I have to wonder just how much GoDaddy.com was making from its presence in China. What was its market share? What was its gross revenue?
Based on the opinions of many/. comments, I would have suspected that the two would make happy bedfellows. Doesn't GoDaddy.com practice extreme control over their clients, rooting boxes, and taking over lapsed domain names to then extort their customers, or am I mistaking it for another registrar / host?
It's very common for Intel to make 6 different CPU chips that are exactly the same, but use a laser to cut a single connection on the chip to make sure it runs at a certain speed. Sure, you can overclock the CPU, but it still has one of its throttles turned down. These chips are then sold for 10-50% less, depending on which connection is cut.
It costs them exactly the same amount to design and manufacture a 2.4 GHz model as a 3.0 GHz model. In fact, it ultimately costs more to gimp these chips, because they have to pay an engineer to design this mechanism, and buy/maintain the machine that does the gimping. Although, this does mean that I can get a gimped chip for slightly less than the cost to produce it by having someone else pay for the overpriced ungimped version. Still, I think I would rather pay $200 for a 3.0 GHz model, and not have the option of a slower model, than to pay $180 for a 2.4 GHz model while enthusiasts pay $900 for the 3.0 GHz model.
Not only are you right that this has been done for a long time, but it's also become common practice.
What about those 386 PCs that had a turbo button that would allow it to run at twice the speed (66 MHz instead of 33 MHz)? Nobody ever turned it off, so why have the button in the first place?
I don't think one year comparison between the two administrations is really fair. We should probably wait until Obama's first four years are over.
Unfortunately, by that time it will be a moot point. If we assume that he doesn't get reelected, then the we will only be able to look back and say "yep, Obama was more secretive." If we assume that he does get reelected, then we still lose those 3 years of having greater information available. Those are 3 years that you cannot get back. Either way, we lose something by waiting another 3 years.
If I remember correctly (and I often don't), there were no battles around the Shire in that time frame. During Return of the King, the Shire was occupied by Saruman and his lackies, but that was outside the time frame of this sequel.
The rangers were a mystery to the hobbits and men of the Shire / Bree. What the rangers did was secret, as there were few of them left. The elves knew all about the rangers. In fact, Aragorn grew up in their care, IIRC.
There is definitely the whole Balin thing that I forgot about. He failed, of course, but he did try. The dwarves of the Lonely Mountain didn't have to do a lot. Sure, they had to scrub the floors, and make some new furniture, but Smaug kept his lair, and the surrounding territories, mostly free of anything that might have caused the dwarves trouble.
The biggest problem, I think, is going to be picking a single story line to follow, because they don't cross paths. In LOTR, the fellowship crossed paths with the ents, Saruman, Rohan, and Gondor, so all those sub-arcs could be incorporated. There were many, many more arcs that could have been included, but they didn't cross the path of the fellowship, so they were not included. For example, there were the battles in Mirkwood and around Dale / The Lonely Mountain. What we see in LOTR is a small subset of the War of the Ring.
If the sequel focuses on just one arc, then it may turn out well. If it tries to do everything, then it will fall flat.
Ewww... Elrond having an affair with his MOTHER-IN-LAW?! I know that elves age gracefully (as in, not at all), but I think that their moral standards are a bit higher than you give them credit for.
Furries? Let's see, what roles could they play... a spider? Naw. How about a goblin? Nope. A warg? Hm... a nasty super-wolf ridden by green midgets. Maybe. A Great Eagle? No way. A troll? Not a chance. Well, I guess all those furries are going to be disappointed, since the wargs in LOTR were CG.
The planned sequel to The Hobbit is to be an original story not written by Tolkien, covering the 60 years between The Hobbit, and the Lord of the Rings."
I know that there is a lot going on during those 60 years, but none of it involves any hobbits. In fact, all the stuff that's happening is centered around Aragorn growing up and going to war, Sauron regaining his power in Mordor, after having been tossed out of Mirkwood, and Elrond's sons searching for their mother. These are unrelated story lines that are too short to constitute a movie independently.
If there is going to be another movie based on Tolkien's Middle-Earth, it should be drawn from the Silmarillion. That's full of awesomeness, that is otherwise written very confusingly (and blandly). The Silmarillion would benefit greatly from a movie adaptation of even one story arc mentioned in there.
Someone mod this person as Funny. It looks like someone is having a field day in these discussions, modding everyone down as Troll / Redundant for no good reason.
I know, this is Slashdot, we're all supposed to jump to conclusions based on the title of the submission, and not even read the summary. But anway...
The answer is nobody would be breaking the law. The law is written so that it requires intent to deceive. You actually want the correct name, so you're not deceiving. The cell phone company is just being incompetent, and again shouldn't be prosecuted.
Speaking of jumping to conclusions...
Actually, I can't read the law, because both sites are blocked by my employer's firewall./. is whitelisted, as are CNN, Wikipedia, and other popular, largely respected sites, but not the two linked in the summary.
Anyway, thanks for answering my (sincere) question, even if your reply was a bit presumptuous and rude. I wish that this law applied to incompetent phone companies too, because that seems to be the only way I can get this thing changed.
Despite repeated attempts to get my cell phone company to change the name that shows up when I call someone, it still shows that person's name. So in this case, who would be breaking the law? Common sense would say that it's the cell phone company's fault because they control what name is shown, and I have tried to get it changed. Unfortunately, common sense doesn't apply to most laws. Could I now call someone in Mississippi, report to that state's government that the name is showing up incorrectly, and get my cell phone company to pay a fine every time I make such a call? That would get them to change it real fast.
It's ridiculous and makes you sound as immature as the conservatives who say "DUMMYCRATS" or liberals who say "FAUX NEWS". I agree about their methods, but it makes your arguments look silly and people take you less seriously. Grow up.
I must not have communicated this very well, so let me reiterate. The baggage that tends to be loaded into the word MAFIAA has disappeared. It's been used so much that it has lost its original intent, which was to make a political statement.
When people say "dummycrats" they are referring to democrats, but loading the word with political baggage to say that democrats are stupid. When people say "faux news" they are doing the same thing, loading the word with baggage to say that the news on Fox is fake.
However, if you use a word enough times, it loses this baggage and simply becomes the accepted name. If you use the name Xerox as a verb enough times, it eventually ceases to refer to a company, and becomes the defacto word for photocopying. When you use the word "sucks" enough times, it ceases to have sexual connotations and becomes a word meaning "something that is unpleasant".
This is what has happened to the term MAFIAA. It has been used so many times that I (and many others) no longer see any political meaning. It is simply the name given to the combined entity that is the MPAA/RIAA. What name is used has no bearing on the arguments. It's now simply a name, nothing more.
It's not really childish name calling, so much as it has become accepted as the name we all use for referring to the MPAA and RIAA, without having to refer to them both individually. What's easier to type, MPAA/RIAA or MAFIAA? MAFIAA has become so commonplaced, that I don't even recognize the dig against them anymore. Even if we did recognize it, the fact that they use organized, yet pseudo-criminal, methods for getting money from people is just that: a known fact. It's now beyond debate.
The term is similar to the way that the terms diva and brat have lost their negative connotations, and simply become the defacto name for those who love attention, and those who have a knack for influencing people to get what they desire, respectively. It's similar to a certain racial slur which has become common parlance for those in that group to refer to one another. Remember how it used to be considered embarassing if you were to have your pants pulled down and your underwear exposed to everyone? Some people now prefer a clothing style wherein they walk around with their pants on the ground.
MAFIAA isn't name calling. It's just who they are.
It has already been documented that any undersea turbines will cause too much heat, crack the Earth's crust, and cause the polar ice caps to melt. We'd best keep the seaQuest DSV nearby to stop it when it happens!
I posted this in reply to another post, below. Yeah, I know that makes it redundant, but I believe this is relevant to both discussions, and I don't know how to direct you to that post.
A DNA sample is taken of every child born in the US, to test for potential genetic diseases. The original specimen is stored for a period of time, based on state laws. Here are some citations:
A DNA sample is taken of every child born in the US, to test for potential genetic diseases. The original specimen is stored for a period of time, based on state laws. Here are some citations:
That was already done, on a smallish scale. I remember reading, a few years ago, about 1 in 10 men in Chicago are raising a child that they believe is theirs, but in fact, is not. This was based on data collected at a hospital. I think it was blood tests? I can't take the time to look up the original study / article at this moment.
The last time I was looking for a job, I searched my name on Google and came up with a lot of hits that had nothing to do with me. Some were good, some were bad. In all, there were at least four distinct people on the first six pages of hits, with my name.
For example, there was one person who is a police officer in another state that was on the first page. If someone were to mistake me for that person, I wouldn't mind. However, there is no way someone would mistake me for him, due to age, occupation, and location differences.
Another person on the first page was someone I definitely did NOT want to be mistaken for. Unfortunately, this person works in IT, went to school in the same state as I did, and is just a couple years younger than I am. The possibility for mistaking me for this person was rather high.
There are a few ways I could fix this problem, but most would take way too long. I could publish some papers, speak at conferences, etc., but that would take years to get me on the first page of search results. Alternatively, I could make my Facebook profile public, even though it wouldn't have as much impact. It was perfectly clean, since I don't participate in any questionable activities (street racing, binge drinking, drugs, bad-mouthing bosses, etc). I also don't include information about religion/politics. My friends have similar values that I do, so even if someone were to infer information about me based on them, they would have every reason to believe that I am a normal, decent person, with strong morals and good character. Sure, this won't immediately get the real me to show up on the first page of search results, but it was a quick and simple thing that got me moving toward my goal.
So an XX or XY chromosome pairing in every cell of a mammal is nothing to do with gender?
Sex (noun) and gender are two distinct things. Sex is genetic, while gender is hormonal. Transgenered people are of one particular sex, and a different gender. Some animals can change, hormonally, based on non-genetic factors. They change their gender based on the presence or absence of certain members of a gender of their species being present in their population. Take out the males, and females become males. It's similar to the way that women living in the same home will eventually be on the same menstrual cycle. Non-genetic factors influence hormones, and gender is hormonal.
Have you ever noticed that in same-sex pairings, it is common for one member to act very masculine, and the other act very feminine, regardless of what the pair's actual sex is? It's my understanding that there is no hormonal difference, but one just adopts the behaviors of the other gender. This seems consistent with the idea of a chicken flock losing its rooster and a female acting as one without any hormonal changes. Now this is purely anecdotal, but I believe it to be accurate.
Voting your views rather than those of the people you purport to represent is not democracy. Do what your constituents want or resign.
Those who are voted into an office are there to LEAD, not act as an aggregate of their constituents. This means occasionally doing things that most people don't want, but are necessary.
I studied computer science because I loved using computers since I was in first grade, even though I never owned one until a few months before graduating HS. There was just something about their flexibility, and capacity for automating tasks that appealed to me.
When I chose CS as my major in college, my friends were all telling me that I only needed to study for a couple of years, apply for a few jobs, get competing offers with huge salaries and signing bonuses, and I would be set. This was based on the experiences of their older brothers, cousins, etc. As a result, I thought nothing about all the loans I was taking out to attend university. It wasn't that I was greedy, I just couldn't get a full scholarship, and my parents couldn't afford to give me a dime, so if I was going to continue my education instead of working right out of HS, I would need a lot of loans.
Then the bust happend, and I spent my summer of 2001 working helpdesk for a government agency. In 2002, I couldn't even get a summer job, and lived off $250 a month leftover from my loans that year, with $200 going toward rent, ~$35 toward utilities, and ~$15 toward food. Not even a fast food joint would hire me. In 2003 I didn't even bother looking for a job, because it was preferrable to be scraping by and deal with more debt when I graduated than to face the impossibility of finding a job. When I graduated in 2004, I jumped at the first job I could get, which was desktop/server administration, intranet maintenance, and helpdesk in a 3-man IT shop for a very non-technical company. It paid the bills for 3 years, and allowed me to support my wife while she attended university. Toward the end of the third year, I was offered my first development job, working for a small company that was bought (a week later) by a mega-multinational.
Now things have turned around, I am earning twice what I was earning at my first job out of college, and my $105,000 in school debt is well under control. My wife graduated from school, and is earning a very nice sum too. Sure, she has $40,000 in school debt, but five years of scraping by together has taught us how to live well below our means; and with our combined salaries (and no kids) we have considerable means.
If the "golden years" never occured, I would have ended up working at a video store straight out of HS, spending all my money on video games, and living with my parents. I never got to experience the era, but it gave me the courage to take a bold risk and become the first person within my family (immediate and extended) to attend college. Sure, it was a rocky road, hiking through the rubble that was the dot-com bust, but I made it through in the end.
Slashdot Mirror
I have to wonder just how much GoDaddy.com was making from its presence in China. What was its market share? What was its gross revenue?
Based on the opinions of many /. comments, I would have suspected that the two would make happy bedfellows. Doesn't GoDaddy.com practice extreme control over their clients, rooting boxes, and taking over lapsed domain names to then extort their customers, or am I mistaking it for another registrar / host?
It's very common for Intel to make 6 different CPU chips that are exactly the same, but use a laser to cut a single connection on the chip to make sure it runs at a certain speed. Sure, you can overclock the CPU, but it still has one of its throttles turned down. These chips are then sold for 10-50% less, depending on which connection is cut.
It costs them exactly the same amount to design and manufacture a 2.4 GHz model as a 3.0 GHz model. In fact, it ultimately costs more to gimp these chips, because they have to pay an engineer to design this mechanism, and buy/maintain the machine that does the gimping. Although, this does mean that I can get a gimped chip for slightly less than the cost to produce it by having someone else pay for the overpriced ungimped version. Still, I think I would rather pay $200 for a 3.0 GHz model, and not have the option of a slower model, than to pay $180 for a 2.4 GHz model while enthusiasts pay $900 for the 3.0 GHz model.
Not only are you right that this has been done for a long time, but it's also become common practice.
What about those 386 PCs that had a turbo button that would allow it to run at twice the speed (66 MHz instead of 33 MHz)? Nobody ever turned it off, so why have the button in the first place?
I don't think one year comparison between the two administrations is really fair. We should probably wait until Obama's first four years are over.
Unfortunately, by that time it will be a moot point. If we assume that he doesn't get reelected, then the we will only be able to look back and say "yep, Obama was more secretive." If we assume that he does get reelected, then we still lose those 3 years of having greater information available. Those are 3 years that you cannot get back. Either way, we lose something by waiting another 3 years.
If I remember correctly (and I often don't), there were no battles around the Shire in that time frame. During Return of the King, the Shire was occupied by Saruman and his lackies, but that was outside the time frame of this sequel.
The rangers were a mystery to the hobbits and men of the Shire / Bree. What the rangers did was secret, as there were few of them left. The elves knew all about the rangers. In fact, Aragorn grew up in their care, IIRC.
There is definitely the whole Balin thing that I forgot about. He failed, of course, but he did try. The dwarves of the Lonely Mountain didn't have to do a lot. Sure, they had to scrub the floors, and make some new furniture, but Smaug kept his lair, and the surrounding territories, mostly free of anything that might have caused the dwarves trouble.
The biggest problem, I think, is going to be picking a single story line to follow, because they don't cross paths. In LOTR, the fellowship crossed paths with the ents, Saruman, Rohan, and Gondor, so all those sub-arcs could be incorporated. There were many, many more arcs that could have been included, but they didn't cross the path of the fellowship, so they were not included. For example, there were the battles in Mirkwood and around Dale / The Lonely Mountain. What we see in LOTR is a small subset of the War of the Ring.
If the sequel focuses on just one arc, then it may turn out well. If it tries to do everything, then it will fall flat.
Aha! I knew I was forgetting someone. Thanks for the reminder.
Ewww... Elrond having an affair with his MOTHER-IN-LAW?! I know that elves age gracefully (as in, not at all), but I think that their moral standards are a bit higher than you give them credit for.
Furries? Let's see, what roles could they play... a spider? Naw. How about a goblin? Nope. A warg? Hm... a nasty super-wolf ridden by green midgets. Maybe. A Great Eagle? No way. A troll? Not a chance. Well, I guess all those furries are going to be disappointed, since the wargs in LOTR were CG.
The planned sequel to The Hobbit is to be an original story not written by Tolkien, covering the 60 years between The Hobbit, and the Lord of the Rings."
I know that there is a lot going on during those 60 years, but none of it involves any hobbits. In fact, all the stuff that's happening is centered around Aragorn growing up and going to war, Sauron regaining his power in Mordor, after having been tossed out of Mirkwood, and Elrond's sons searching for their mother. These are unrelated story lines that are too short to constitute a movie independently.
If there is going to be another movie based on Tolkien's Middle-Earth, it should be drawn from the Silmarillion. That's full of awesomeness, that is otherwise written very confusingly (and blandly). The Silmarillion would benefit greatly from a movie adaptation of even one story arc mentioned in there.
Someone mod this person as Funny. It looks like someone is having a field day in these discussions, modding everyone down as Troll / Redundant for no good reason.
Well, you could read the law.
I know, this is Slashdot, we're all supposed to jump to conclusions based on the title of the submission, and not even read the summary. But anway...
The answer is nobody would be breaking the law. The law is written so that it requires intent to deceive. You actually want the correct name, so you're not deceiving. The cell phone company is just being incompetent, and again shouldn't be prosecuted.
Speaking of jumping to conclusions...
Actually, I can't read the law, because both sites are blocked by my employer's firewall. /. is whitelisted, as are CNN, Wikipedia, and other popular, largely respected sites, but not the two linked in the summary.
Anyway, thanks for answering my (sincere) question, even if your reply was a bit presumptuous and rude. I wish that this law applied to incompetent phone companies too, because that seems to be the only way I can get this thing changed.
Despite repeated attempts to get my cell phone company to change the name that shows up when I call someone, it still shows that person's name. So in this case, who would be breaking the law? Common sense would say that it's the cell phone company's fault because they control what name is shown, and I have tried to get it changed. Unfortunately, common sense doesn't apply to most laws. Could I now call someone in Mississippi, report to that state's government that the name is showing up incorrectly, and get my cell phone company to pay a fine every time I make such a call? That would get them to change it real fast.
It's ridiculous and makes you sound as immature as the conservatives who say "DUMMYCRATS" or liberals who say "FAUX NEWS". I agree about their methods, but it makes your arguments look silly and people take you less seriously. Grow up.
I must not have communicated this very well, so let me reiterate. The baggage that tends to be loaded into the word MAFIAA has disappeared. It's been used so much that it has lost its original intent, which was to make a political statement.
When people say "dummycrats" they are referring to democrats, but loading the word with political baggage to say that democrats are stupid. When people say "faux news" they are doing the same thing, loading the word with baggage to say that the news on Fox is fake.
However, if you use a word enough times, it loses this baggage and simply becomes the accepted name. If you use the name Xerox as a verb enough times, it eventually ceases to refer to a company, and becomes the defacto word for photocopying. When you use the word "sucks" enough times, it ceases to have sexual connotations and becomes a word meaning "something that is unpleasant".
This is what has happened to the term MAFIAA. It has been used so many times that I (and many others) no longer see any political meaning. It is simply the name given to the combined entity that is the MPAA/RIAA. What name is used has no bearing on the arguments. It's now simply a name, nothing more.
It's not really childish name calling, so much as it has become accepted as the name we all use for referring to the MPAA and RIAA, without having to refer to them both individually. What's easier to type, MPAA/RIAA or MAFIAA? MAFIAA has become so commonplaced, that I don't even recognize the dig against them anymore. Even if we did recognize it, the fact that they use organized, yet pseudo-criminal, methods for getting money from people is just that: a known fact. It's now beyond debate.
The term is similar to the way that the terms diva and brat have lost their negative connotations, and simply become the defacto name for those who love attention, and those who have a knack for influencing people to get what they desire, respectively. It's similar to a certain racial slur which has become common parlance for those in that group to refer to one another. Remember how it used to be considered embarassing if you were to have your pants pulled down and your underwear exposed to everyone? Some people now prefer a clothing style wherein they walk around with their pants on the ground.
MAFIAA isn't name calling. It's just who they are.
Here is the academic paper for those with PNAS access.
I have access to a PNAS. Sometimes I let my wife have access to it, too.
It has already been documented that any undersea turbines will cause too much heat, crack the Earth's crust, and cause the polar ice caps to melt. We'd best keep the seaQuest DSV nearby to stop it when it happens!
Higher Power (seaQuest DSV)
I posted this in reply to another post, below. Yeah, I know that makes it redundant, but I believe this is relevant to both discussions, and I don't know how to direct you to that post.
A DNA sample is taken of every child born in the US, to test for potential genetic diseases. The original specimen is stored for a period of time, based on state laws. Here are some citations:
Genetic Screening
Controversy
Specimen retention by state
A DNA sample is taken of every child born in the US, to test for potential genetic diseases. The original specimen is stored for a period of time, based on state laws. Here are some citations:
Genetic Screening
Controversy
Specimen retention by state
That was already done, on a smallish scale. I remember reading, a few years ago, about 1 in 10 men in Chicago are raising a child that they believe is theirs, but in fact, is not. This was based on data collected at a hospital. I think it was blood tests? I can't take the time to look up the original study / article at this moment.
The last time I was looking for a job, I searched my name on Google and came up with a lot of hits that had nothing to do with me. Some were good, some were bad. In all, there were at least four distinct people on the first six pages of hits, with my name.
For example, there was one person who is a police officer in another state that was on the first page. If someone were to mistake me for that person, I wouldn't mind. However, there is no way someone would mistake me for him, due to age, occupation, and location differences.
Another person on the first page was someone I definitely did NOT want to be mistaken for. Unfortunately, this person works in IT, went to school in the same state as I did, and is just a couple years younger than I am. The possibility for mistaking me for this person was rather high.
There are a few ways I could fix this problem, but most would take way too long. I could publish some papers, speak at conferences, etc., but that would take years to get me on the first page of search results. Alternatively, I could make my Facebook profile public, even though it wouldn't have as much impact. It was perfectly clean, since I don't participate in any questionable activities (street racing, binge drinking, drugs, bad-mouthing bosses, etc). I also don't include information about religion/politics. My friends have similar values that I do, so even if someone were to infer information about me based on them, they would have every reason to believe that I am a normal, decent person, with strong morals and good character. Sure, this won't immediately get the real me to show up on the first page of search results, but it was a quick and simple thing that got me moving toward my goal.
So an XX or XY chromosome pairing in every cell of a mammal is nothing to do with gender?
Sex (noun) and gender are two distinct things. Sex is genetic, while gender is hormonal. Transgenered people are of one particular sex, and a different gender. Some animals can change, hormonally, based on non-genetic factors. They change their gender based on the presence or absence of certain members of a gender of their species being present in their population. Take out the males, and females become males. It's similar to the way that women living in the same home will eventually be on the same menstrual cycle. Non-genetic factors influence hormones, and gender is hormonal.
Have you ever noticed that in same-sex pairings, it is common for one member to act very masculine, and the other act very feminine, regardless of what the pair's actual sex is? It's my understanding that there is no hormonal difference, but one just adopts the behaviors of the other gender. This seems consistent with the idea of a chicken flock losing its rooster and a female acting as one without any hormonal changes. Now this is purely anecdotal, but I believe it to be accurate.
Voting your views rather than those of the people you purport to represent is not democracy. Do what your constituents want or resign.
Those who are voted into an office are there to LEAD, not act as an aggregate of their constituents. This means occasionally doing things that most people don't want, but are necessary.
I had a similar, unfortunate, experience.
I studied computer science because I loved using computers since I was in first grade, even though I never owned one until a few months before graduating HS. There was just something about their flexibility, and capacity for automating tasks that appealed to me.
When I chose CS as my major in college, my friends were all telling me that I only needed to study for a couple of years, apply for a few jobs, get competing offers with huge salaries and signing bonuses, and I would be set. This was based on the experiences of their older brothers, cousins, etc. As a result, I thought nothing about all the loans I was taking out to attend university. It wasn't that I was greedy, I just couldn't get a full scholarship, and my parents couldn't afford to give me a dime, so if I was going to continue my education instead of working right out of HS, I would need a lot of loans.
Then the bust happend, and I spent my summer of 2001 working helpdesk for a government agency. In 2002, I couldn't even get a summer job, and lived off $250 a month leftover from my loans that year, with $200 going toward rent, ~$35 toward utilities, and ~$15 toward food. Not even a fast food joint would hire me. In 2003 I didn't even bother looking for a job, because it was preferrable to be scraping by and deal with more debt when I graduated than to face the impossibility of finding a job. When I graduated in 2004, I jumped at the first job I could get, which was desktop/server administration, intranet maintenance, and helpdesk in a 3-man IT shop for a very non-technical company. It paid the bills for 3 years, and allowed me to support my wife while she attended university. Toward the end of the third year, I was offered my first development job, working for a small company that was bought (a week later) by a mega-multinational.
Now things have turned around, I am earning twice what I was earning at my first job out of college, and my $105,000 in school debt is well under control. My wife graduated from school, and is earning a very nice sum too. Sure, she has $40,000 in school debt, but five years of scraping by together has taught us how to live well below our means; and with our combined salaries (and no kids) we have considerable means.
If the "golden years" never occured, I would have ended up working at a video store straight out of HS, spending all my money on video games, and living with my parents. I never got to experience the era, but it gave me the courage to take a bold risk and become the first person within my family (immediate and extended) to attend college. Sure, it was a rocky road, hiking through the rubble that was the dot-com bust, but I made it through in the end.
Since I do not want to start an offtopic debate, I am correcting that sentence.
Modded "offtopic" for fixing a typo, after recognizing that it may cause an unintended offtopic discussion?
Thank you for the reminder. My wife would be very upset if I didn't bring her flowers today, since it's her culture's version of Mothers' Day.