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Rather than one big light (no matter how well targeted), consider a bunch of smaller lights all the way along the path.

There are various ranges available, most are solar powered LED, some have motion sensors built in. Here are some examples I found on Amazon

Mini "lamp-post style"

Motion sensitive, solar powered. Bigger, and you wouldn't need so many

Illuminated road/pathway studs. They look like cats-eye road studs, and would illuminate the edge of the path.

There are others that might be more appropriate for your pathway.

Hope that helps.

Rather than one big light (no matter how well targeted), consider a bunch of smaller lights all the way along the path.

There are various ranges available, most are solar powered LED, some have motion sensors built in. Here are some examples I found on Amazon

Mini "lamp-post style"

Motion sensitive, solar powered. Bigger, and you wouldn't need so many

Illuminated road/pathway studs. They look like cats-eye road studs, and would illuminate the edge of the path.

There are others that might be more appropriate for your pathway.

Hope that helps.

Rather than one big light (no matter how well targeted), consider a bunch of smaller lights all the way along the path.

There are various ranges available, most are solar powered LED, some have motion sensors built in. Here are some examples I found on Amazon

Mini "lamp-post style"

Motion sensitive, solar powered. Bigger, and you wouldn't need so many

Illuminated road/pathway studs. They look like cats-eye road studs, and would illuminate the edge of the path.

There are others that might be more appropriate for your pathway.

Hope that helps.

Why not try using Claymore mines: http://www.amazon.com/Airsoft-Claymore-Wireless-Remote-Spring/dp/B0037MH646 ?

They scare the living Bejesus out of wiggin' meth-heads.

I need floodlights to keep the scavengers (as in metal recyclers) from coming into my yard to steal my table and chairs

But the lights don't need to be on all the time. Use motion sensors to trigger the lights. The "startle effect" when they come on makes them a better deterrent than always-on lights. Also, install a few of these fake cameras. I put several around my house. They look very realistic, and have blinking LEDs to make them more noticeable, but are a tiny fraction of the price of a real camera. Put up a "beware of dog" sign, whether you have a dog or not. Get a pair of used, and well worn, size 14 work boots, and leave them on the porch.

Try one of these, they are great for this kind of stuff.

http://www.amazon.com/Energizer-Industrial-Headlight-Batteries-Included/dp/B00352O79U

I may look a tool wearing one, but since discovering it, i'll never turn back to handheld torches for poking around the garden.

The energizer headlamp is also great in that it has spot, flood, spot & flood, and red light settings. So it's got you covered no matter what you're doing.

I use mine all over the place; plus it'll entertain the kids for hours....

Don't worry old Hairy has you covered, here you go friend. With this it doesn't matter where your wife is she'll be able to see, indoors, outdoors, no matter where she goes she'll have the path in front of her illuminated.

I use led safety glasses which are a lot less dorky looking and work pretty well.

Try one of these, they are great for this kind of stuff.

http://www.amazon.com/Energizer-Industrial-Headlight-Batteries-Included/dp/B00352O79U

I may look a tool wearing one, but since discovering it, i'll never turn back to handheld torches for poking around the garden.

The user experience for any of these solutions is awful, even if you pick up a dedicated USB monitor. Here's a snip from the winner of the latest MakeUseOf roundup:

Video and general usage is very laggy, though subjectively didn't feel as bad as Mini-Display. You can even draw directly into Photoshop, smoothly but albeit with a noticeable second delay between touching and having the line appear

There are portable monitors like this one that offer an actual video connection. Emulation will never work for serious usage or even watching youtube, and the existing iPad doesn't have a way to communicate other than USB or WiFi, so it's boned either way.

If Apple ever offers an iPad with a Thunderbolt connector, that's a different story.

The problem with Hollywood films right now can be summed up by they're killing the cat in an attempt to save it. What do I mean?

There's a popular screenwriting book called Save The Cat - The Last Screenwriting Book You'll Ever Need that sets a page by page forumla for events within a typical movie. Things like, an opening image, setting the theme, introducing the hero, start of a B plot at the beginning of Act II, cross points for A and B plots, the great False Defeat, leading up to a Crisis of Self Confidence, and then the Big Payoff.

Blah blah blah blah.

Slate has a good article on how this book as turned movies into showdown of formulaic familiarity.

It's not like the forumla is bad, per se. But if every film had been made this way we'd never have classics like Bridge Over The River Kwai, Laurence of Arabia, 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Godfather, Apocalypse Now, yada yada yada. Because the formula is limited. At its heart, it harkens back to Campbell's Hero With a Thousand Faces thesis (which every /. nerd into Star Wars should have heard about). A fine way to tell the Great Hero story, but terrible for deep character studies. And that's what's missing in Hollywood film and why good television like The Sopranos, The Wire, Game of Thrones and Mad Men have become so popular (and let's not forget the first few seasons of Battlestar Galactica, which were fantastic).

In fact, George R. R. Martin's entire Song of Ice and Fire series eschews the whole Great Hero narrative and offers flawed characters with conflicting motivations told from multiple points of view, and - sorry to bring this word in on a tech site but... - that's why it's art. Which is also why Transformers isn't.

A lot of people have been discussing issues with the blockbuster cycle and financing, and that's all part of it too. But there is a serious dearth of experimental writing involved too. The whole Hollywood system is screwed up. But let's at least Thank God for HBO and other cable network financing of long form multi-episodic storytelling.

Canonical has bullshitted too much in the past to be taken seriously about this. Several times, they've announced that new products from major vendors (Asus, Dell) would run their version of Linux. Never happened. They need to STFU until the product ships.

Who is voting up this dumbass?

http://en.community.dell.com/techcenter/os-applications/w/wiki/3685.dell-xps-13-laptop-developer-edition-a-client-to-cloud-solution-project-sputnik.aspx
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B009F1I16K/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B009F1I16K&linkCode=as2&tag=wwwcanoniccom-20#productDetails

I have a program from the mid 90's that I got from a book about VRML http://www.amazon.com/Teach-Yourself-Vrml-Days-Sams/dp/1575211939 which would turn say buildings in photos into 3d objects. I think it was only a demo so never really tired it out to see if it worked.

Hard to decide whether to use mod points or reply. Glad to see someone mentioning Joe Campbell-- I was thinking about him recently as I just finished William Shakespeare's Star Wars . In the author's afterword the Campbell is acknowledged as the link (Campbell studied Shakespeare, Lucas Studied Campbell) between these archetypal formulas. People aren't looking for "high art", only "Myths to Live By" (another Campbell title).

I didn't use OpenCL (helas, both two courses are CUDA-directed), but compared some examples, written in CUDA and OpenCL, as given in http://www.amazon.com/Programming-Massively-Parallel-Processors-Hands/dp/0123814723/ref=pd_sim_b_3 (written by one of the instructors of Coursera HPP). My conclusion was that CUDA is more "friendly" - but indeed it is Nvidia's proprietary technology.

Since then I had no more time to explore OpenCL and other alternatives (some are proprietary and I don't intend to buy...). Eventually I would agree with you and would choose OpenCL if I was doing professional work, but that hasn't happened yet...

Final word: CUDA is now in its 5.X incarnation, and AFAIK it kept improving its user-usability with the release of recent versions...

Record Company Required Metadata:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?ie=UTF8&nodeId=200422000

Amazon inserts watermarks when asked to.
I have no problems with watermarking. I do have problems with DRM.

I strongly believe special traits can be developed, including spacial ability. If you believe Geoff Calvin, there's no such thing as talent or innate ability.

Well, I don't believe Geoff Colvin. It's a combination of innate ability and drive, for the people lucky enough to live in that region of Maslow's hierarchy. And I suspect that drive is at least partially innate, too.

I mean, without technological cheating, a blind person is never going to be an expert race car driver. A severely autistic individual is never going to be a great salesman. Though pitch identification can be trained, perfect pitch seems to be independent of musical ability. (Perfect pitch can sometimes be a hindrance, as most musicians are not bothered by different tuning systems or transposition.)

Colvin says great performance requires motivation, driven by passion, and he says the passion is trained. I think he's playing games with semantics. Since passion originates in our biological brains, it's subject to the same rules as any other biological ability. I suspect that to be really great requires a certain degree of insanity, actually, to get through all the setbacks.

I'm not saying he's wrong in the broad sense. Talent is overrated, and you need good practice to develop your abilities. But you need abilities to develop, and those abilities are not evenly distributed.

If you are interested in this, here's a very interesting podcast interview on the good and bad of the pills we take and the suppliments industry by an epidemiologist:

http://podcast.radionz.co.nz/sat/sat-20120421-0908-david_b_agus_the_end_of_illness-00.ogg

It's well worth the listen. (no, he's not a quack with a silver bullet solution)

book form + reviews:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Illness-M-D-David-Agus/dp/145161019X

Oddly, I *did* dismantle the family refrigerator when I was 12.

The parents were away, and the thing stopped working. This was an older units with a separate compressor and motor - a big belted wheel that turned a pulley on the side of the compressor.

I took off the front panel. pulled out the frame containing the motor and compressor, and discovered the relay wasn't working. I unplugged it, cleaned/sandpapered the contacts, and put it all back before the parents got home (and told them what happened).

I also did the clock thing. I modified a mantel clock to a) not ring the hour, and b) start ringing at 2:00 AM and not stop. I hid it under my sister's bed on her wedding night.

I strongly believe special traits can be developed, including spacial ability. If you believe Geoff Calvin, there's no such thing as talent or innate ability. Everyone who is identified as an expert in their field (Mozart, Tiger Woods, Jerry Rice &c) had put in enormous amounts of practice before becoming expert. For instance, Mozart was composing at age 4, but didn't write anything particularly good until his twenties (IIRC - may have gotten the ages wrong).

Feynman, for example, believed that geniuses are common, but due to lack of education, lack of encouragement, poor education, or lack of leisure time they have no chance to blossom. (Meaning: genius-level people are too busy with a job and family to really sit down and create things.)

The literature and current studies indicate that, barring physical deformity, anyone can become an expert in just about anything. They only have to practice long enough and hard enough.

FYI, Seiki also has a 39" version of their 4K monitor/tv for only $700 MSRP. It is limited to 30Hz at 4K but will do faster at lower resolutions. You might even be able to convince it to do passive 3D, I haven't paid close attention to the people hacking at that on the 50" version.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DOPGO2G/

Everybody poops.

I went looking for the older reviews on Amazon, and while they were generally positive, it looks like this 'experiment' lasted a month and a half or so. If it were a year or more, that would seem like an experiment. A month and a half seems like a publicity stunt. The reviews there seem to indicate that everybody knew it was a pseudonym and suspected the author had significant publisher backing, so it's hard to even call it a fair experiment in the first place.

where he didn't have access, and took books which the library had which could only be checked out under strict controls

Bullsh*t. You're just making it up. Swartz was a research fellow at a university with a JSTOR account. That mean he had legal access to them.

Say, you're not part of Idiot America are you?

A Man Called Intrepid

Ian Flemming worked for William Stephenson and had this to say, "James Bond is a highly romanticized version of a true spy. The real thing is William Stephenson."

Cheers,
Dave

There is an entire book exploring this
Nothing to Hide: The False Tradeoff between Privacy and Security - by Daniel J. Solove
"Daniel J. Solove is the John Marshall Harlan Research Professor of Law at the George Washington University Law School and an internationally-known expert in privacy law."
http://www.amazon.com/Nothing-Hide-Tradeoff-between-Security/dp/0300172338

Arm yourself with arguments to refute enthusiastic or apathetic proponents of the surveillance state.

I was much more surprised to read, in an out-of-print '80s novel written by a lesser-known SF author, about drone operators remotely carrying out surgical strikes halfway across the planet, all while being denied any credit or commendation because the traditional military community doesn't consider them "pilots."

Why are so many insistent on free exchange of copyrighted material? Content creators don't like the idea, they'd like to earn a living. Publishers hate it even more, they want monopolies to extract every bit of value from their 'properties' as possible. The only people who like it are consumers who must go through the walled gardens publishers have set up. And therein lies the problem, publishers seek to extract perpetual rents, coddling a slim number of creators while sucking up value created for free by the general populace.

Jaron Lanier recently came out with a book, Who Owns the Future?, where he argues that digital networking has had a decimating effect on the middle classes of the world. In this Nieman Journalism Lab interview at the Harvard School for Journalism, Lanier outlines a micropayment solution whereby the general public would be paid back for information collection and content creation directly in a distributed manner, thereby cutting out the centralized collection and distribution points that content monopolies have created.

The point is that people are doing a tremendous amount of work for free all across the 'net, often in ways that don't resemble pure craft work yet represent tremendous value for large companies like Google, Microsoft, Sony, Facebook, and the other big players. Yet those companies want every cent in perpetual rent for the work they perform in creating and distributing their goods. He is not arguing 'income inequality' in the sense of wealth redistribution - say, using government taxation to collect revenue and provide welfare payments to an underclass - but instead to distribute payments to every value add created.

For example, were you to translate a document from one language to the next, and google uses it as part of for statistical analysis in their language translation engine, then every time your work is referenced you should get paid for that effort. If you use a camera to document and tag a new pothole in the street, and Google Streetview uses that as part of a pothole map, you should be paid for that effort every time this is referenced (until the data becomes defuncts). This is similar to copyright in that for content creators, many of whom craft and distribute work for free instead of receiving payment for the work.

It's as if whole populations have decided that because content monopolies are taking all the work out on the net for free they can get to monetize, while demanding enforcement of intellectual property rights in an unequal exchange, that people are justified in taking what they want for free. Yet even if this were the case, the trade is still pretty bad for the people doing so much free work. You can't eat a pirated song or movie. And yet every step we take on the internet is used by the big players to aggregate vast wealth at our expense.

I can see some problems with Lanier's approach. For example, he's like to do away with monopolies and move to a distributed payment system. Yet how is one to handle those payments without a banking monopoly? Bitcoin? How do governments tax those transactions? (Yes, I know many people would prefer they didn't - but that doesn't mean such a system is viable given political realities). How do governments control and track criminal trade? (Yes, I know many people would prefer they didn't - but that doesn't mean such a system is viable given law enforcement realities).

Still, I think Lanier has put his finger on the central problem of inequality between people and these companies. It's not income inequality per se, but that the system provides no payment for value add to the vast majority of people while at the same time monetizing that very value to sell back to us. All while IT systems automate labor that used to be paid work, and companies outsource across national lines to the lowest bidder. People ar

The Dead Hand, as you describe, was a semi-automatic system to protect against a decapitation first strike by the US. Basically, there was a NORAD-like bunker buried in a mountain with a hotline to the Kremlin, from which their nuclear launches were managed. Normally a nuclear launch would require separate authorizations from the head of state and a senior military commander. But if the line to the Kremlin went dead, and a network of seismic sensors detected events characteristic of nuclear detonations, control would be devolved to the bunker. To work around even a total communications disruption, they could then launch a set of rockets which would cruise over the USSR broadcasting a signal to all the surviving missile silos which they would interpret as a signal to launch.

If you're interested, read the book. It's fascinating.

and have fun while protecting yourself from evil bites: http://www.amazon.com/Executioner-Swat-Mosquito-Swatter-Zapper/dp/B000MU2MJA/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1373990707&sr=8-1&keywords=zap+racket If you do get bitten, try the hot spoon technique for getting rid of the itch. http://lifehacker.com/use-a-hot-spoon-to-instantly-relieve-itchy-bug-bites-615912899

That has been an easily solved problem for a long time. There are these large hardened metal boxes that have very durable complex locking mechanisms that are sometimes lined with fire brick or refractory brick just put your guns in there. If one of those is too expensive there are always inexpensive locks that can be used but aren't as effective but still work. Also keeping loaded firearms around seems like a really stupid idea especially if you have children.

Glad to see somebody else put their money where their mouth is and support market competition over market rigging. I was a big Intel chip user until the bribery and ICC scandals came out and since then I've not bought a single Intel chip at the shop and even my family and I are 100% AMD, 4 desktops, a laptop, and a notebook and they ALL run great.

The thing most folks just don't seem to realize is how much better the bang for the buck is on AMD, you can pick up a 1035T or 1045T for around $100, quads for less than $80 and I've been picking up Athlon triples for less than $55 a pop and I'm seeing more than 70% unlock rates, you just can't beat that. Even when you can't unlock the BFTB you get out of these chips is just nuts, my youngest is blasting through Borderlands II as i type this on a 3.3GHz Athlon triple and it just flies, the whole system with Win 7 HP, 4GB of RAM, 640GB HDD and an HD4850? $350 after rebates.

So be sure to do as I do and point out when anybody brings up benchmarks that Intel is rigging them and point them to places like Tigerdirect and show them how truly insanely cheap they can get a system just by going AMD. Oh and FYI but if you know somebody that just surfs, does office work, or needs a REAL cheap HTPC? Look at the AMD E350 boards at Amazon and Tiger, you can get 'em as low as $75 and with a PCI to IDE card and a 4GB RAM stick you can have a REALLY cheap upgrade for an older system or a great start for an HTPC, although I use the version with a PCI-E X16 slot on the HTPC builds. I have been using these to replace the aging P4s in SMBs and it gives you a pretty nice upgrade, dual cores and a GPU that does 1080P and for the icing on the cake the whole system uses less power under load than the P4 does at idle, just 19w for the whole board.

I was impressed enough with the performance i sold my full size laptop for an E350 EEE netbook and after 3 years it still gets over 4 hours on the battery, does 1080P over HDMI so when I'm not using it as a portable it can do double duty as an HTPC, oh and unlike those Atom and Celeron based netbooks my baby has a full 8GB of RAM which not only gives me a full GB on the graphics but thanks to superfetch once I boot up ALL my applications are preloaded into memory thus allowing the HDD to stay parked and save power. So if you haven't looked at 'em give one a spin, they are pretty damned sweet.

revelations were made that we target Germany for spying. It only makes sense if you look at the size of the economies.

Read a book. Or just remember 9/11 when the terrorists came by way of Germany. I'm not saying the NSA doesn't commit economic espionage too, but the terrorists are really out there.

For an interesting take on why the telegraph led in part to the modern computer and how both work, read Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software" by Charles Petzold. He argues all the ideas needed to build a modern computer were known around the time telegraph use took off, and he uses those ideas to describe logic gates and put them together into a working computer.

In short, the relay was invented in 1835 as a way to extend telegraph runs further without requiring operators. Morse code, as the primary way to communicate, happened to also be a binary code that mapped letters to the equivalent of ones and zeros, dots and dashes. In 1854, George Boole published “An Investigation of the Laws of Thought”. Petzold stops there and essentially uses only those ideas to build his modern computer. It wasn’t recognized formally by anyone until 1937 when Claude Shannon published “A Symbolic Analysis of Relay and Switching Circuits”. Even Charles Babbage had known of Boole’s work and the telegraph but did not see how it could have been better used to build his Difference Engine.

You might want to invest in a newer router anyway.

The thing that limits the old GL's aside from their pathetic RAM and flash space is that they simply don't have enough CPU power. NAT work on the number of connections today's computers and applications require is a lot of work for that aged ~200 MHz CPU. While it speeds up web browsing of course, it's more noticeable when you do more things. As my friend put it when I talked him into upgrading his router from a WRT54G v8 to a $50 dual band TP-Link unit, "I was gaming on my XBox for about an hour, and I came upstairs to find out that my wife had been watching Hulu the entire time. I had no idea..."

They'd never been able to do that before without his game lagging constantly. It wasn't a bandwidth thing either. They have 6 Mb/s DSL.

I recommend this model for the features. It'll run DD-WRT---you might want that too to ensure you have CoDeL support---but the stock firmware works great and has most of the same features.

Here's a screenshot of DD-WRT's system status on the unit. I'm convinced that the version I'm running isn't quite stable.... hence the high load. It's also serving as an AP for me instead of doing NAT work. My NAT is done by a similarly-spec'ed device, a D-Link DIR-825, runs much better and costs about the same, but it only does 300Mbps on the 5 GHz interface. The D-Link might be a better candidate for DD-WRT if you're dead set on using it.

You might want to invest in a newer router anyway.

The thing that limits the old GL's aside from their pathetic RAM and flash space is that they simply don't have enough CPU power. NAT work on the number of connections today's computers and applications require is a lot of work for that aged ~200 MHz CPU. While it speeds up web browsing of course, it's more noticeable when you do more things. As my friend put it when I talked him into upgrading his router from a WRT54G v8 to a $50 dual band TP-Link unit, "I was gaming on my XBox for about an hour, and I came upstairs to find out that my wife had been watching Hulu the entire time. I had no idea..."

They'd never been able to do that before without his game lagging constantly. It wasn't a bandwidth thing either. They have 6 Mb/s DSL.

I recommend this model for the features. It'll run DD-WRT---you might want that too to ensure you have CoDeL support---but the stock firmware works great and has most of the same features.

Here's a screenshot of DD-WRT's system status on the unit. I'm convinced that the version I'm running isn't quite stable.... hence the high load. It's also serving as an AP for me instead of doing NAT work. My NAT is done by a similarly-spec'ed device, a D-Link DIR-825, runs much better and costs about the same, but it only does 300Mbps on the 5 GHz interface. The D-Link might be a better candidate for DD-WRT if you're dead set on using it.

You might want to invest in a newer router anyway.

The thing that limits the old GL's aside from their pathetic RAM and flash space is that they simply don't have enough CPU power. NAT work on the number of connections today's computers and applications require is a lot of work for that aged ~200 MHz CPU. While it speeds up web browsing of course, it's more noticeable when you do more things. As my friend put it when I talked him into upgrading his router from a WRT54G v8 to a $50 dual band TP-Link unit, "I was gaming on my XBox for about an hour, and I came upstairs to find out that my wife had been watching Hulu the entire time. I had no idea..."

They'd never been able to do that before without his game lagging constantly. It wasn't a bandwidth thing either. They have 6 Mb/s DSL.

I recommend this model for the features. It'll run DD-WRT---you might want that too to ensure you have CoDeL support---but the stock firmware works great and has most of the same features.

Here's a screenshot of DD-WRT's system status on the unit. I'm convinced that the version I'm running isn't quite stable.... hence the high load. It's also serving as an AP for me instead of doing NAT work. My NAT is done by a similarly-spec'ed device, a D-Link DIR-825, runs much better and costs about the same, but it only does 300Mbps on the 5 GHz interface. The D-Link might be a better candidate for DD-WRT if you're dead set on using it.

Both for false positives and ineffective treatments: http://www.drmcdougall.com/misc/2005nl/july/050700physical.htm
" The annual physical exam is an intensive, well-orchestrated, experience designed to make apparently well people, sick (with good intentions). You walk into the doctor's office as George or Francine and you leave as a breast cancer, prostate cancer or heart-disease victim. The initial exams commonly lead to more tests â" some of which are painful, disfiguring, and dangerous, such as mammograms, breast/prostate biopsies, colonoscopies, and angiograms. Ultimately, the costs of all this meddling can make you homeless and take away your life savings.
    The annual physical is supposed to be a means of prolonging your life â" and it could have been, except for the fact that the treatments that follow the initial exam are at best useless, and at worst, dangerous. Let me give you two fundamental reasons why the annual physical is doomed to failure, and because of lack of real life benefits all major health organizations have recommended against it: ...
The goal of every patient should be to remain out of the health care system. This is accomplished by staying healthy. This highly desirable state is not simply a matter of good luck, but rather a result of your behaviors; more specifically, following a low fat, plant-food based diet, getting moderate exercise and having clean habits. ..."

However, note that such advice is also in the context of teaching people how to avoid most disease through better nutrition.
"3 Biggest Mistakes People Make in Their Diets - Dr. John McDougall"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OF7Uanr-lYA

See also on why we don't change because we're invested in a belief system (cognitive dissonance):
"Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts"
http://www.amazon.com/Mistakes-Were-Made-But-Not/dp/0151010986

At that income you can afford to own your own house. Not a huge one, but plenty of space.

I've never been able to afford to buy a house, despite several years of an apparently "upper middle class income". For one thing, my employment isn't stable enough, despite having a BS in Computer Science and being very, very good at what I do.

You can afford to have a car that is nice, and in good working order, you don't have to fight with a junker.

My cars are 21 and 26 years old. They're in good working order because I've paid through the nose to keep them maintained.

You can have all the appliances of modern life: dishwasher, fridge, washer/dryer, A/C, stove, etc, etc.

I bought the fridge ~10 years ago on a payment plan. I bought the washer/dryer used from an appliance-repair shop. Everything else in your list came with the (rental) house.

You can get more food than you can or should eat, even if you eat out semi-regularly.

I cook most of my own food, to keep costs down. I buy 50 pound bags of pinto beans for $30. I make a lot of meatloaf and chili.

You can have entertainment, like a bigscreen TV, surround sound, modern computer, broadband Internet, etc.

My widescreen TV is 6 years old, and my newest computer is 7 years old. I have a surround-sound system, but it doesn't fit in my current house.

You have enough money you can afford to put some in savings, to deal with unexpected events and not be thrown into debt by them.

That's all I seem to save up for — periods of unemployment. Retirement is an impossible dream.

I want for nothing, I have an exceedingly good standard of living on a global scale and I am very, very grateful for it.

You won't have it for long. The federal government is bankrupt several times over, and the federal bank is now inventing money out of thin air (not even printing it...it just changes a number in a computer), giving the money away at 0% interest to prop up the stock market, and buying government debt with the money it just created out of thin air. This is not sustainable. The only reason the U.S. gets away with this is that Europe is presently in worse shape.

Do "the 1%" have it better than me? Sure, but I am not "fighting [for] scraps".

I apply for job after job, several of which I match perfectly, and hear nothing back. The book Why Good People Can't Get Jobs provided some catharsis — at least I don't have to feel so paranoid and cynical — but it doesn't actually help to know any of this. I sure feel like I'm fighting for scraps.

Someone once said they'd rather be lucky than smart. Amen to that.

Obviously your not VERY good at what you do - your obviously a flunky since you can't hold a job with a BS CS since that is one of the most desired skill sets in demand today. I have a BS CS and have never been unemployed since I graduated in 1983. Get a job work hard, go the extra mile, give 110%, study, study, study, and you'll never be out of work again.

At that income you can afford to own your own house. Not a huge one, but plenty of space.

I've never been able to afford to buy a house, despite several years of an apparently "upper middle class income". For one thing, my employment isn't stable enough, despite having a BS in Computer Science and being very, very good at what I do.

You can afford to have a car that is nice, and in good working order, you don't have to fight with a junker.

My cars are 21 and 26 years old. They're in good working order because I've paid through the nose to keep them maintained.

You can have all the appliances of modern life: dishwasher, fridge, washer/dryer, A/C, stove, etc, etc.

I bought the fridge ~10 years ago on a payment plan. I bought the washer/dryer used from an appliance-repair shop. Everything else in your list came with the (rental) house.

You can get more food than you can or should eat, even if you eat out semi-regularly.

I cook most of my own food, to keep costs down. I buy 50 pound bags of pinto beans for $30. I make a lot of meatloaf and chili.

You can have entertainment, like a bigscreen TV, surround sound, modern computer, broadband Internet, etc.

My widescreen TV is 6 years old, and my newest computer is 7 years old. I have a surround-sound system, but it doesn't fit in my current house.

You have enough money you can afford to put some in savings, to deal with unexpected events and not be thrown into debt by them.

That's all I seem to save up for — periods of unemployment. Retirement is an impossible dream.

I want for nothing, I have an exceedingly good standard of living on a global scale and I am very, very grateful for it.

You won't have it for long. The federal government is bankrupt several times over, and the federal bank is now inventing money out of thin air (not even printing it...it just changes a number in a computer), giving the money away at 0% interest to prop up the stock market, and buying government debt with the money it just created out of thin air. This is not sustainable. The only reason the U.S. gets away with this is that Europe is presently in worse shape.

Do "the 1%" have it better than me? Sure, but I am not "fighting [for] scraps".

I apply for job after job, several of which I match perfectly, and hear nothing back. The book Why Good People Can't Get Jobs provided some catharsis — at least I don't have to feel so paranoid and cynical — but it doesn't actually help to know any of this. I sure feel like I'm fighting for scraps.

Someone once said they'd rather be lucky than smart. Amen to that.

I know most of the classics: "Ping", Harry Potter Nimbus 2000 vibrating broom (sadly taken down), the collection of "Mr Small", "Mr Uppity", and "Mr Messy". And yes they are funny, and yes I don't get upset at people up-voting an obviously funny review (even if some parents without a strong command line background were getting upset at the review of "Ping"). the system can be gamed, which is why a "ban this" option is a bad idea and why people should take time to learn how to interpret reviews. Sadly, that means you have to read more than one or two - no rushing to get reliable information on the internet. In this case the reviews are just dumb and won't get a cult following of up-votes, so the system should work fairly well.

and if you haven't read *the* review of "Ping" you owe it to yourself to do so now. http://www.amazon.com/review/R2VDKZ4X1F992Q/ref=cm_cr_dp_title?ie=UTF8&ASIN=0448421658&nodeID=283155&store=books

Dr. Lee D. Carlson

With respect to your last one, check out the other reviews by "Guadalupe"

Several made me laugh. I think it's an art form.

I've never done it, either.

Don't like the entire idea of on-line sellers for anything for which I'm buying the first instance (yet another instance of the same thing, then, yeah, price matters, but still not from Amazon).

I just don't trust them, at all.

Best thing about Amazon, AFAICT, is the reviews for the $500 Denon link cable:

http://www.amazon.com/Denon-AKDL1-Dedicated-Link-Cable/product-reviews/B000I1X6PM

basically... http://www.amazon.com/review/R1AZQ4UV06BPYP/ref=cm_cr_dp_title?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B004DGJR1U&channel=detail-glance&nodeID=1036592&store=apparel
every... http://www.amazon.com/review/R4Q3F1BHEF0SY/ref=cm_cr_dp_title?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B00BW6KCTU&nodeID=541966&store=pc
single... http://www.amazon.com/review/R29XIUFKFQU7GU/ref=cm_cr_pr_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B0056CDWO8&linkCode=&nodeID=&tag=
product... http://www.amazon.com/review/R3I4QW83V6IDOF/ref=cm_cr_pr_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=1426303947&linkCode=&nodeID=&tag=
has... http://www.amazon.com/review/R1DWPSCYNW2H5Z/ref=cm_cr_pr_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B008GVM9K4&linkCode=&nodeID=&tag=
reviews... http://www.amazon.com/review/R3MLO42ERB2S0U/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B002MSN3QQ&linkCode=&nodeID=&tag=
that... http://www.amazon.com/review/R1B7351D396PEW/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B000UZQK8Q&linkCode=&nodeID=&tag=
are... http://www.amazon.com/review/RRMNZB68Q2IZE/ref=cm_cr_pr_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B0032BWTSU&linkCode=&nodeID=&tag=
suspect... http://www.amazon.com/review/R1L2F14KVVLR4E/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B004JO1YQC&linkCode=&nodeID=&tag=

(You really *HAVE* to read the last one!)

basically... http://www.amazon.com/review/R1AZQ4UV06BPYP/ref=cm_cr_dp_title?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B004DGJR1U&channel=detail-glance&nodeID=1036592&store=apparel
every... http://www.amazon.com/review/R4Q3F1BHEF0SY/ref=cm_cr_dp_title?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B00BW6KCTU&nodeID=541966&store=pc
single... http://www.amazon.com/review/R29XIUFKFQU7GU/ref=cm_cr_pr_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B0056CDWO8&linkCode=&nodeID=&tag=
product... http://www.amazon.com/review/R3I4QW83V6IDOF/ref=cm_cr_pr_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=1426303947&linkCode=&nodeID=&tag=
has... http://www.amazon.com/review/R1DWPSCYNW2H5Z/ref=cm_cr_pr_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B008GVM9K4&linkCode=&nodeID=&tag=
reviews... http://www.amazon.com/review/R3MLO42ERB2S0U/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B002MSN3QQ&linkCode=&nodeID=&tag=
that... http://www.amazon.com/review/R1B7351D396PEW/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B000UZQK8Q&linkCode=&nodeID=&tag=
are... http://www.amazon.com/review/RRMNZB68Q2IZE/ref=cm_cr_pr_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B0032BWTSU&linkCode=&nodeID=&tag=
suspect... http://www.amazon.com/review/R1L2F14KVVLR4E/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B004JO1YQC&linkCode=&nodeID=&tag=

(You really *HAVE* to read the last one!)

basically... http://www.amazon.com/review/R1AZQ4UV06BPYP/ref=cm_cr_dp_title?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B004DGJR1U&channel=detail-glance&nodeID=1036592&store=apparel
every... http://www.amazon.com/review/R4Q3F1BHEF0SY/ref=cm_cr_dp_title?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B00BW6KCTU&nodeID=541966&store=pc
single... http://www.amazon.com/review/R29XIUFKFQU7GU/ref=cm_cr_pr_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B0056CDWO8&linkCode=&nodeID=&tag=
product... http://www.amazon.com/review/R3I4QW83V6IDOF/ref=cm_cr_pr_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=1426303947&linkCode=&nodeID=&tag=
has... http://www.amazon.com/review/R1DWPSCYNW2H5Z/ref=cm_cr_pr_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B008GVM9K4&linkCode=&nodeID=&tag=
reviews... http://www.amazon.com/review/R3MLO42ERB2S0U/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B002MSN3QQ&linkCode=&nodeID=&tag=
that... http://www.amazon.com/review/R1B7351D396PEW/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B000UZQK8Q&linkCode=&nodeID=&tag=
are... http://www.amazon.com/review/RRMNZB68Q2IZE/ref=cm_cr_pr_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B0032BWTSU&linkCode=&nodeID=&tag=
suspect... http://www.amazon.com/review/R1L2F14KVVLR4E/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B004JO1YQC&linkCode=&nodeID=&tag=

(You really *HAVE* to read the last one!)

basically... http://www.amazon.com/review/R1AZQ4UV06BPYP/ref=cm_cr_dp_title?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B004DGJR1U&channel=detail-glance&nodeID=1036592&store=apparel
every... http://www.amazon.com/review/R4Q3F1BHEF0SY/ref=cm_cr_dp_title?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B00BW6KCTU&nodeID=541966&store=pc
single... http://www.amazon.com/review/R29XIUFKFQU7GU/ref=cm_cr_pr_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B0056CDWO8&linkCode=&nodeID=&tag=
product... http://www.amazon.com/review/R3I4QW83V6IDOF/ref=cm_cr_pr_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=1426303947&linkCode=&nodeID=&tag=
has... http://www.amazon.com/review/R1DWPSCYNW2H5Z/ref=cm_cr_pr_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B008GVM9K4&linkCode=&nodeID=&tag=
reviews... http://www.amazon.com/review/R3MLO42ERB2S0U/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B002MSN3QQ&linkCode=&nodeID=&tag=
that... http://www.amazon.com/review/R1B7351D396PEW/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B000UZQK8Q&linkCode=&nodeID=&tag=
are... http://www.amazon.com/review/RRMNZB68Q2IZE/ref=cm_cr_pr_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B0032BWTSU&linkCode=&nodeID=&tag=
suspect... http://www.amazon.com/review/R1L2F14KVVLR4E/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B004JO1YQC&linkCode=&nodeID=&tag=

(You really *HAVE* to read the last one!)

basically... http://www.amazon.com/review/R1AZQ4UV06BPYP/ref=cm_cr_dp_title?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B004DGJR1U&channel=detail-glance&nodeID=1036592&store=apparel
every... http://www.amazon.com/review/R4Q3F1BHEF0SY/ref=cm_cr_dp_title?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B00BW6KCTU&nodeID=541966&store=pc
single... http://www.amazon.com/review/R29XIUFKFQU7GU/ref=cm_cr_pr_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B0056CDWO8&linkCode=&nodeID=&tag=
product... http://www.amazon.com/review/R3I4QW83V6IDOF/ref=cm_cr_pr_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=1426303947&linkCode=&nodeID=&tag=
has... http://www.amazon.com/review/R1DWPSCYNW2H5Z/ref=cm_cr_pr_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B008GVM9K4&linkCode=&nodeID=&tag=
reviews... http://www.amazon.com/review/R3MLO42ERB2S0U/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B002MSN3QQ&linkCode=&nodeID=&tag=
that... http://www.amazon.com/review/R1B7351D396PEW/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B000UZQK8Q&linkCode=&nodeID=&tag=
are... http://www.amazon.com/review/RRMNZB68Q2IZE/ref=cm_cr_pr_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B0032BWTSU&linkCode=&nodeID=&tag=
suspect... http://www.amazon.com/review/R1L2F14KVVLR4E/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B004JO1YQC&linkCode=&nodeID=&tag=

(You really *HAVE* to read the last one!)

basically... http://www.amazon.com/review/R1AZQ4UV06BPYP/ref=cm_cr_dp_title?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B004DGJR1U&channel=detail-glance&nodeID=1036592&store=apparel
every... http://www.amazon.com/review/R4Q3F1BHEF0SY/ref=cm_cr_dp_title?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B00BW6KCTU&nodeID=541966&store=pc
single... http://www.amazon.com/review/R29XIUFKFQU7GU/ref=cm_cr_pr_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B0056CDWO8&linkCode=&nodeID=&tag=
product... http://www.amazon.com/review/R3I4QW83V6IDOF/ref=cm_cr_pr_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=1426303947&linkCode=&nodeID=&tag=
has... http://www.amazon.com/review/R1DWPSCYNW2H5Z/ref=cm_cr_pr_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B008GVM9K4&linkCode=&nodeID=&tag=
reviews... http://www.amazon.com/review/R3MLO42ERB2S0U/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B002MSN3QQ&linkCode=&nodeID=&tag=
that... http://www.amazon.com/review/R1B7351D396PEW/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B000UZQK8Q&linkCode=&nodeID=&tag=
are... http://www.amazon.com/review/RRMNZB68Q2IZE/ref=cm_cr_pr_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B0032BWTSU&linkCode=&nodeID=&tag=
suspect... http://www.amazon.com/review/R1L2F14KVVLR4E/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B004JO1YQC&linkCode=&nodeID=&tag=

(You really *HAVE* to read the last one!)

basically... http://www.amazon.com/review/R1AZQ4UV06BPYP/ref=cm_cr_dp_title?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B004DGJR1U&channel=detail-glance&nodeID=1036592&store=apparel
every... http://www.amazon.com/review/R4Q3F1BHEF0SY/ref=cm_cr_dp_title?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B00BW6KCTU&nodeID=541966&store=pc
single... http://www.amazon.com/review/R29XIUFKFQU7GU/ref=cm_cr_pr_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B0056CDWO8&linkCode=&nodeID=&tag=
product... http://www.amazon.com/review/R3I4QW83V6IDOF/ref=cm_cr_pr_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=1426303947&linkCode=&nodeID=&tag=
has... http://www.amazon.com/review/R1DWPSCYNW2H5Z/ref=cm_cr_pr_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B008GVM9K4&linkCode=&nodeID=&tag=
reviews... http://www.amazon.com/review/R3MLO42ERB2S0U/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B002MSN3QQ&linkCode=&nodeID=&tag=
that... http://www.amazon.com/review/R1B7351D396PEW/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B000UZQK8Q&linkCode=&nodeID=&tag=
are... http://www.amazon.com/review/RRMNZB68Q2IZE/ref=cm_cr_pr_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B0032BWTSU&linkCode=&nodeID=&tag=
suspect... http://www.amazon.com/review/R1L2F14KVVLR4E/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B004JO1YQC&linkCode=&nodeID=&tag=

(You really *HAVE* to read the last one!)