Gerrymandering - one way or another - should be illegal. It's total crap. Congressional seats should be based on real communities. ...nice to dream, isn't it? ...no, not really. Just depressing.

The major criticism of Wikipedia from Libraryland is that there's no peer review. Someone else had suggested flagging users with credentials. I would suggest flagging entries that have been reviewed by people with credentials. The trick is that the flag would have to disappear if substantial edits to the article are made...it would appear in the history, but that's it. Maybe have a tab to make it easier for people to read the reviewed version (before said changes). Convince academia to accept peer review of Wikipedia...that would help. (Wikipedia would also be well-served hiring a whole bunch of librarians. Lots of 'em are available!)

...I've toasted my legs with my laptop. That's why I use a laptop desk (laptopdesk.net). I'm not schilling for them - just stating what I use. And in my defense, my laptop battery did bloat, which might have had something to do with it. And I've also noticed that my girlfriend's MacBook Pro dissipates heat a lot better than my MacBook.

...and yes, it makes everything funnier. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yakety_Sax

During my couple of years in hell (telephone CSR for a big online discount travel site) we weren't allowed to put managers on the phone - ever. When someone asked, the answer was: "I'm sorry, but our supervisors are here for administrative purposes only. I can transfer your call to a customer service specialist, but they will advise you in the same way that I have." Apparently if a manager tells a customer something, it's more binding legally - hence why supervisors and managers were not identified as such on the phone.

I feel sorry for you, going your whole life, supposedly without using publicly-funded libraries. (Someone else already made the point about public universities, so I won't retread that.) Going your entire life...I'm guessing at least thirty years...without knowing the exquisite joys of the public library...to be able to obtain knowledge and entertainment without spending a ton of money each time you do so...to be able to read materials that are no longer in print (and not available on the Internet)...to know the pleasure that comes from simply browsing shelves upon shelves (and maybe floors upon floors) of well-kept, useful, well-organized books...I can't imagine how that's a good thing.

And really (full disclosure: I'm a graduate student in Library and Information Science) I would think that an engineer would be kinder, more knowledgeable, and more understanding about libraries (and, by extension, librarians) in general because your profession depends on information that is only available through library resources. And I don't just mean books - I mean expensive subscription-only electronic resources - journals, databases, technical data.... This sort of thing isn't available to just anyone - it's too damned expensive. But that's a big part of what libraries do. Large corporations like PPG have their OWN libraries to serve their employees. Check out the Special Libraries Association for more information....

Thank you - you said it better than I could have.

"We already have examples of employers that demands access to prospective worker's Facebook accounts in real life." Can you provide URLs or anything? It's not that I don't believe you (I absolutely do) but I want to see these for myself and to share with my library management class. I tried finding articles on my own, but my Google Fu must not be strong today.

If your purpose is preservation, and you are certain that this game is so rare that your efforts are necessary to preserve it, then what you should consider is doing this project in conjunction with a library. The Librarian of Congress has exempted libraries from the DMCA - but for preservation purposes only. If I recall correctly, the rule is that the item in question must be scarce enough that it cannot be replaced by practical means (i.e. purchasing another on the open market, getting a copy from another library). If this applies to you, this might work - and might shield you from legal liability. If you need a library to work with, you might contact Stanford University or the library at the University of Texas at Austin. Good luck!

...if any of your students think they've seen an alien spacecraft, *do not dismiss their findings.* Alien invasions are usually discovered by amateur astronomers and schoolchildren, but nobody believes them until it's too late and the aliens are already destroying major landmarks and slaughtering puny humans.

And some of 'em are real winners, too - which rules out the whole "filtering" argument. Por ejemplo: "Can I quit my job now?? I want the gov't. to take care of me! I just want to sit around and go fishing!!" "Have you considered outlawing all forms of regulation for health insurance companies in allof the lands that the USA government has under it's jurisdiction?" "To what extent will alternative medicine be covered?" There were some other real winners too, but I can't find them now - maybe they were deleted. One really special one went to the effect that we have to stop sodomy and baby-killing before anything else. (Their words, not mine.)

I thought I was going to have to offer this correction. You beat me to it. Someone please mod Curien's comment up!

As per TFA, this is nothing new - they had specs for XP and Vista, too. It would be nice to see some genuine competition for MS in this emerging market - i.e. Apple.