The worst part is that I was laughing at "long hours for no additional pay". Overtime for FTEs at a tech company..? Hilarious! :-P

Days of Thrunder!

I'm from the state of Oregon where the movie China Syndrome scared us into closing down our only nuclear power plant, increasing the cost of energy in the region. Yay... (I still wish the Trojan cooling tower had been deemed a landmark before they imploded it...)

One good point in here that nobody else seems to have talked about is the possibility that the kid himself is not intentionally cheating (the like actual cases of "OMG my brother installed cheats"). From my [limited] experience with autistics, if he's so focused at earning achievements, it's hard to believe that he would cheat to get them (though it's definitely a possibility still). However, if the cheats were already there, I doubt he would notice if the achievements were "too easy" to get (and would be honestly angry when they're taken away).

I'm not saying this is likely to be the case, I'm just surprised nobody else as mentioned it.

Star Trek actually has addressed the problem with subspace transponders (carried in ships) and subspace relays (dropped along during exploration and in a network in territorial space). So during normal operation and exploration, ships are broadcasting their positions to the network and other friendly ships (like a fleet-wide loopt app). If they lose contact with a ship, they then have to look at it from its last-known position.

In cases where the distance is too great, they actually don't have a solution, which has comes up at least several times. When Voyager was sent across the galaxy, it was in fine, working order, but nobody back home knew what had happened to it or where it was until they were able to find a method of communication (which ended up being a similar network of relays that someone else had set up).

I once moved into a new apartment and got a new phone line. While the phone number was new to me, it was by no means a new number. The previous customer with the number apparently owed a bit to collections. So every couple days they would call. Every couple days I would tell them I just got the phone line, had no idea who that was and to stop calling. They would say they didn't believe me and yell at me about what this guy owed. I would hang up and it would start over again on the next call. I didn't know about credit laws and such since I'd never needed to, so I just canceled the phone line since it wasn't really usable. I can only imagine what's going to happen with online profiles if we don't get people's rights represented properly...

Beware of the mighty Moon Worm...

Oh great. Now it's going to turn out some 10' tall blue people live in trees on Uranus and we have to kill them to get at the diamonds...

It's a good thing the entire reason I bought my PS3 was blueray. Otherwise I might be disapointed... again...

Ender's Game, made correctly, with all of its darkness, and a warning that those on anti-depressents may need to increase their dosage.

I know it's all perfectly safe and all, but it is kinda nice that Seattle and Switzerland are across the world from each other.

You obviously don't work in Seattle

Yeah... except... it kinda is about a work of art. While a woodgrain pattern is simple and not entirely that interesting, it's still a copyrighted image and protected the same way as a painting or a photograph.

Your speeding example is also apples-to-oranges. The key element is that a speeding isn't something done against someone else, it's just violating a code in a book. If I walked into your house and took your favorite pair of scissors, I have a feeling you'd be pissed. I mean, seriously, I didn't touch the TV or the computer, it's a just a stupid pair of scissors. What right do you have to be pissed off about it?

Pay apartment rent, cable, internet, car insurance, student loans, and utilities... or live in a cardboard box and be a cyborg...?

I'm in!

If that is the case, I'm definitely not most people here. I have both an iPhone and a C64, and would love to be programming C64 stuff on the iPhone. It just sounds like so much fun. I was sad to see that I missed downloading it before it got pulled :( (especially after finding out there's a way to hack it to use BASIC)

I think you're a little harsh on people here. There's a lot of nostalgia when it comes to the C64, even among those who eventually bought something that Apple made.