Bull shit. There are dozens of ways computers can be helpful without the need for educational games. My first introduction to programming was writing small perl programs to aid in understanding math homework better and getting it done quicker. After I got into this, one of my favorite pass-times quickly became solving problems on projecteuler.net, which led to a better understanding of programming and mathematical concepts.

In my opinion, it isn't the computer that is causing the poor school performance, but the application of the computer to perform worthless activities such as posting to Facebook, browsing Youtube, etc, for hours on end. Anything (television, talking on the phone, banging your head against a wall, etc) will cause poor school performance if it replaces study time with mindless nonsense.

Flash drives are very cheaply manufactured (and thus have low life expectancy) compared to SSD's, which are supposed to be of much higher quality.

Also, modern SSD's should last considerably longer than most modern mechanical hard drives.

I agree with you, though, and won't be investing much into SSD's until they have a more proven track record.

If you own one Prius and then actually want to buy a second, you have more severe problems than what to call the two cars.

Using primarily a browser is fine for home users, and even business users that have bought in to the "cloud" preachings, but I do not think it is a good idea to push everything on to the internet.

Privacy is one concern, but availability is my main concern. If you push everything to the web, how productive will you be if there is a network outage?

Original line, which was also used in previews/commercials, was: "OK, if I decide to do this, I'm gonna need an unlimited supply of Star Trek tapes, and Hot Pockets."

It was changed to "Xena" for the actual film.

I have used A2 Hosting for the past three years. Their service is very affordable and I am quite pleased with the quality they offer. I have never had to use their support services so I cannot give you an educated opinion of the support they offer, but their services are top notch.

If it took you an hour to reach a person from Microsoft's support center, you were either doing something terribly wrong or you have awful luck. Last time I had to call Microsoft to activate XP (mid December of 2009) it took about 10 minutes to navigate the call menu and get a person, and another 5-10 minutes to actually get XP activated. I have never had a Microsoft technician tell me, "there is nothing we can do." I am not calling you a liar, but that sounds fishy to me.

Regardless, owning a piece of software doesn't make it legal to pirate another copy. This is a warped sense of justice. If you buy a DVD player for $100 and get one year of use out of it before it breaks, it is not "ok" to go and steal another DVD player of the same make/model. Anyone that thinks that is fair should re-evaluate their views on right/wrong. If the DVD player was cheaply made, perhaps you should have done more research before shelling out the $100.

Or, learn a damned thing about those systems and only work one year for the rest of your life. :) Beats three months every year.

From reading the article, it would appear that this method can successfully block 100% of spam emails that are identified as spam. How many emails will get through while the data is gathered to determine which emails are spam...is inconvenient to this statistic so you should just ignore that for now.

The problem with your comparison of Janitors and IT works is visual. If the Janitors are all laid off, it is noticeable (trash cans overflow, dust begins to settle, glass becomes smudgy, etc), whereas if the IT department is laid off, much of their work may go unnoticed immediately. People tend to ignore IT until something breaks.

Yeah, this will work. Money well spent gentlemen.

From McDonald's "Value Menu" you can order the following separately:

Medium drink - $1.00 (+ tax)
Double cheese burger - $1.20 (+ tax)
Small fries - $1.00 (+ tax)


You can order a "double cheese burger" combo meal for $2.79 (+ tax) which includes all of the above.

If you order the combo meal but do not want fries, do you really expect to receive a full $1.00 off? No, because the $2.79 price is discounted since it is part of a combo meal, even if the individual parts separately would cost more than $2.79. In this example, if you did not want fries, it would be cheaper to buy the drink + double cheese burger separately instead of purchasing the combo meal and excluding the fries.

The main problem with my analogy is while it is simple to buy a drink + cheeseburger separately, it is not as easy to buy computer parts without an OS. Desktops are highly customizable, but laptops/portables/etc are difficult to find in either barebones, diy kits, or individual parts.

Which is exactly what you sign when you lease a car. :)

You do not "own" proprietary software; you license it.

If I buy a Ford, I can't start throwing SAAB suspension parts and Volkswagon exchaust with a Honda engine in it. Doesn't work like that.

That is a retarded statement. Something more accurate would be "spark plugs/oxygen sensors/etc I bought for my Ford won't work in my friend's SAAB."

Of course saying that is also retarded, since spark plugs/oxygen senros/etc are not brand-specific and you can buy them for some Fords that will work in some SAABs.

With a bit of mechanical knowledge, you could also equip a Ford with a VW exhaust if you wished. There is nothing in the paperwork you signed with Ford legally binding you from doing this with the vehicle you purchased. If you leased the vehicle, you would have signed a document preventing you from doing this.

Going back to the software world, this is really an argument about whether or not you own your licensed copy of a particular piece of software. If you own it, you should be able to do whatever you want. If you only own the right to use it, than you should follow certain regulations.

At the end of the day, though, computers!=automobiles, so these analogies only go so far.

That is why it is fun to walk around your office from time to time looking for passwords on post-it notes and arbitrarily change a few letters.

3's are easy to change to 8's, 1's to 4's, C/c's to O/o's, etc.

Pretty funny to watch a user pull their hair out when the password they wrote down isn't working. I've managed to scare a few people into not writing their password down this way.