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Basic economic principles:

#1 - Fungible vs nonfungible commodities. Some commodities are priced relative to their availability on the open market, some not. For example, Oil is a fungible commodity; you can easily replace oil (and its derivatives) with those from another source. Saudi Arabia won't sell to you? Buy from Venezuela, and someone else will most likely make up the shortfall by buying from SA instead of Venezuela. You didn't buy your gasoline/diesel from a Shell station because you went to Citgo or Raceway instead? The place you did buy from will purchase that much more from the refinery (and most of the gas on the market comes from the same few refineries), so very little will change. This is why organized boycotts of a particular "chain" of gas stations don't work; their parent companies can (and do) simply sell their extra stock to one of the competitors. At best, you hurt the local station owners and that's all.

#2 - Supply/Demand. These don't mean what you think they mean, but relatively close; they don't always adjust exactly on schedule (because purchasers/suppliers may mis-read how much supply or demand there is in the market and price inappropriately). The idea is that over time, the price of a product will reach an equilibrium such that, if there are Y available units, then there will eventually be X available buyers. If there are less buyers than product, the price will decline until more buyers (enticed by the lower price) enter the system. If there are more buyers than product, either the price will (theoretically) rise, or else you will have a product shortage and someone will try to produce a competing product to fill the need until pricing equilibrium is reached. Compare, for example, the Sensio Grill to the Foreman Grill.

Now here's where we get a little more advanced:

#3 - Forms of investing. You've got direct investment in a company (Venture Capital or Stock), indirect investment (investment in a bank or lending company that in turn provides lending services to the company itself), and all manner of tertiary involvements such as membership in various investment funds where you, personally, have no control over what is done with your money.

#4 - "Stock Market" indexes. There are a ton of these out there, each of which averages the price of a predetermined set of stocks, weighted by some amount, to come up with some "average" monetary number. The most commonly referred to by the newsmedia is the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which is an average (weighted to dollar price of stock) of a mere 30 stocks. There are a whole slew of other stock averages, each telling a different story on the market; the more stocks they watch, the better an indicator they can be (but a lousier news story), which is why the Dow Jones Wilshire 5000 doesn't get press while the DJIA does.

Now we get into the nitty-gritty:

#5 - There are three basic ways to make money in the stock market: you can buy stock and receive dividends when(if) the company makes a profit; you can buy stock and sell it later when it is worth more; OR you can "borrow" stock from someone, sell it, wait for the price to fall, and then buy it back at the lower price (pocketing the difference) and then return the "borrowed" (but now not as valuable) stock to the rightful owner.

The third way is called shorting. The "fourth" way is called naked shorting, and it's been one of wikipedia's biggest recent scandals. The gist of it is that with naked sho

Basic economic principles:

#1 - Fungible vs nonfungible commodities. Some commodities are priced relative to their availability on the open market, some not. For example, Oil is a fungible commodity; you can easily replace oil (and its derivatives) with those from another source. Saudi Arabia won't sell to you? Buy from Venezuela, and someone else will most likely make up the shortfall by buying from SA instead of Venezuela. You didn't buy your gasoline/diesel from a Shell station because you went to Citgo or Raceway instead? The place you did buy from will purchase that much more from the refinery (and most of the gas on the market comes from the same few refineries), so very little will change. This is why organized boycotts of a particular "chain" of gas stations don't work; their parent companies can (and do) simply sell their extra stock to one of the competitors. At best, you hurt the local station owners and that's all.

#2 - Supply/Demand. These don't mean what you think they mean, but relatively close; they don't always adjust exactly on schedule (because purchasers/suppliers may mis-read how much supply or demand there is in the market and price inappropriately). The idea is that over time, the price of a product will reach an equilibrium such that, if there are Y available units, then there will eventually be X available buyers. If there are less buyers than product, the price will decline until more buyers (enticed by the lower price) enter the system. If there are more buyers than product, either the price will (theoretically) rise, or else you will have a product shortage and someone will try to produce a competing product to fill the need until pricing equilibrium is reached. Compare, for example, the Sensio Grill to the Foreman Grill.

Now here's where we get a little more advanced:

#3 - Forms of investing. You've got direct investment in a company (Venture Capital or Stock), indirect investment (investment in a bank or lending company that in turn provides lending services to the company itself), and all manner of tertiary involvements such as membership in various investment funds where you, personally, have no control over what is done with your money.

#4 - "Stock Market" indexes. There are a ton of these out there, each of which averages the price of a predetermined set of stocks, weighted by some amount, to come up with some "average" monetary number. The most commonly referred to by the newsmedia is the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which is an average (weighted to dollar price of stock) of a mere 30 stocks. There are a whole slew of other stock averages, each telling a different story on the market; the more stocks they watch, the better an indicator they can be (but a lousier news story), which is why the Dow Jones Wilshire 5000 doesn't get press while the DJIA does.

Now we get into the nitty-gritty:

#5 - There are three basic ways to make money in the stock market: you can buy stock and receive dividends when(if) the company makes a profit; you can buy stock and sell it later when it is worth more; OR you can "borrow" stock from someone, sell it, wait for the price to fall, and then buy it back at the lower price (pocketing the difference) and then return the "borrowed" (but now not as valuable) stock to the rightful owner.

The third way is called shorting. The "fourth" way is called naked shorting, and it's been one of wikipedia's biggest recent scandals. The gist of it is that with naked sho

The other concern I have is about how to manage this between kids and parents. It's one thing to have a fixed up-front payment to buy a game but to have kids (teens) linking credit cards (or even pre-paying) to a game seems like it might not go over well with the parents...

You know you can buy the Nexon-cash-card herewith cash. or at other retail locations. i even saw one at speedway. I don't think it is that hard for a kid to buy that $10 cash card. kids buy dozens of brand new games priced at $60 or above.

Hmm, I know I can find a car stereo which plays MP3 CDs, USB flash, and SD cards, plus AUX input for that price: http://www.target.com/Player-USB-Port-Audio-Input/dp/B000FFEXEY but I was unaware that Pimp My Ride stereo systems were that inexpensive -- where can I find one!?

Where are you going to get a laptop-sized (readable) flat screen, plus the control module(s) and even a minimal GPU, for less than the remaining $9? Not to mention a keyboard, pointing device, wired or (preferably) wireless NIC, case, and assorted essential glue hardware?

Introducing, the $15 laptop:

http://www.target.com/Royal-dm7070r-Personal-Organizer/dp/B000PDJ8Q4/sr=1-1/qid=1217520355/ref=sr_1_1/601-6053863-3987344

Note the 5-line backlit display with "GPU" controller, full Qwerty keyboard, case, and assorted "glue" hardware. Although less visible, be sure to also note the high retail mark-up, extra unnecessary features that could be eliminated to reduce costs (buttons, styling, etc.) and the like.

A low-end CPU and (substantially) more memory is really all you need to make it a real computer.

Not to mention a keyboard, pointing device, wired or (preferably) wireless NIC,

A pointing device is completely unnecessary. It's used with desktops only because better input methods never caught on. I'd look at something like the Links browser for the way keyboard input should properly be handled. Psion's EPOC/Symbian OS and associated applications also showed how very well input can work without requiring a pointer.

Wired networking is trivial and proven tech... RS-232 controllers cost pennies in bulk, and can provide 2Mbps throughput. Network cabling is basically any two wires you can get your hands on (a pair of screws or clips might be preferable to DB-9 ports). This would be ideal out in the field, where two people want to exchange files. For classrooms, admittedly I don't know of any existing, purpose-built RS-232 hubs/switches, but it would be very simple and very cheap to make. Perhaps a $5 device.

Wireless wouldn't be quite so off-the-shelf simple, but it could still be quite cheap. Think of something like IrDA, but with 900MHz RF instead of an Ir diode... If you don't want to go the RS-232 route, all you really need for basic (slow) A.M. networking is a single transistor getting a line of binary input from the CPU, and the output line to an antenna. Software could take care of all the other bits like modulation at the proper frequency and CSMA/CD. It would be an RF nightmare, but at such low power I don't think it will pose much problem. For receiving such a single, you'll also need a couple basic components (diode, capacitor, etc.), wired to an interrupt, but that is similarly cheap and fairly trivial.

It requires a much more specialized skill set to code anything worthwhile for a 50MHz 8-bit CPU than for even a low-end PowerPC or XScale processor.

Umm, no. Assembler or C on an 8-bit CPU is no more difficult than any other chip. What's confusing you is the fact that there's no IDEs or libraries to make it quick to put a high-level program together. That matters if you want to port Firefox, but not at all if you want to format and display text, do low-level networking, or even play compressed audio.

It's amazing what you can do with a few of these (a hundred bucks at fry's) and some these, a few of these and some creative sheet metal work on one of these.

You'll need a few other bits too. If you get carried away it would look something like this. If you keep your wits nobody would know it from a typical filing cabinet except that instead of storing files it renders frames with 32 cores running at 2.6GHz or launches your precious VMs.

And you can still remote to it with your mini notebook from the beach.

I began working as an IT contractor in 2006, and have lived in Key West, Florida and now the Washington, DC area. I live in northeast Florida, so I fly a lot. The airlines I use most frequently are Southwest and US Airways.

Southwest uses a method for boarding that's based on when you check in. It used to be pretty simple. The earlier you check in, the greater a chance you had to get on the A line (of A, B and C). The problem was that even with an A pass, you had to get to the airport early and camp out on your letter's line to get on early.

Southwest recently changed their boarding methods. I guess they got sick of people camping out on the floor of their gate areas or fighting over who was on line first, or whether sitting in the seats next to the line meant you were actually in the line. They began adding group numbers to the boarding pass letter. You would then line up, one letter at a time, in the group that included your number (usually in five-digit increments). This caused general havoc at the gate because people are stupid and don't listen to the detailed instructions provided by the gate attendant.

Hell, I was made a member of the Southwest "A Team" for all the flying I did...yet my boarding group number was never higher than 15.

US Airways does their boarding in a way that was mentioned in the original post: they load the plane by "zones" with the window seats first, then the middle seats, then the aisles. Of course, on their jumbos, first class gets on first, and people who need "assistance" also get priority.

The loading bottleneck is simple...it's because everyone loads through the same frickin' hatch through the same jetway.

In the now-thousands of miles I have flown in the last two years, I have been unable to find anyone who can explain why the airlines (or more likely, the aircraft manufacturers) don't have MULTIPLE DOORS ON THE AIRCRAFT.

Think of it...you can still have your Jetway for the first class and handicapped/child/assistance crowd...they're nearly always going to sit near the front of the plane anyway. But why not roll a couple of old-fashioned access ladders up to the center (aft of the wings) and rear of the plane, add a couple of doors, and have people load based on the section of the aircraft where their seat is located. Hell, Southwest can still do their open seating thing...find a ladder, get on, grab a seat.

They could also cut loading time by more than half by doing one other simple thing: just eliminate the overheads. Make it a rule: if you cannot fit it under the seat, you MUST check it. I have one of these. I can carry three days worth of clothing, my laptop and sundry other stuff, and it fits nicely (and tightly) under the seat. Most clowns carry the bigger roll-around bags that take up a ton of space and often barely fit in the overhead.

Think about the one thing that holds every other passenger up when exiting an aircraft. Right: the moron who jammed a rhino-sized roll-around into the overhead, and now needs the entire crew to help him unwedge it. While everyone else behind him has to stand there and wait.

I guess this was more of a sore subject than I thought...

If you want confirmation yourself, order it through target and wait. http://www.target.com/dp/B00005RSB2/sr=1-4/qid=1202528379/ref=sr_1_4/601-6766354-3567303?ie=UTF8&index=target&rh=k%3AJazz%20in%20Paris%20&page=1

• I make >2x the gross salary compared to SE doing basically the same job.
• I pay a total of ~20% income tax (mortgage & kids makes for nice deductions) compared to >50% back in SE.
• Gas is $7.50/gallon in SE.
• Sales tax is 25% in SE.

I really am not thinking today. I looked at the title and thought of Boeing's going around using lasers to fry Target Stores http://www.target.com/.

This opposed to the "wack of cash" that Target received to dump HD ala Sony?

Really? I find that hard to believe, Max. While I loathe Sony, I don't think they can buy the whole market that easily. And they'd have to pay off a lot more companies than Target: Best Buy, WalM*rt, Dixons, etc.

About 30 seconds of surfing tells me that if Target received cash from Sony to dump HD-DVD, then it was money poorly spent by Sony: Target.com carries two HD-DVD players for $299 and $249 (a Toshiba and a 'Venturer'?) and they offer 218 HD-DVD titles, while they carry only one Sony Blu-Ray player for $499, and 237 Blu-Ray titles. (Apparently that player is marked to the people who don't want to spend $499 for a PS3.)

According to the descriptions, they do not carry any of the three dedicated players in stock at their stores, only on line. The PS3 is for sale in the stores, of course, as is the XBox add-on HD-DVD drive, and many HD movies in both formats.

You might want to check your tinfoil hat. Apparently it's failing to block irrational Sony fanboi conspiracies.

This opposed to the "wack of cash" that Target received to dump HD ala Sony?

Really? I find that hard to believe, Max. While I loathe Sony, I don't think they can buy the whole market that easily. And they'd have to pay off a lot more companies than Target: Best Buy, WalM*rt, Dixons, etc.

About 30 seconds of surfing tells me that if Target received cash from Sony to dump HD-DVD, then it was money poorly spent by Sony: Target.com carries two HD-DVD players for $299 and $249 (a Toshiba and a 'Venturer'?) and they offer 218 HD-DVD titles, while they carry only one Sony Blu-Ray player for $499, and 237 Blu-Ray titles. (Apparently that player is marked to the people who don't want to spend $499 for a PS3.)

According to the descriptions, they do not carry any of the three dedicated players in stock at their stores, only on line. The PS3 is for sale in the stores, of course, as is the XBox add-on HD-DVD drive, and many HD movies in both formats.

You might want to check your tinfoil hat. Apparently it's failing to block irrational Sony fanboi conspiracies.

http://www.target.com/gp/detail.html/sr=1-2/qid=11 87710812/ref=sr_1_2/602-4980210-0989442?ie=UTF8&as in=B000JHO4L0

Microsoft Xbox 360 HD DVD Drive
This item is available online and in stores.

Well, 47.3% of all statistics are made up on the spot, do you have links which site those figures (at least)?

Well, a single one format may seem attractive, but the price war will bring in High Def Video at an affordable price more quickly than a single format. I cannot find a good link for it but if I remember correctly, DVD players took years to get to an 'affordable price', and the movies all seemed to be priced the same. HD-DVD is really being aggressive in price, and when standards compete, it's usually the one which delivers a lower price who 'wins'.

Not especially. Look at the ESRB ratings on the boxes in the Wii section and in the Xbox 360 section. How many Xbox 360 games are rated E, other than sport sims and Piñata Crossing ? On the other hand, isn't the $280 Xbox 360 Core going to be in stock much more often than the $250 Wii?

Look, capitalists just aren't going to ask the government to ban a cheap, useful, industrial commodity. If hemp were as useful as its proponents say, there would be an industry producing products from it. No law will get in the way of that. Look at the immigration situation in the USA - plenty of laws and even more who turn a blind eye to the law. If hemp were as useful to industry as cheap labor, you can bet your last dollar companies would be engaged in its production on an industrial scale, regardless of the law, just like they import cheap labor on an industrial scale, despite the law.

Hemp is in many products, from clothes to food. There's a hemp store about 15 minutes walk from where I live that sells clothes and other things made from hemp. In the opposite direction another 5 minutes walk takes me to a coop, The Wedge, that has hemp salad dressing as well as hemp bits that can be sprinkled on salad and other food much like bacon bits or croutons are. Even Target and Walmart sale items with or made from hemp. Just because you and others don't know these are available does not mean they aren't. And the government doesn't want people to know, because if they did then more people would become informed about the uses of hemp. This could start a mass of people to demand hemp be more widely available, even farmed, in the US. As it is now, Canada has already gotten a head start on farming hemp. More can be found in Google's Industrial Hemp directory.

Yes, but there are many plastic parts that give you no chance of swallowing, inhaling, absorbing or chronic exposuring to the melamine inside them. Also, the melamine has been used to make dinnerware together with formaldehyde. Or in laminate flooring and Mr. Clean's magic eraser, with formaldehyde too. It also has small environment impact as itself.

BTW, I don't get it why US, one of the biggest wheat exporter, imports wheat gluten from China, one of the biggest wheat importer?

I want one... or four.

This link will help you get one, or four, of those.

But only if you don't smoke a bunch of weed before the interview, or get arrested for public intoxication, or trespassing, or missing your court date.

You might also want a shower, first impressions being so important and all.

Failing that, you could also try this place. You're definitely qualified, if they ask you if you can handle the greeters' job you can regale them with tales about how you attempted to valiantly save the library doors from being pulled on.

And if you fail that, maybe The third time will be the charm?

Employees eat free, you know.

It's barely more capable than the Gamecube and the only two gimmicks it has going are the wireless controller and the virtual console. BOTH of these could have been released for the Gamecube, which already had a broadband adapter as well.

It's barely more capable than the Gamecube...

And now all of these games which look like budget titles (Wii sports, Excite Truck) are $60 just like all the other new consoles.

The only marketing themed sets LEGO is keeping a lot of are the Star Wars sets. The rest of LEGO's focus is on producing their "normal" sets and models, with only a few other marketing tie-ins. So yes, you can still get a bucket'o'bricks.

Oh, and the new Mindstorms looks very cool. I didn't get to see anything regarding the programming environment, but it comes out of the box with some pretty sophisticated sensors as well as a Bluetooth transceiver for remote access. You can even add a compass sensor and servo motors!

Here's a link to Target's selection of LEGO sets (sorted from most coveted to least coveted, I mean by price. :-) Lots of Star Wars, but otherwise it's a lot of ordinary LEGO. And if you want a good ship, may I recommend the Star Destroyer? 3,104 pieces, weighing in at 21.5 pounds. There's a good ship!

The only marketing themed sets LEGO is keeping a lot of are the Star Wars sets. The rest of LEGO's focus is on producing their "normal" sets and models, with only a few other marketing tie-ins. So yes, you can still get a bucket'o'bricks.

Oh, and the new Mindstorms looks very cool. I didn't get to see anything regarding the programming environment, but it comes out of the box with some pretty sophisticated sensors as well as a Bluetooth transceiver for remote access. You can even add a compass sensor and servo motors!

Here's a link to Target's selection of LEGO sets (sorted from most coveted to least coveted, I mean by price. :-) Lots of Star Wars, but otherwise it's a lot of ordinary LEGO. And if you want a good ship, may I recommend the Star Destroyer? 3,104 pieces, weighing in at 21.5 pounds. There's a good ship!

Has Target.com changed in response to the lawsuit? I turned of Flash, Images, Javascript on my browser, and still was able to find and read the addresses of three closest Targets to Providence, RI. The only thing I had trouble with (obviously) was seeing the maps.

Has Target.com changed in response to the lawsuit? I turned of Flash, Images, Javascript on my browser, and still was able to find and read the addresses of three closest Targets to Providence, RI. The only thing I had trouble with (obviously) was seeing the maps.

I'm sorry, I keep hearing this, but really, how many places are there in which WalMart is absolutely the ONLY store? I've never seen a place like that. I mean, I'm sure they exist, but I'm equally sure they are few and far between, and insignificant in the grand scheme of things.

I've always heard that this was part of Sam Walton's plan: sell to the consumers who didn't have a major department store nearby. By saturating the market, you can undercut your competitors because you can buy in bulk and they can't. You have a (theoretically) more impressive store front AND cheaper prices to boot. As soon as the small stores close, you've got the area by the balls.

An example might show how this works:

Enter in 52241 Iowa City, IA on http://www.walmart.com/. Now compare that listing to say Target. Target has 3 stores. Wal*Mart has 10. Notice the locations of those stores in correlation to the population.

Here, let's do my hometown: 62298. Waterloo, IL. Or go farther south: 62233 Chester, IL. Now we're talking literally hours of driving to get to a Target. Don't like Target? Try Best Buy, Circuit City, or EB. It all looks pretty much the same.

I agree that Wal*Mart can sell whatever it wants to sell. My point was that what Wal*Mart does really does matter in the big scheme of things.

That isn't the first "tech" shoe. I'd say that one of the most tech shoes are the Nike iPod shoes. They keep track of your running on an iPod. Then there are the classic Light-up Shoes. I think they are slightly more techy then heely's. And if you're counting heely's, then you might as well mention pump shoes. A hit back in the 80's, they pump up to give you a snug fit. What is funny is when people play basketball with them on, and come down hard and pop the air bladder inside. Hmm, an exploding shoe... Do those get through airport security?

Called a few Walmarts & Targets in the Orlando, FL area, but no go. Except for the one in http://sites.target.com/site/en/spot/map.jsp?link= mqDetailMapPage&screen=mqDetailMapPage&POI1name=We st+Colonial+SuperTarget&POI1streetaddress=7501+W+C olonial+Dr+&POI1city=Orlando&POI1state=FL&POI1zip= 32818-6665&orig_iconid=556&POI1country=US+&POI1var 2=%3Cb%3EPhone%3A+%3C%2Fb%3E(407)+290-6728%3Cbr%3E %3Cb%3EHours%3A+%3C%2Fb%3EMon-Sat+8am+to+10pm+Sun+ 8am+to+9pm%3Cbr%3E%3Cb%3EPharmacy+Phone%3A+%3C%2Fb %3E(407)+822-5215%3Cbr%3E%3Cb%3EPharmacy+Hours%3A+ %3C%2Fb%3EMon-Fri+9am+to+9pm+Sat+9am+to+6pm+Sun+9a m+to+6pm%3Cbr%3E&POI1var3=%3Cb%3EOptical+Store+Pho ne%3A+%3C%2Fb%3E(407)+290-5124+%3Cbr%3E%3Cb%3EOpti cal+Store+Hours%3A+%3C%2Fb%3EMon-Fri+10am+to+8pm+S at+9am+to+6pm+Sun+Noon+to+4pm%3Cbr%3E&level=9&widt h=450&height=337&POI1iconid=92271&POI1lat=285539&P OI1lng=-814857&SUBMIT1=Detailed+Map!Ocoee, where the pesky operator told me: "We have them in stock but we're not allowed to sell them until June 11." "Is there any way I can talk you out of that?" "No." "Is there any way Hamiltion can talk you out of that?" "No." (Allright, so that last part didn't really happen. But still. No DS Lite for me yet x_x )

Ummm - no. I print it on plain old normal paper ($4 per 500 sheets, so $0.008) with ink that only costs about $13 per 100+ sheets ($0.13). It goes into a media folder that holds 400 CDs (so 200 with art) and cost $30 ($0.15 per CD with media). I cut it out with a pair of scissors. I burn on fairly normal Fry's media at about $15 per 100 ($0.15). That brings my total cost (obviously not factoring in my computer or printer, which I would need anyway) to a grand total of $10.428. We'll call it $10.43.

So - let's compare that, for a new release that I just bought last night when I had an urge to hear Death Cab for Cutie (Transatlanticism) to a trip to my closest store (which is about 5 miles - it being a Target).
The album on iTunes cost me $9.99 ($10.43 adjusted) and about 5 minutes of time while I was playing WoW.

According to the Target website it is currently $12.96. Assuming I drive, it will take me at least 10 minutes to drive there. I could conceivably be home with it in hand within 30 minutes - assuming they have it. It would cost me fuel (20 mpg/$3.35/g so $1.675)

The album now cost me $13.932 with tax. With gas, we're looking at an adjusted price of $15.607 ($15.61). That, and I would have had to stop playing WoW, get dressed, go to Target at 22:35 last night... and oops. They close at 21:00.

So - basically, to make a long story short - you're just plain wrong. The only point you have is DRM, and honestly I could care less. It's not like I can't pull the music back in with only minor signal loss (AAC -> AIF) and have DRM-free tunes.

-WS

For all those who might be interested, check out how the Target website does on some common standards and accessibility tools:

• HTML Validation
• CSS Validation
• . . . and I'd list the URLs for WAI and Section 508 tests, but the validator refuses to do the Target site because of too many requests

And of course, check out the source code . . . it's pretty horrendous.

Here in the UK I've never seen an HDTV CRT --- the push for HiDef came after the LCD/Plasma thing. I didn't realise there were such beasts as HiDef CRT TVs! ian

If they would just stick to their roots and design unique creations with new or even "classic" themes (Forest, Space) and package them largely with blocks that are easier (read: less expensive) to make, you drastically reduce overhead. With the robotics stuff, though, you're going to have to factor in the cost of developing the hardware, software, etc.

And it's only $59.95!

(For boys, there's the Batman Laptop.)

A bigger screen and some USB ports, and these things are going to be useful.

And it's only $59.95!

(For boys, there's the Batman Laptop.)

A bigger screen and some USB ports, and these things are going to be useful.

A good number of them are beginning to find offense in the attempts to remove the Christian aspects of Christmas.

No one is attempting to "remove the Christian aspects of Christmas". As stated previously, there are damn few of them anyway, few enough that many of the popular "mega-churches" are closing on Christmas. But those who want those elements are welcome to them and no one is trying to stop them from celebrating Christmas in their own way - in their own time and on their own property.

But a few loudmouth kooks in the theocratic right are attempting to get people to act as if Christmas is the only holiday that anyone is celebrating this time of year, to act as if anyone not celebrating Christmas is in the wrong.

I didn't shop at Target this year because they excluded the Salvation Army from collecting at there stores.

That's a misleading statement. Target doesn't allow anyone to engage in solicitation or petitioning at their stores regardless of the cause being represented. They used to not enforce this policy on the SA. They've just made their policy consistent and non-discriminatory. And they've still partnered with the SA for Katrina relief, and many stores have made grants to local SA chapters.

Just as I have heard that the Homosexual community is suggesting that it's members shouldn't buy cars from Ford because Ford doesn't advertise in Gay media outlets the Christian community is deciding that should do it's Christmas shopping at stores that support there life style choices. It is no different.

Legally, they're on equal footing, certainly we can all choose who we do business with. Ethically, they're completely different. Ford has slapped the gay community in the face (and shot itself in the wallet) by caving to homophobes and withdrawing ads from magazines serving the gay community. Message: we don't want gays as customers. Ok, Ford can do that, and gays and their friends can say, "Well, fuck you then Ford, I'm buying a Toyota."

Target is declining to slap non-Christians in the face, declining an exclusive "Merry X-mas" in favor of an inclusive "Happy Holidays". Message: whether you celebrate Christmas, Chanukah, Kwanza, the Solstice, Festivus, Bodhi Day, Ramadan, New Year's Day, whatever holiday floats your boat, c'mon in and buy our stuff. It takes a twisted, bigoted mind to take offense at that.

(Though I'm still not shopping at Target until they stop allowing employees to deny women access to health care and guarantee access to prescriptions without discrimination or delay; medical care trumps holiday banners, Target.)

A good number of them are beginning to find offense in the attempts to remove the Christian aspects of Christmas.

No one is attempting to "remove the Christian aspects of Christmas". As stated previously, there are damn few of them anyway, few enough that many of the popular "mega-churches" are closing on Christmas. But those who want those elements are welcome to them and no one is trying to stop them from celebrating Christmas in their own way - in their own time and on their own property.

But a few loudmouth kooks in the theocratic right are attempting to get people to act as if Christmas is the only holiday that anyone is celebrating this time of year, to act as if anyone not celebrating Christmas is in the wrong.

I didn't shop at Target this year because they excluded the Salvation Army from collecting at there stores.

That's a misleading statement. Target doesn't allow anyone to engage in solicitation or petitioning at their stores regardless of the cause being represented. They used to not enforce this policy on the SA. They've just made their policy consistent and non-discriminatory. And they've still partnered with the SA for Katrina relief, and many stores have made grants to local SA chapters.

Just as I have heard that the Homosexual community is suggesting that it's members shouldn't buy cars from Ford because Ford doesn't advertise in Gay media outlets the Christian community is deciding that should do it's Christmas shopping at stores that support there life style choices. It is no different.

Legally, they're on equal footing, certainly we can all choose who we do business with. Ethically, they're completely different. Ford has slapped the gay community in the face (and shot itself in the wallet) by caving to homophobes and withdrawing ads from magazines serving the gay community. Message: we don't want gays as customers. Ok, Ford can do that, and gays and their friends can say, "Well, fuck you then Ford, I'm buying a Toyota."

Target is declining to slap non-Christians in the face, declining an exclusive "Merry X-mas" in favor of an inclusive "Happy Holidays". Message: whether you celebrate Christmas, Chanukah, Kwanza, the Solstice, Festivus, Bodhi Day, Ramadan, New Year's Day, whatever holiday floats your boat, c'mon in and buy our stuff. It takes a twisted, bigoted mind to take offense at that.

(Though I'm still not shopping at Target until they stop allowing employees to deny women access to health care and guarantee access to prescriptions without discrimination or delay; medical care trumps holiday banners, Target.)

AC says what: The 1GB shuffle was originally priced at $149. They later dropped the price. The article doesn't say when this happened - it sometimes takes a few months for these cases to come to trial, so it could have been a while ago.

The article states that he used the software November 16; the iPod shuffle price drop was during the summer. The article says he purchased an iPod, then went back and was purchasing another $149 version as $4.99 headphones. He purchased the iPod as a CD player for $24.99. It is likely the second part is mistaken, as the grandparent pointed out.

So, where is an ipod for $149.99??? Not the Nano. Not the shuffle. There is no such animal. Is this the standard "Capitalize on the ipod name" story? I want answers! I want fact checkers!

I believe you are correct. Dollars to donuts they didn't mean iPod, but rather iPod headphones. This, of course, makes the fraud less obvious, since it was switching expensive headphones for cheap headphones, not iPod for cheap headphones.

They fixed the typo.

You used to be able to go here and type in "DS" in the search box on the left under Search Catalog and it would come up as $99. It comes up as $129 now.

I knew I should have picked up a third DS for $99 while I could.

Target has it on sale for $15, going to get it for the kids right now. Thanks for pointing that out.

Yeah, target has them for $5 off (25% off) per tub this week, we grabbed three. Quatro, Duplo, and original LEGO. :)
Look here
We ended up with all limited edition 50th anniversary tubs, too!

Yes, but page two of your search has the Anti-Grav Lounger with Shiatsu Massager; which, while marketing hyperbole, is at least an accurate search.

I've already seen this product at Target. Okay, it has a couple more features than that, but basically there you have it. Only includes 30 minutes of prepaid airtime, but this phone seems like it is supposed to be primarilly for emergencies anyways. Caveat, from the user reviews it seems that more minutes are fairly expensive, at 25 cents a minute. But if it is used as an emergency device rather than a "mom, I'm ready to be picked up from soccer" this shouldn't be a problem. Of course, if it's for emergencies only, the batteries might be dead by the time it's needed.

I work for Target Technology Services, the I.T. group of Target Corporation (i.e. Target Stores). We have all of the things asked about in the article. You can see an overview here. Basically, Target believes in career advancement; one of the (many) evaluation criteria for both team members and managers is career planning.

Step 1: Super cheap ($36.99) DVD player from Target (Cyberhome DVD-320): Check.
link
Step 2: Region-Free hack (takes 1 minute, you do it with your remote): Check.
http://www.videohelp.com/dvdhacks.php?select=Cyber home+CH-DVD+300

Step 3: enjoy your region-free dvd player.

Sure it does. 10k gold is as low as you can go and still call it "gold". Via google, here's a semi-random example of 10k gold jewelry.

It is also interesting to see the most popular web sites. Start by typing www. into google suggest. The top 10 are:

1. www.yahoo.com - Search/Directory
2. www.hotmail.com - Email
3. www.google.com - Search
4. www.ebay.com - Shopping
5. www.msn.com - Portal
6. www.aol.com - Portal
7. www.ebay.co.uk - Shopping
8. www.irs.gov - Government
9. www.mapquest.com - Maps
10. www.amazon.com - Shopping

Typing one more letter shows you the top sites for that letter. Here is the top for each letter:

• a is for www.aol.com - Portal
• b is for www.bbc.co.uk - News
• c is for www.cnn.com - News
• d is for www.dictionary.com - Reference
• e is for www.ebay.com - Shopping
• f is for www.food.gov.uk - Government
• g is for www.google.com - Search
• h is for www.hotmail.com - Email
• i is for www.irs.gov - Government
• j is for www.juno.com - Internet service provider
• k is for www.kbb.com - Consumer information
• l is for www.lyrics.com - Music
• m is for www.msn.com - Portal
• n is for www.nick.com - Kids
• o is for www.orbitz.com - Travel
• p is for www.pogo.com - Games
• q is for www.qvc.com - Shopping
• r is for www.rotten.com - Information
• s is for www.sears.com - Shopping (sorry slashdot)
• t is for www.target.com - Shopping
• u is for www.usps.com - Government
• v is for www.verizon.com - Telephone service
• w is for www.weather.com - Weather
• x is for www.xanga.com - Blogs
• y is for www.yahoo.com - Portal
• z is for www.zappos.com - Shopping

This is some random commentary to make sure that my post has enough characters per line on average to get by the lameness filter. Just a few more words should do it. Then I will be over the limit. Maybe you would like to hear a bit about my projects: Attesoro - A internationalization editor for Java programs. Coinmill - A currency conversion website with many currencies, and features such as abilty to parse English sentences asking for currency conversion. Java Utilities - Utilities for common task in the Java programming language such as parsing CSV files and string manipulation.

replies. yeah, the psp is a bit expensive and you /could/ just buy a portable dvd player, a video game player, an ipod and the various accessories, or you could have it all in one sleek package.

Yeah, when you consider that the iPod is the PSP of MP3 players. All style, no substance. The simple replacement works wonders.

Portable DVD - 79.99
Zen Xtra 30GB - 184.99
Nintendo DS - 129.99
Backpack - $10.49

Factor in the cost of rebuying all of your movies, enough Memory Stick (or whatever the hell they call it now) space to store ripped movies/music, etc... and it's about neck and neck, in favor of the different parts.

Of course, save more bucks by replacing the DS with a GBA-SP, getting a smaller Mp3 player (or skipping it altogether, the linked DVD plays MP3s), etc.

If you want to play watered down ports and impress the same sort of person that makes up the iPod Fanboy Brigade, get a PSP. (Note: This does not imply that the DS has a great selection itself. There's a reason I've wasted my cash on neither of these dogs)

AND...it only costs $16.99 for a whole school year. Who would have known that the answer was right under out feet!

Well, the Ikea stuff is only "just okay" in my book; they are pretty vanilla. Also, limited room for external HDs, speakers, etc. Also, I'm dedicated to using my laptop on a surface. My awfully-toasty Inspiron 8500 would leave me hairless (let alone sterile). So here's what I'm considering:

1) Target has a $99 desk option:
http://www.target.com/gp/detail.html/sr=2-3/qid=11 24060528/ref=sr_2_3/602-7908088-6117466?_encoding= UTF8&asin=B0000YJ0GG

2) ...and a $39 (on sale) chair option:
http://www.target.com/gp/detail.html/sr=2-2/qid=11 24060602/ref=sr_2_2/602-7908088-6117466?_encoding= UTF8&asin=B0006Z42GW

I'll keep you posted. Maybe pics.

Thanks to all of you who took this thread seriously.

Well, the Ikea stuff is only "just okay" in my book; they are pretty vanilla. Also, limited room for external HDs, speakers, etc. Also, I'm dedicated to using my laptop on a surface. My awfully-toasty Inspiron 8500 would leave me hairless (let alone sterile). So here's what I'm considering:

1) Target has a $99 desk option:
http://www.target.com/gp/detail.html/sr=2-3/qid=11 24060528/ref=sr_2_3/602-7908088-6117466?_encoding= UTF8&asin=B0000YJ0GG

2) ...and a $39 (on sale) chair option:
http://www.target.com/gp/detail.html/sr=2-2/qid=11 24060602/ref=sr_2_2/602-7908088-6117466?_encoding= UTF8&asin=B0006Z42GW

I'll keep you posted. Maybe pics.

Thanks to all of you who took this thread seriously.

Grue for Sale.
New & used Grue. aff
Check out the deals now!
www.ebay.com

Grue
Buy Grue online.
Shop Target.com
www.Target.com