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Properly document your hardware!

So you walk up to the register with all of the items you really want--pie, ice cream, whatever--and the klaxon goes off. Do you put the items back? Are they prepackaged? What if they're not? Also: doesn't this slow the line up as kids have to keep going back through until they get a lunch the computer likes?

Maybe. Depending upon who does the recording.

I always thought it would be interesting to have different people commenting on movies than those involved with making them. Critics, sure, but maybe directors influenced by the film or historians or other knowledgeable folks.

It'd be like watching the movie in the company of someone interesting.

Wow. That is such a Slashdot comment. "Uh...I have a date with Natalie Portman tonight. We're watching...uh...Casablanca."

That said, I do sometimes prefer the "Pop-Up Video" style commentaries (formatted like a subtitle, maybe).

It's an old truism of the con artists' trade that the best kind of mark is the person who thinks they're getting something for nothing--that they're really scamming the con artist.

This is my favorite element of the crime: taking advantage of a desire to take advantage.

Hooray for duelling dishonesty!

I love those Nigerian scams, if only because I like the fact that someone says, "I'm going to pull a fast one on this Nigerian yokel for all that money."

The best news of all is that this script--pure Hollywood gold--is now available for Michael Bay or the Wachowski brothers to work their magic.

Tom Cruise as Jeff Trent! Jennifer Lopez as Paula Trent! William Shatner as Inspector Dan Clay!

Money in the bank, I tell you. Ka-ching!

I was in high school and going through the usual geek/teen problems, stumbling home depressed at night to play Wasteland. I'll never forget the scene where, after gathering chemicals and other inventory items, you help those two guys with radiation sickness back to health (Metal Maniac and I forget the other's name).

The NPC sits up and says, "Let's go kick some ass!"

I remember thinking, "Yeah, it's about time for that, isn't it?"

That's one of those moments that really changed me: tenacity and humor after near-total defeat.

I'm not saying the two are mutually exclusive. I just find it interesting that people are willing to take to the streets for a television show and will invent a foundation to fund it, but wait for someone else to tell them where to send money for real science.

I'm just wondering if anyone will create a Voyager United fund, or if they'll just fold their arms and wait passively for others to solve the problem.

I'd suspect funding the Voyager probes would be a better (and maybe more ironic, given ST:TMP) use of their money than more episodes of that television show.

Imagine that: buying science instead of fiction.

I made helmets for my stuffed animals out of plastic soda bottle bottoms (the new-fangled invention of the era, if I recall).

It's kind of sad that my first memory of the space program is being vaguely scared it was going to crash down on me.

Hmmmm...didn't EA start out as a company interested in peer approval? I'm almost certain that Interplay did--they sold themselves that way on their packaging, anyway.

I'd much rather buy a game designed by a gamer than by an executive.

At least market competition can't stop open sourcers from doing that--just from making money doing it. Maybe this is the coming age of the artist game developer.

I also suggest paying the extra money for the historical sites tour in ADDITION to the big bus tour.

They take you in a smaller bus with a more knowledgeable guide to the Apollo, Gemini, and Mercury pads as well as some of the Air Force facilities.

I agree with Sanger that there should be greater respect for expertise, but I have to say I rarely use Wikipedia for researching any subject that has a real "expert."

Most of the time, I use it as a resource for pop culture references (leet, for instance) for which other people, though not experts, know a bit more than I do. I think of Wikipedia as an encyclopedia of the moment.

Just thing: a whole generation of children may go from having to talk to Teddy Ruxpin due to loneliness to having to talk to Snuggling Ifbot due to loneliness.

At least Teddy could read stories.

In my TiVo experience, it's just been useful for delaying my viewing for my convenience, not for archiving things. That's what DVD is for.

I switched to a console because I was sick of upgrading my hardware every six months. Now, I've got a different problem: only the company can make mods for the game, and they're going to charge me for it.

Maybe it's time to return to the PC fold--at least it's (marginally) easier to mod a game for that without the blessing of the company.

Let's see...millions of Windows users all downloading 250MB at once....

I guess this is the nuclear attack we've been waiting for to see if this whole "Internet" concept really works.

I wrestled constantly with a surly woman in a previous job--she hated me, hated our department, and hated working with almost anybody.

I'm sitting in her cubicle as she rants about my department again and I notice she has some pictures of her dogs hanging on the walls. In a lull in the raving, I asked about the dogs and--like flipping a switch--she suddenly softened and then went on and on about them. It was the most boring conversation in the world, but afterwards, she cooperated with me much more and even praised my work after the project.

It's easy to get tangled in roles and forget people are human beings--however annoying ones sometimes. That one moment of talking about something she really cared about was just enough to make her realize we weren't gang members but human beings.

As weird as it sounds, try some diplomacy: learn about the person, ask some questions, feign (or, better yet, actually cultivate) interest...you'd be surprised how people suddenly turn around when their passions are revealed.

I have come to believe (partly from my own experience, alas) that these books are so appealing because they offer a quick jolt of mastery and competence (maybe even with a chemical burst, too).

I think we're wired to enjoy realizations, and these books are like canned realizations you don't really have to work for.

Isn't RvB going to look like it was filmed on an Atari 2600 up on that giant screen?

Let's just use a random generator to give out grades. We'll get the same bell curve distribution, won't we?

Actually, that's a good point. I'd rather it improve, too.

And that's just, like, yours.

Why call for anybody to silence their opinions about anything? I'm not saying the show should be taken off the air by force of arms--I'm just saying I hope it's cancelled soon.

That opinion is no less valid than yours, "man."

Because some of us remember when Star Trek wasn't just an excuse to sell toys and keep "camera men, editors, and janitors" in jobs.

Sure, it's always been a profit thing, but once there seemed to be some soul behind it, and watching the juggernaut limping into entropy is just depressing to those of us who had any emotional connection to previous incarnations of the show.

...it was actually pseudo-science that got me interested in the real thing. Books from the elementary school library about UFOs, Bigfoot, and ghosts scared the hell out of my teachers, I'm sure, but they got me interested in peeking into life's mysteries on my own.

I'm not sure what flipped the switch from credulity to skepticism, but those early things got me interested. Maybe it was like the old myths of our ancient ancestors: wrong, but they still showed some drive towards explanation and understanding, however over-simplified.

I'm not saying we should have classes on UFOs, but I wouldn't be too alarmed to see my kid reading about them.

Unless he started growing strange mushrooms in the basement or wearing a tin-foil hat...

No more brushing my teeth and all the Coke I can drink!

Take that, Mother, with all your dire predictions about my teeth rotting out.