I wasn't bashing certifications, just putting some perspective out there for these specific programs. I carry the A+ Net + and Security + myself. Your statement about the state not letting you touch equipment without the cert backs up my point. It is the industry PERSPECTIVE on the certification that is important. The state you referenced felt that the strength of those certifications was strong enough to make that policy. That includes the consideration that they are "for life" certifications without a renewal cycle. The certifications themselves are still designed for people with around a year or less of experience in the related disciplines. It just does not make sense for a certification geared at that level to be renewable.

While I agree, the Comptia certs are typically looked on as entry level certifications. They're a starting board before moving down more useful certification tracks, the best of which do require continuing education. Turning the Comptia certs into a renewing structure seems rather silly. Who would bother renewing them in the midst of the constant cycle of the more advanced certification. Let's look at the initial move by Comptia for what it really is... a grab for money. Comptia should leave the A + Net+ and Sec + alone and push advanced follow up tracks that DO require renewal and continuing education. It'd be a lot easier to earn professional respect for newer specialized certs meeting those conditions than to change the community view (whether good or bad) of the + certs. After all, "certifications" are more often about perspective and appearance than actual education.

Why are video games exclusively targeted in this? Yes, they create a pretty attractive form of indoor entertainment but the problem here isn't video games. It's the people playing them or in the case of children, THEIR PARENTS. Send the kids outside. Heck, a good video game will make a lot of kids WANT to go play outside...if only so they can emulate their favorite fictional hero of the day. The same case could be made for television, really great sex, or pretty much anything else that makes staying inside an attractive option. Give the sensationalism a rest. And if you're doing this to yourself as an adult and not climbing out of the basement bat-cave and seeing the light of day once in awhile...well then you're making a choice about your health and lifestyle. Last I recalled, being an adult involved making choices like that.

Isn't security always a balancing act against usability? The inconvenience of not being able to read a password as you type seems pretty minimal when weighed against the damage that could be caused when some mildly educated user I pissed off swipes my password by taking a look over my shoulder one day and decides to get even. And I'm pretty sure you could just as easily lose a client whose accounts were so easily compromised...as well as rack up some pretty epic fines in civil litigation if the circumstances are right. Don't we have more important security issues to be debating these days?

I disagree with the argument that Win 7 is "just a slightly better version of Vista". The implementation of PowerShell V2 and it's ease of use over WinRM are in and of themselves worthy of consideration from an administrative standpoint. Hell, Win 7 would be rather worthwhile to deploy just as a vessel for putting PowerShell on every machine and making my life as an admin a hell of a lot easier. The significantly reduced hardware footprint is pretty nice from a business perspective and some of the downplayed features like the Problem Steps Recorder could prove to be really useful. It's cheaper than Vista and, based on what I've gotten to play with in the Beta and RC 1, I don't think the price point is entirely unreasonable. We can joke about how they should be practically begging us to pick it up after Vista, etc etc. and anything more than "free as in beer" would have incurred some complaining but let's be realistic here. That being said, I'll still be using OS X at home. ;)

But....Jack Bauer...my other fictional moral compass says that "Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering." I'm so confused!

Telecos are still an evil forced on us by lack of choice. They still have a stranglehold on our wallets. This sort of thing is far from surprising and, let's be realistic here, it's another opportunity to squeeze money out of a popular market. People like to throw stones at the agitated Iphone crowd "If you don't like it don't buy it." "It sucks that you can't upgrade. Welcome to the world of cell phones..har har har" but shouldn't we look at this as a chance to bring the increasingly shitty business practices in this market to light? Few things cause more publicity than the public outrage that ensues when mainstream users of a wildly popular new gadget are being bent over and given the sandpaper rectal treatment. Hell, when RIM has an outage it's all over the news. Yeah, we all have to deal with shitastic contracts and abusive price gouging by cellular companies. Everyone knows it. However the opportunity to have a whole lot of people come together and go "enough is enough" doesn't come around all that often. I read about increasingly shady practices from ISPs and Telcos on a regular basis (especially on /.) Maybe we should be helping to turn Iphone whiners into a rallying cry that we're tired of being pushed around as consumers. Just my thoughts on the whole thing. Before it comes up... No I don't have an Iphone.

I second this and the five day waiting period and subsequent background check I had to go through just to buy my Gundam was ridiculous!

"Pleassssse ssstate the nature of the medical emergency."

The real answer is that they've been trying to communicate with us for years but RIAA, fearing they might play music for us has already had their ISPs throttle their messages into oblivion.

Source here? The only correlation between caffeine and parkinson I ever heard about was supposedly preventative.

Comparing the censorship of one man's opinion to him yelling "fire" in a crowded theater is a clear logical fallacy that stretches, way out of proportion, the statement he's trying to make. Also, great work attacking his analogy but you've said nothing pertinent to the fact that he's taking offense to what is seen as a permitted assault on his civil liberties. If you're going to argue with his opinion, at least make it a competent argument.

I, for one, welcome our new Deutsch overlords.