TheMightyEthan

You can get good CF's that don't flicker and are the same color as incandescent. Ours are all nice and yellow.

Yeah, as soon as

I want to make clear that I am not in favor of government replacing private industry or anything like that. I think we're all in favor of balance, it's just we differ on where to strike that balance.

Of course it does, but part of its own interest is keeping the people happy, which involves serving their interests (or at least making them think that you are).

Not really. See, the electric company doesn't make anything off of electricity they provide to your house, just a "delivery" or "transmission" charge. Besides, if they can reduce the amount of power being supplied they won't have to purchase as much. Energy efficiency and conservation help the utility industries actually. Edit: That reminds me, the new house is filled with incandescent. I'll have to start replacing them soon. I wonder where I can get a good deal on LED bulbs. Then how do they make money? Also, how do LED bulbs compare to CF? We've got all CF right now.

You said your parents wouldn't accept welfare or food stamps because they're "not lazy people who sit on unemployment for years and do nothing to better their situation." That pretty strongly implies that you think that people who DO accept those things ARE that way. Simple, it's not the government's job. Why not?

You're electric company will give you a rebate for appliances that use less energy? That seems... odd. I will occasionally buy service agreements if they cover more than the warranty does.

A misplaced sense of pride? Nope, just not lazy people who sit on unemployment for years and do nothing to better their situation. Yes, everyone who's ever accepted any form of state assistance whatsoever is a lazy asshole who's never worked a day in their life. That certainly is an intelligent and reasonable stance.

I wonder if anyone's made an Alpha Centauri mod for Civ V...

I have mine boot from HDD first and then I just hit the F-whatever button during BIOS load to select boot device if I need to boot from a CD for some reason. Re: Windows Experience Index: Mine's a 5.9, though it would be a 7.5 if not for my slow HDD (you'd think 6GB/s SATA would be good enough...) and I don't really have problems running games.

Because it's awesome. *Edit* -

I liked Definitely, Maybe.

You don't literally penetrate both of them simultaneously.

Naked Sandra Bullock is a good selling point...

Two in the same calendar year is impossible?

I too would like $1B. *Edit* - Okay, yeah, based on all this info that's coming to light there is something seriously wrong with Activision's case.

One of my lifelong dreams is to see the Earth from space. (Not mocking, that's actually true.) I'm not sure whether that's going to be feasible within my lifetime or not. Ideally I would like to set foot on another celestial body (Moon would work, Mars would be better), but I'm reasonably sure that won't be feasible.

*Edit* - Here's the issue I take with the "anyone can make it" attitude: Yes, anyone can do it, but not everyone can. The system simply would not work without people in shitty-ass, low-paying jobs, so I don't see what's so wrong with trying to increase their standard of living.

I usually find subtitles distracting for the first few minutes, but after that it's like they're not even there.

Yeah, even when I'm wearing headphones I usually leave subtitles on because games often have just atrocious sound design.

Yay all my parts shipped! Hopefully I'll get them Saturday. Going shopping for a bike and a new mattress in Wichita (ooh, the big city...), then when we get back I can have a new project.

Over here release-date delivery is $0.99. I know the shipping distances are shorter over there so Amazon stuff tends to arrive faster, but the way they do it here is that if you preorder and choose release-date delivery they ship it the day before release, overnight shipping, so it arrives on release day, whereas if you choose free shipping then they don't ship it out until the actual release day and they just use standard shipping instead of overnight.

In my experience Amazon's estimated arrivals are always several days later than the actual arrival. Do they not offer release date shipping over there?

No one's saying that access to public transportation, food stamps, and government-subsidized healthcare are the determining factors of standard of living, but they are factors. Disposable income is another factor, as is job opportunities, or access to education. Just because one factor doesn't apply to everyone does not mean that it is not a factor at all.