I once used Civilization (3, perhaps?) as a supplement to teach sixth graders about the rise of civilizations. After talking a bit about how geography affected human development, just as tile placement affects what path you might take in the game, we came across an unprotected worker from another civilization in a square adjacent to our exploring warrior. To the question "Should be attack that worker or not? They're defenseless, and we have big clubs", several of the more vocal boys shouted "kill them!" All it took was a moment for me as the teacher to say, "Are you really willing to slaughter a person so easily? You're taking a human life. Are you really prepared to kill somebody's mother, father, or child?" Just thinking about what it represented for a second was enough to get a unanimous decision from the class to spare the worker's life, and several kids even offered help him with the farm he was building. I thought it was awesome.

Teachable moments are everywhere, and all it takes is somebody paying attention to make an "empathy-hindering" moment an empathy-teaching moment.

Forget half-joking/half-serious... I outright tell people that I will only provide tech support if they're using a Mac. Getting paid to fix PCs is one thing, but dealing with that frustration and idiocy of design for free is simply not going to happen.

From the time I bought my TiVo until two years or so ago, I didn't hesitate to tell people how much I loved my TiVo and the service that comes with it. The company really seems to be intent on alienating me as a customer now, though, and I'm getting fed up with it. I am sick of all the bloat. I'm sick of software updates which make my box less user friendly and more sluggish. I am pissed that every time I pause a show or go to the TiVo Central screen I'm forced to look at an advertisement. The whole frigging point of this service was to get away from that. As a stockholder too, I appreciate their desire to find other sources of income from their product, but pissing off your user base does not seem like a wise move, in my mind.

I could care less about Blockbuster streaming. Netflix too. I just want my TiVo service to work as well, and as unobtrusively, as it did when I first bought the damn thing.