For 95% of snowbirds this is how that'll go: Hi Kate, it's Jeff ,how are you? Oh thats good to hear. Well, I was wondering if you could get Hank to do me a favor when he gets back from bowling. Some little jerk off in Croatia or somewhere just hacked the thermostat in our house and whats $500 to turn the heat back on. I know, right! For Christ's sake get a job! Ha ha no, I'm sure Hellen isn't behind it but don't go giving her any ideas! Yeah so if Hank could run over to Murphy's and grab a cheepo thermostat to install that'd be awesome. Really, the Henderson's? Well, at least we're not the only ones. You don't say?! If Jenny has time by all means let her take a crack at it. If she can unlock it and keep it from happening again I'll gladly pay her the $500. No, No I insist. She's going to school and'll put it to better use than that little Yugoslavian prick. Well that sounds great then. Yup, just give me a call later. Bye.

Does the pony have rocket boosters and ion canons?

Yes yes a thousand times yes. The local "news" paper had an auto play ad on their website. You could mute the ad but not stop it and if you left the page open it would refresh after an hour and the ad would unmute. Nothing better than just drifting off to sleep only to have the computer start up with "INTRODUCING THE NEW FAMILY PLAN FROM BLA BLA WIRELESS!!!!"

Exactly. Its one thing if a boutique manufacturer like Tesla, or Koenigsegg wants to sell customer direct. It's a whole new game when GM or Toyota moves into a major metropolitan area, undercuts all the independent dealers, and drives them out of business.

As a fellow LEO, god speed my friend. Posting on /. in your professional capacity is a bit like being cross examined by a defense attorney who's spent his career in real-estate law.

A few more details would give you more credibly on this topic. If you were working 60 hour weeks during the summer waiting tables and working as a male escort during the year to pay tuition, yeah, your criticism is valid. (OK, your situation probably wasn't this extreme but you get the point.) However, if your grandmother left you a chunk of cash that covered tuition and all you had to cover was living expenses, you can STFU.

That and the highest rent in the nation. Unless you're living in company housing the cost of living in the Bakken is higher than NYC or San Francisco. And there's the fact that to have live IN North Dakota to work those jobs. The AMBIENT temp was -22F at my house last night. Yeah you'll make $80k-$100k a year, but you'll earn it.

Try thinking of it as a personal relationship. Microsoft was an ex that abused you for years. Until one day you've had enough and walk out. Now, years later you hear that Microsoft has changed. You hear through the grapevine that they're nothing like they use to be, and they'd like to have you back. But then you remember Terminal Server and how they hurt you. You think if they've truly changed, Microsoft could win you back but that won't happen over night. It took years for them to destroy the trust you had in them, it'll take years to earn it back.

The other thing is that Apple, Facebook, and Google rose to power because of a good product. Microsoft rose to power on a bunch of bad to middling products that they locked people into. Can anyone name an MS product from the 90s that was better than its competitors?

I was talking with a friend a while ago about the pending crime wave that will be hitting EV owners. Those charging cords have a lot of heavy duty copper wire in them. It's only a matter of time before your local neighborhood tweaker starts chopping them off so they can sell the copper to feed an addiction. That, and I have a feeling public EV charging stations will become vandalism targets like phone booths of yore.

Yeah, this is one of two things: A new cop looking to make a bust on ANYTHING or the EV owner has prior history with the Police department. I'd lean towards the former more than the latter. The fact the Officer got a warrant makes me think that his supervisors / coworkers goaded him into it. Reminds me of a tactic the NM State Police do to rookies in FTO. The training officer makes the rookie pull over a car going 1-2 mph over the limit and write them a ticket for it. The idea is to make the rookie deal with an irate person and defend an unconventional decision. Of course we in the snow belt have had this kind of problem for years with people plugging their block heaters into any available outlet. My coworker had a neighbor plugging his truck into her house because he didn't have a long enough extension cord to reach an outlet on his house. Of course she was able to handle it with a nasty note on his windshield.

In the modern American automotive market place it has become a minor sin to have your vehicle feel burdened. I had a friend that "had" to sell his 2007 Chevy 1/2 ton for a 3/4 ton because the half dozen times a year he pulled his boat and trailer the truck "strained". The boat and trailer combo was about 6000 lbs. I had to question him on it because I pulled his boat and trailer a few times with my 1997 Dodge 1/2 ton. I pointed out that my truck (with its less powerful engine, stock brakes, and decade old suspension) pulled it just fine as far as I was concerned. He was basicly upset that when he went to merge onto the highway the truck didn't accelerate like it did unloaded. I pointed out that while 6000 lbs was a substantial portion of his towing capacity it was nowhere near the limits of his truck and he should expect it affect the handling. But he was unswayed so back to the Chevy dealer he went and dropped several thousand dollars on a truck with a V8 turbo diesel. The thing that shocked me though was that among his peers in his upper middle class suburban neighbourhood, his decision was seen a perfectly sensible. They were shocked that he would even attempt to use a 1/2 ton to pull anything more substantial than a pair of jet skis.

Hi Pot, it's Kettle. Listen I've got something to tell you....

Yes, you never read about over bloated private companies here on Slashdot... It is easier for private companies to shed bloat (Hey, you. You don't work here any more, get the fuck out.) vs. government, mostly because government jobs generality require management to show cause to fire someone (Joe Jackoff is bad at his job and here is the documentation to prove it). Of course both never seem to fire the useless middle mangers when its time to drop the ax.

The problem I've always had with poligomy is the next of kin issue. In most cultures marriage trumps blood, RE: Terri Schiavo. So if I'm not of sound mind and I have four spouses, who has final say on what happens to me?