riddler

I would wait until other carriers, besides Verizon carry it. Why? The new blackberrys have GPS built-in, but Verizon always disables it so that they can sell you an inferior cell-phone triangulation service (VZNavigator) for an addition $10/month (whereas GPS is free). Also, the new blackberrys have WiFi, but Verizon disables that as well. Why? Because they want to sell you additional bandwidth (per meg over 5 gig), and if you use WiFi at home, you're not using their network. I'm going to drop Verizon after my contract expires, due to bad marketing practices like these. Can't complain about service, though - it's pretty good. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

You've probably never had the "lifestyles" poly Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

Now that was funny Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

The other part of this, that they left off, will be: * only available for installation on parts of Antarctica, the moon, or other planets. I'm pretty sure the ignorant environmentalists (note, I am NOT saying all environmentalists are ignorant, just a portion of them), the ignorant politicians (here, I'm pretty much saying all of them), and the fossil-fuel industries will outlaw them in pretty much every part of the earth. If I'm wrong, I'll buy one and bury it in my backyard. I need the power for all my laptops Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

Not on these boards $250K / yr is the line here. I feel a disturbance in the force as a few dz.commers say "funny, I don't feel rich" Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

Kinda tough pill to swallow, ain't it? Fortunately, we humans have such sophisticated brains, that we can deceive ourselves into believing that we have a separate, immortal existence, so that we don't have to cope with death. Next, we make up an invisible guy in the sky, so that we can try to understand why we feel weird emotions, and to justify our existence. Ultimately, we superimpose our delusional ideals on everyone else, so that we don't have to feel bad when we kill them. But mother nature has us beat - we're still able to reproduce faster than we can kill each other. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

Hey - eighth string from the left, 4 cords down! I lost that one at the holiday boogie in 2004. I want it back! Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

This has a name - it's called ISO 8601, and it has some nice variations that allow for yyyymmdd, if you don't feel like timestamping. I use this format on all of my computer files. The problem with dates where the month-number and day-number being the same, is it brings out the kooks. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

I agree with you that Amex is declaring themselves a bank to try to cash in. However, I will say that they've been a bank for over a decade, just without the bricks and mortar. I used them as an online-only bank from 1998-2001. I could mail in deposits (or wire transfer for free), and I could use ATMs to get cash, and I could pay bills online. So the Fed "recognizing" them as a bank isn't a major leap in logic. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

Might be funnier if Al Gore actually said that, but he didn't. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

AT&T is offering the Blackberry Curve at a decent price - I've had three BBs, and the quality has always been outstanding. I've dropped the phones many times, sat on them a few times, never had an issue with any part of them breaking or not working. Batteries last for several years, and I've never had one go bad. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

Both of us living in Colorado, it's tempting to say we've already been invaded by Mexico. As far as Mexico invading with a real military, it's easy enough to say you think they have the right, but if it really happened, we would all be up in arms (literally), and we would respond with the same force that we have in the middle-east. After all, drug dealers there really have killed thousands of people, and many of those dealers live in the US, or travel here regularly, but Mexico is smart enough not to go chasing them across our borders. I agree with you that most choices are not simple, but national sovereignity should be absolute. Otherwise we end up in world wars, like WW1, where nations banded together to try to prevent neighboring nations from invading. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

Sometimes, the fed government has limited choices about what is legal in each state. I remember when they raised the legal drinking age from 18 to 21 years. Colorado was one of the last two states to hold out, and finally the government threatened to take away millions of dollars in highway funds. That kinda made sense, considering drinking and driving among young people was one of the key issues. But I don't know how the Fed could pressure states to change their laws. Taking away highway funding doesn't make sense. I also see the entire issue from a revenue perspective. The states and churches opposed to gay marriage are losing money to be had from gay weddings. The lawyers should've been strongly opposed - think of the money they could be making from gay divorce. Insurance companies would probably do better, since some people would pay slightly more to have both spouses insured - many couples can't afford individual insurance for both parties. The only thing prop 8 does is get gay couples to fly to another state to get married, and lose income for California. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

These questions are all pretty easy to answer. Just reverse the position, as if another country wanted to come into the United States. If Mexico wanted to send armed troops into the US to chase people they think are drug runners, and the US weren't able to help, but still said no to Mexican troops coming here ... What should Mexico do? Should they invade the US anyway? To me, the answer to both questions is no. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

No, we learned that lesson from the Contras. Just giving money to other countries (or insurgant groups) so they can build up their miltary doesn't work. I'm for US troops going into other countries to take out our enemies IF that country gives us permission, AND in the spirit of cooperation with their own military. In the event that Pakistan feels it cannot accomplish military action to kill Al-Qaeda in Pakistan AND they give US troops permission to work together to do so, then we should go into Pakistan to kill Al-Qaeda. Giving money to Pakistan for their own military build-up won't achieve anything. Bush, OTOH, thinks it's OK to charge right in without asking for cooperation, or even permission. Just because we can. Does it make sense now why other governments hate us? Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

Your assertion was that "science and technology will govern all choices with no regard to compassion or charity". I was making an argument that I don't believe that to be true. Science needs to lack emotion, but that doesn't mean that we as people, or as governments will give up emotion. I doubt we will even give up religion. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

Yep. OBL is standing in Canada, in the middle of a school full of schoolkids. POTUS does not even ask - he orders missile strikes that kill the schoolkids, but we find out that our intelligence is wrong, and it was only a really tall guy with a beard that looked like OBL. Still believe is US military intelligence? Extreme examples can go both ways. The point is that Bush believes that it is OK to go into any country at any time and kill people without prior consent from that government. If anyone else did that to us, it would be war (and rightly so). Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

That is exactly the hypocrisy - I'm glad you see that. Other countries should not attack the U.S., and in kind, we should not invade other countries. Sound reasonable? Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

I didn't see anything in the article that led me to believe that the US was going to give any other country the chance to do anything about it. Personally, I believe in the external sovereignty of other countries, which I know is an unpopular opinion in the U.S. At least, not until another country invades us ... Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

Apparently Pax Americana comes with a heavy price tag. NY Times is reporting that George W. Bush authorized the invasion of any country where Al-Qaeda is suspected of hiding. http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081110/ts_nm/us_usa_military_report;_ylt=AmA6.rGwOucj3i9.bqlAjrR34T0D So the next time you find American troops in your backyard, expect them to say something along the lines of "uh, we thought Bin Laden might be hiding here." Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

That's nothing! I heard a televangelist on the 700 club proclaim that legalizing gay marriage is a pre-cursor to legalizing sex with pre-pubescent children! Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

What you said was this: That is an incorrect assumption, and does not factor in the Human Equation. It is incorrect to assume that without religion, there will be no emotion, no compassion, no charity. It is equally incorrect to say that if religion is eliminated from society that science will take over. Humans will always be humans, and they will act accordingly, with or without their special clubs. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

I doubt that very much. Compassion and Charity were around long before religion, and they are rooted more in human nature than in any organized belief system. If you believe that atheists are emotionless, then you have no understanding of atheism or humanity. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

Hate the haters. Hate homosexuality. Hate choice. Hate secularity. Hate freedom. Hate non-believers. Do so with "religious" fervor, get our elected representatives to pass laws condoning hate. And they wonder why they're hated? It's fairly obvious to me. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

I hate Comcast! And I don't even have cable television I use them for high speed Internet. I even bought my own modem. Then they DOCSISed their own firmware to it, which makes the modem reset 10 times per day! I have to take a trip to my basement and manually reset the stupid thing several times per day. This has been going on for a year! I had DSL a few times, and it's not nearly as fast as I need, and Qwest kills the DSL a few times a day, anyway, so Comcast is the lesser of two evils. If you call Comcast for support, you get retarded people that were extras in the movie Idiocracy saying they have no idea what's going on, even when you tell them exactly what the problem is. I even know how to fix it. But I can't do it myself - they need to flash an older version of the firmware to my modem, but they have no clue how to. Losers. I hope they get serious competition from Verizon fiber in Denver soon!!!! Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD