 8am and start working immediately
• no wasted time in traffic each day
• being available to help the wife with our 2- and 4-year old if needed
• having flexible work hours so I can take care of personal issues or errands on my own time

The downside:

• Always at the office. Need to remind the family time that work time is work time
• HAVING to help out with the wife and kids on demand
• no work friends to hang out with

I've interviewed for office jobs in my area and had a couple offers, but nobody could make it worth my time. A few thousand dollars more each year are just not worth it. When I think about having 60 to 90 minutes each day driving to and from work instead of spending it with my family, the numbers just don't add up.

I've been staying with my in-laws overseas for a month, but I don't talk to my parents at all anymore. Guess that bucks the trend, but sometimes it's easier to get along with people who don't speak much of the same language.

Just to clarify, this was in Singapore, not China. The article was from a China newspaper, but that's the only tie to China as far as I can tell. However, having been to an IT fair in Singapore I know that there are some shady vendors there. The vendor claimed that his employee had mixed up boxes, but without having all of the facts I have a hard time believing that story. Did the guy check for any kind of factory seal on a box? Was it a demo model that they repacked in front of him? Frankly, I don't see how this is even news other than the fact that Singapore's gov't wants to plant a story so that other stores will read it and maybe stop trying to scam customers so much.

How else am I supposed to win a free lunch? I always carry a few in my wallet just in case I need them, but 90% of them go into free lunch drawings and 9% get used as notecards when I need something to write on. When you get a box of 1000 for $3 it's actually cheaper than notecards or post-its.

I have an MIS degree, which taught me very little about actual real-world programming and enough about business/accounting/finance to be able to talk to the non-IT staff and make decent programming logic based on that. Of course my code was crap since I had to learn the programming language in a couple weeks when I first started the job, but over the years the business education has been invaluable in being able to talk to customers and not sound like an idiot. Hell, just being able to make a presentation and write properly gives a big advantage over the guys that just write code and stay detached from the rest of the company. Anyone can learn the newest web technologies, but the people that can actually make applications that are useful for their customers will find continued success.

You're right, it takes much less time on my machine for an average size PSD to load - almost instantly. I didn't want to exaggerate the capabilities, not knowing how fast it would load on slower machines.

One thing to point out is that IrfanView cannot actually edit and save layered PSD files, but it's good for viewing and saving to other formats without having to open Photoshop.