Fezmid

http://www.today.com/news/does-j-c-penney-tea-kettle-look-hitler-6C10100642

It's not a deterrent at all. Yeah, maybe you catch stupid criminals, but that's about it. Especially since, like the article says, I can opt out of the screening and just not go on the plane. So bad guy walks through security, hopes he isn't picked up for extra screening. If he is, he opts out and leaves. No harm, no foul. Also - airport security theater treats everyone as a criminal. People were up in arms about throwing grandma off the cliff, but it's ok to molest her? But that's not the focus of the thread, so I'll stop for now since I could go on...

Security theater, nothing more. TSA doesn't make us safer.

Celebrity is actually a step up over RCL (both owned by the same company). Celebrity is more upscale of a cruise line - better customer service, better food. That said, the Oasis is an amazing ship from what I've seen, far better than Celebrity's ships.

Agreed. Been a DT fan since I&W was released, great stuff. Although I do think they peaked with Scenes from a Memory and have been going down since then. Maybe it's because Scenes was just that good. Sidenote: I was one of the people who signed a petition to get A Change of Seasons recorded. Someone on the Ytsejam mailing list started the petition, then printed off all of the "signatures" and dropped it off at the record label. We got a "special thanks" in the liner notes.

You generally get to pick how big of a table you want to sit at for dinner. We actually like meeting new people, so enjoy having dinner with others. In fact, when we went on our Mediterranean cruise, they sat us at a table with a couple from Rochester, NY - that was pretty cool. They also sat us with four people who spoke Spanish... They were friendly, but communication was difficult (to be fair, one of them was a banker in England, so he spoke English too - but those four pretty much talked with themselves and we hung out with the Rochester couple). On our recent trip to the Bahamas, we were at a table for four, but the other two people never showed up for dinner.

At least he apologized for women having to see his evil act. /s

You're reading too much into it. All we said was "Don't be afraid to take a profit." If you think the company is still undervalued based on your own research, then by all means, hold onto it. Just don't kick yourself if you sell and it still goes up - because profit is profit.

Good advice - and something I'm still really bad at.

Why does it have to be limited to one or the other? Good data is good data, and being able to quickly identity team tendencies (both your own as well as your opponents) is a pretty big part of the game in my opinion.

I'm not sure about a traditional IRA, but I know you can invest in individual stocks with a Roth IRA. I'd avoid ETrade -- they're expensive and changed their terms of service years ago to charge an "inactivity fee" -- negating the "buy and hold" strategy. And it was expensive, like $20/quarter if you didn't make a trade. They may have removed that, I haven't looked, but they made the change without contacting me through mail (they claim they sent a letter, but I never received it) and wouldn't reverse it. As for a starting amount -- any amount you don't mind losing. Keep in mind that you'll need to pay a transaction fee when you buy AND sell the stock. If the fee is $10/transaction, keep that in mind when investing -- you probably don't want to buy $100 worth of stock if you're going to spend $20 to trade in/out.

I've attached a picture of a "globe" in our hallway -- I was going to use the LEDs here, for example, but because it's entirely enclosed, I can't since the electronics will heat up and there's no where for the heat to go. Based on the box, I think I can use this model in an open or recessed light at least, so there's that. Still annoying.

LED light bulbs are different than LEDs for signs. My understanding with these bulbs is that there's electronics in the base that aren't weather proof. In addition, you can't put them in an enclosed area (like a globe in your bedroom) because then the heat can't escape, which fries the electronics. With a billboard (for example), the electronics aren't in each individual bulb.

I think they've done a lot of work to make the LED light look more like regular incandescent bulbs -- we screwed these in and it looks very similar -- I'm just shocked that you can't use these new bulbs in many places. Don't most people have their bulbs in some sort of enclosed space? (or outdoors)

Definitely LED -this one, specifically: http://www.elightbulbs.com/Maxlite-90486-SKB07DLED30-A-Line-Pear-LED-Light-Bulb gjnoronh -- what good are energy savings if you can't actually put the bulb in any of your fixtures?

So I went to the Minnesota Twins game today (they got destroyed...), and they were giving everyone an LED light bulb when they left. It was a giveaway sponsored by the local power company, Xcel Energy. Anyway, I thought that was pretty cool - they cost too much (these ones are about $16/ea on the Internet) compared to a regular bulb, but I figured it'd be nice to try them out. Then I read the fine print on the box. Don't use them outdoors. (so much for it being a security light). Use them only in dry areas (so much for using it in the bathroom). Do not use them with regular dimmers (so much for using them in the bedroom ceiling fan fixture). Do not use them in a lamp. (Huh? Why not?). Do not use them in enclosed fixtures (so much using them in the bedrooms, hallways, or pretty much anywhere else!!!) So where CAN I use these stupid things?! And what's wrong with the 50 cent incandescent lights again...??

I actually do have a Master's in CIS with an emphasis in business intelligence, so... Here's where I got the data: http://armchairanalysis.com/data.php I had to do a lot of massaging of the data - it was a giant spreadsheet when I got it, and I imported it into an Oracle database. Looks like you have to pay for it now too, whereas I got it free (or maybe I asked them for it and they gave it to me...). I actually reached out to the NFL and they gave me some data as well - but only one season for one team. It was in XML, which would've been easier to work with than a spreadsheet, but they wouldn't give me all the data. It was a fun project. But I don't have the strong mathematical background to REALLY do the job, unless I just relied on tools.

Do NOT watch jboyst's video...

I just think people should try it once -- mainly because I thought the same thing as you beforehand, "Takes up too much space, I don't want to get dressed up, blah blah." But turned out I really liked it, which was a big surprise. Thanks

I thought it was cool:

Carnival is definitely a step down from Royal Carribean. Celebrity is a step up from RC. I disagree -- I personally think the formal nights are part of the fun of a cruise. I never get dressed up "in real life," so getting the suit and tie for a formal dinner is something I thought I'd hate -- but it turns out I really like it. I'm not sure the bands do anything -- but my wife swears by taking half of a Dramamine pill before bed, starting roughly 3-4 days before the cruise. It puts you to sleep, and gets you ready for the motion on the ship. I don't have a problem with it, so I never take the pills. I shared this earlier, but will share it again - a video I made from my cruise to Alaska many years ago. Enjoy! Cruising is definitely fun.

Glad I could help.

Seems like this article I wrote is timely for this thread: http://www.neowin.net/news/high-tech-identity-theft-is-less-common-than-you-think Interestingly, only ~300 people get arrested for identity theft every year -- and 12 million people are affected -- so these two in the story Jack posted really are the dumb ones... Also interesting - your medical insurance card is worth $50 on the black market, while your credit card number is only worth $5. Probably because fraud detection is really good on credit cards nowadays.

Update to the story: The State Department demanded that the creator take the files off his website... Which is silly because it's already proliferated everywhere, but hey. http://www.neowin.net/news/state-department-forces-takedown-of-3d-gun-blueprints

If you only had one or two shells, probably not.