At work they bought us each two of the HP LA2405x, which is 1920x1200. Looks like they're currently going for about $260 on Newegg. It's not bad, they get the job done and the resolution is definitely a plus. However, my fiance and I each bought ourselves an Asus PA248Q right after Christmas, and it is by far my favorite monitor. I think we paid just under $300, there was a good sale on them at Fry's. I really love the IPS even if it is just e-IPS, and the stand itself is very sturdy and easy to manipulate as well. I'll definitely be grabbing a second one when it's in the budget.

I second the nomination for Abstruse Goose, I'm surprised no one else has mentioned it yet. Another one of my regular favourites I haven't seen yet is Surviving the World.

This thread has been great for some new comics to read! As if I didn't have enough to keep me from doing actual work already.

Yeah, same with us... we're working on the Windows 7 rollout this month and next, but the real big push will be starting in February. I'd imagine someone somewhere is playing around with Windows 8, but given the current state of things I don't think we'd even have an image ready until the later part of this year at the earliest, let alone start rolling it out for anyone. We still have whole business units stuck on XP for old applications.

We have tons of these in my town as well, and it works fine for me because A - for roads with higher speed limits I can at least see one versus two digits left on the timer when I am far enough out for it to make a difference, and B - I'm extremely familiar with the intersections I drive on a daily basis and know the timing well. I've not noticed any issues at any of the intersections with people slowing down too early due to the timers. I'm sure there are plenty more people like me who know the roads well for whom the timers are a reasonable benefit, and I'm sure there are also plenty of people who don't pay attention to them in the slightest. Either way, the effect seems to be a net positive.

My polling place was packed when I passed by on the way to work with cars lined up in the street trying to get in around 8:20. Came back just after 3 this afternoon and it wasn't so bad - waited about 30-35 minutes in line. Two massage therapists in front of me were having an animated discussion about how the human body is not very well-adapted to walking upright on two legs.
Ballot itself was very short, much shorter than the off-cycle one earlier this year. Besides the presidential candidates, there were maybe 4-5 various local positions. I wrote in the names of my kitties for a couple where the jackasses were running uncontested.
The polling place itself was pretty calm - it's a city community center. There were no signs, ads, or propaganda outside the building. To get from work to my polling place, I actually passed a church that serves as another polling place, which was littered with campaign ads.
Overall a fairly uneventful experience, although I'd much prefer it that way. I was a little irked that Gary Johnson made the ballot but Jill Stein was just a write-in, but so it goes.

I'm sure I'm not the only Verizon user disappointed with the lack of a CDMA/4G LTE version. Especially if it was also offered at $300 unsubsidized, I'm sure there would be many people interested since it will allow users to retain any pre-existing unlimited data plans. Hopefully they have something in the works - I would really love for my next phone to be a Nexus device (especially given how much I'm enjoying my Nexus 7), but I'm not willing to change carriers and lose my current plan with discounts for it.

Interesting, I've been having the same problem with a Crucial M4 drive for a while now. To be honest I haven't even investigated since I stopped using it as my boot drive before the problem started happening, but I'll have to check and see if there is a firmware issue with it. I bought it when the drive was first released almost a year and a half ago, so I'm sure an update won't hurt. On a side note - the Crucial was not replaced for any failures on its part, I definitely liked it a lot (especially the speed!). I just needed more space, and my fiance gave me a lovely Intel 510 for Christmas :)

I've reinstalled my OEM copy of Win7 Pro probably 4 times now, and one of those was after a motherboard upgrade (and 2 of the others were hard drive swap outs). Also I believe my fiance reinstalled with my copy on his machine after he lost his copy. They really don't care.

Heh, there was an article in our local paper yesterday about how our local police and fire departments do this and are proud of it. Well, they don't ask for the credentials, they have you log into your account in front of them and then hand the machine over so they can browse around to their liking. They called it an "in-depth background check" or something like that, and touted the usual "it's for the children!" BS. They have implemented this practice for all potential new hires, and have also said they will begin doing it for all current employees as well in the next month or so. Sigh.

Man, even with airbags I still managed to tick off all the injuries on your list. Snapped my left forearm clear through both bones, head hit and cracked the windshield, 3 broken ribs, my femur punched through my pelvis from my knee hitting the dash, and plenty of skin scraped off my arms from the airbag deploying - it wasn't pretty. I took a sharp curve a little too fast in the rain and hydroplaned off the road into some trees. To be fair, the only thing I know the airbag was directly responsible for were the scrapes (which I still have the scars from 5 years later), but the doctor said it's likely that it played a role in my broken arm as well.