In "Social worker gets charged"

Is there a way we can douse either of the people here in water? Otherwise, how shall we know if they float like a duck, and are therefore a witch? --Pogo

In "Curious George: Computer security."

I second the Smoothwall recommendation. In addition to that, this whitepaper has proven useful in the past: Building a Windows NT Bastion Host in Practice Hope this helps.

In "Parental George"

Having been in that position, there's not a lot to be done about it. (The father has every right to spoil the kid after all, and unless you can prove actual harm there's almost no point in going to court.) There's two problems here. First, the child is treated differently in two different places. It's a little confusing, and they are going to be constantly re-adapting to it as they grow. But they will figure it out. And that's a good lesson to learn anyway. Second, for the father that only sees the kid once in a while - who wants to spoil it by being a hard ass ? When I had visitation, I let things slide that after I got custody were no longer allowed. My parents suffer the same dilemma, and it causes me no end of grief to see them let him behave pooorly. Here's my advice - *Relax*. Really. Kids will pick up on that type of tension and act out on it. If it really bothers you, you might try to talk to the father about it, but in my experience it's hard to usefully critique someones parenting style without pissing them off. Also, others have pointed out that kids are pretty smart; she'll understand the difference in expected behaviors pretty quick if you let her concentrate on that. I have a really great and open relationship with my 10 year old. It wouldn't be that way if I let his mother piss me off everytime she did something stupid. Which is frightfully often. He's gotten to where he is irritated by her idiocy, too. It's far better that he came to those feelings on his own. The hardest thing in the world to just let go, and trust the kid will be fine.

In "For when your toys just aren't passive aggressive enough."

I agree that woman is good looking. She looks very (frighteningly) much like my son's mother -Who was very nice to look at, all my friends agreed. But what a goddamned psychopath. She sued me for more child support, and I came away from the hearing with *custody*, if that says anything.

In "Curious George - Driving Me Crazy"

This place hires drivers every once in a while. They equip cars with lasers and cameras and GPSeses and send them out to survey and record various highways. I guess various Dept.s Of Transportation use this data quite a lot. I know about it because a friend of mine worked there as an engineer. Other than that, I have to say that I used to really enjoy my time driving dump truck. I might go do that again after I finish my engineering degree. Heh. Good luck.

In "Rutgers Scientists Take Big Step Towards Stopping HIV"

Does this mean God is done hating fags now ?

In "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy soon available in convenient movie form!"

I'll go see the movie too, although it will be with some trepidation. DA's books defined my mid-late adolesence, and I'm not too keen on seeing that tarnished. Then again, LOTR wasn't a half bad conversion. And we already know StarWars is going to megasuck , leaving precious little suckiness for anything else to suck with. The trailer kind of sucks, but then again, I bet it's hard to capture the essence of H2G2 in a 30 second video spot.

In "Curious George: I got myself a moving violation."

I have been stuck in an intersection until the other direction had green because of light runners. In WI it's illegal to enter the intersection unless you can clear it. The worst part about that behavior is the 5 or 6 people behind the first idiot who feel like they are entitled to go. Which holds up the people who have the green causing them to feel like they can screw the next bunch out of thier green. Round and round it goes. I think it demonstrates everything that is wrong with America. If it's that hard to turn left, go a block past and make three rights.

In "Curious George: Academia!"

Seeing as how I just got accepted to a major univeristy at age 32 (Go Badgers!), I don't know if I can offer any useful advice. I'll do what I can. Here's what I think. If you have 3ish years in - definately finish. I know it sucks, but that's a pretty hefty investment to walk away from. Also, it is your life - and you only get one. Do what you like. College isn't the key to success or happiness. But it can be non-trivial to pick up where you left off - the rivers of beer that I've consumed since I left school are not helping me do calculus very well *now*, and I have work double hard to make up for it. Also, if you're feeling stagnant, you probably are. See if you can't get an internship or join a club or something. Hope this helps, and good luck.

In "Computer Gurus: Please Hope Me!"

First, remove add in cards and extra memory. Then: If you can, and dare to, make a Knoppix CD and see if that boots and runs fine. That will eliminate the OS as a point of contention. If that works, head to www.Memtest.org and make thee a boot disk. Let it run for a while. If that works, it's not memory or a memory controller, and probably not the CPU. If you made it this far, off the top of my head I'd bet that you have a bad part on one of the system boards. Time to call in the warranty, I'd say. Good luck,

In "Hunting season has started in Wisconsin"

"Row ends with five deerly departed" Brought to you by those wacky aussies.

There's more to be found out here.

"An armed society is a polite society." Indeed.

In "a pilot's panic call to Flight Service ..., as he believes he is about to crash... "

This one is pretty old, I recall first hearing it in 98 or so. There was another audiofile I discovered at that time that involved a pilot who misunderstood the weather report and ended up in icing conditions in the mountains. The file started when he called ATC for help, and is two minutes of his trying to control his spin into the mountainside. Chilling.

In "Needless to say, this pilot won't be seeing any combat for a while"

It's also a very novel way to get out of going to Iraq.

A pilot that competant could easily go on to become president or something, given the right support.

"The Pentagon reports that despite reports to the contrary, it was not in fact a school, but a terrorist training camp and WMD plant. The Pentagon is also reporting that 34 insurgents were confirmed killed in the raid."

In "Leave it to Bush #2"

T-4 hours till I set sail from Drunk to Surly. Right after my Calc2 exam. Parametric equations... YummY.

In "Kerry gets an endorsement he might not want."

OBL is a metaphor for the entire war on terror. That we are even talking about that shithead in the present tense is huge failure on Bush's part. You can deflect and say that OBL is not important, blah, blah, blah. He's out there, laughing at us - and demonstrating that it is possible to poke the giant in the eye, and live to tell about it. "Wanted dead or alive" my ass.

In "Oh, *THESE* 380 tons of explosives!"

Sorry for the broken tag and the snark, but really... "troublesome"? it's just a little bit of an understatement, don't you think ?

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