rkbabang

Or cheat ;) Or examine yourself to understand why you feel the need to beat Michael Jordan in the first place. If you're kid isn't enjoying something, because he isn't good at it, maybe instead of ruining it for the other kids who are it would be better to encourage him to try something else. I tried basketball in middle school and didn't last even a season. I was horrible (maybe because I was shorter than most of the other kids). So I stuck to baseball which I was at least okay. In highschool I gave up sports all together and focused my time on music, something to which I was much better than average at. I didn't demand my parents get rid of scoring in my town so that I could be happy doing something that I wasn't good at. Instead I found something that I could do. This whole get rid of scoring, which is fundamental to the sport, is like saying "if my kid can't have fun doing this particular activity then no one can". Making sure that your little prince or princess is happy in everything that they decide to do isn't the focus of all of humanity. In fact it isn't even good for your kids to do this. If you make it easy for them to do things which they suck at, they may never find out what they are good at.

Taking it to the extreme, this article is hilarious. To ensure every child 'wins', Ontario athletic association removes ball from soccer I agree with most people above. A game has losers and winners and that's what makes it fun, get over it.

No, no, you got it all wrong. My children are fine, other people's children suck. As do most adults, besides me. I hope that clears it up a little.

The location probably makes a difference, I grew up on the east coast in a lower-middle class (at best) area, so we kind of knew that wearing OP meant that we were just following what was going on out west. That, and there were many kids who couldn't afford it, not just one or two. Same thing with Nike, it was cool to have it if you did, but most kids didn't because it was expensive, so no one got made fun of. Yes they do start young and it isn't always with clothes. In my daughters elementary school, this had to be 3rd grade, they had a big problem with a group of girls calling themselves the "3CG Club" harassing girls at recess to tears over the fact that they lived in a house with a 2 (or fewer) car garage. My daughter didn't get harassed because we have 3, but some of her friends did. This certainly would never have happened in the town I grew up in.

Who, me? Ha. Sure, they do and I think have for a long time. I don't know why, but it reminded me of something from when I was a kid in California. I don't know if people remember the "OP" brand (Ocean Pacific). It was huge back in the day (probably late 70s). That and Lightning Bolt. I can still remember their terrycloth shirts that I loved. But I digress. The big thing was having OP shorts. There was this one kid who in retrospect probably came from a family that wasn't well off. He used to get a very hard time because he didn't have OP stuff. I remember once he came into school very proud and showing everyone his OP shorts. Only, it was clear that his mother had taken a regular pair of shorts and sewed in the OP stitching (trademark infringement, I know). It was misshapen and didn't look anything like the regular one. Kids gave him a very hard time over that and I think he really suffered. So yes, I do believe 12 year olds have brand knowledge. That story actually surprises me a little. I wore OP in the early 80's, but I also had cheap shorts and no one made fun of me for them. Even today my son has no problem wearing anything, he's perfectly okay with wearing an Aero t-shirt or sweatshirt even if he likes A&F better. Him and his friends seem much more concerned with electronics than clothes. Girls however are brutal with each other about this kind of stuff, absolutely brutal to a shocking extent. You wouldn't be able to get my daughter out of the house wearing something that said Aero, if I said "wear that or your punished for a year" that wouldn't do it. There is nothing I could do that would be worse than the wrath of the other girls in school.

Oh boy, you'll find out. For my daughter's 12th birthday all she wanted (from us as well as relatives) was money to shop for clothes. When your daughter is 12 be sure to let us know how your knitting idea works out. :)

I have a 12 year old daughter and a 13 year old son. They both want clothes from A&F almost exclusively. My daughter actually refers to ARO as "the Wal Mart of clothes stores". She'll wear clothes from ARO as long as it doesn't say "Aeropostal" or "Aero" anywhere on it (i.e. pants/jeans, dresses, or skirts).

$12. I've never ordered from this site before, I found it with a Google search.

I have a feeling the largest slice of the pie was left off of that chart completely. Taxes.

ARO +21%

I don't really like the look of the brown, either black or white would be okay. In case anyone else was interested in the Aura HD e-reader, I got mine in last week. I ended up just buying the espresso (brown) one and it doesn't look too bad. It is very dark brown and looks almost black. I don't know how this compares to the other new e-readers, but the only other e-reader I've ever used was my 1st-gen Nook and this thing is a huge upgrade. There is so much improved in this over my old nook that it would take a huge post to go over it all, but briefly: - The screen: Much darker text on a much whiter background and noticeably sharper as well. Also the larger screen 6.8" rather than 6" makes reading more comfortable on the eyes with more text on the screen and fewer page turns or larger text, almost like the difference between reading a hardcover vs. a paperback. - Page turns are much faster with not as much blinking. - Touch screen is nice and much easier to navigate. It's very responsive and quick compared to navigating around my old Nook. - Light. I was worried that this was going to be heavy after reading some reviews. Maybe it is heavier than some other new readers, but compared to my old Nook it is noticeably lighter and more comfortable to hold. - Light. The built in light is just awesome and probably its best feature and makes reading at night much easier. I was using an LED clip-on book light with my Nook and it didn't illuminate the whole screen evenly and the batteries didn't last long at all with daily use.

Of course not. He's the head of a state. Which in my books makes him one of the worst criminals on the planet.

"It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation." Yes I would agree with that 100%. The form of government may be exceptional (ours used to be) or your situation, location, access to resources, etc..., but people here are just as human as people anywhere else and visa verse. In fact people here came from those other places in recent history. The best way to get a population ready for war is to dehumanize the enemy. Since the U.S government. seems to want to be at war with half of the world, they need to demonize everyone else just to be safe. His comments on nuclear proliferation was right on target as well. "The world reacts by asking: if you cannot count on international law, then you must find other ways to ensure your security. Thus a growing number of countries seek to acquire weapons of mass destruction. This is logical: if you have the bomb, no one will touch you. We are left with talk of the need to strengthen nonproliferation, when in reality this is being eroded."

An ex-KGB big-wig pleading with a Nobel peace price recipient not to start a war. I'm no fan of Putin (an understatement), but he making a hell of a lot more sense than Obama right about now.

My advice would be to not thinking of a home you intend to live in as an investment. I'm on my third home so far and of the 2 I bought and sold I made money on the first one and lost money on the second one. My first home was a small 1300sqft starter home, which I bought when I was 23 and my wife was 21. We sold that for more than double what we paid for it 6 years later, so that we could build a larger home. Our second home, which we built was about 2500sqft. We stayed in it for 8 years and lost about $125K on it when we sold it. We upgraded once again 2 years ago and the only thing that makes me feel better about losing $125K on that second house is that the people who sold me my current house sold it to me for over $250K less than they purchased it for 5 years earlier. A home that you live in is just a depreciating object. It doesn't produce income, it doesn't have any earnings, it doesn't grow organically. It isn't even an object like gold coins which don't take any maintenance or wear out. A home just sits there and gets older. Sure you can maintain it (which costs money) and it will hold value, but due to market swings in one direction or the other there is no way to predict how much value it will have in 30years or even in 3 years. My advice would be to live where and how you want to live without consideration to your home as an investment. Some people like renting and the freedom from maintenance and the ease of moving on to somewhere else. Some people are like me, I enjoy owning my own home. I like being able to do what I want in and to the place where I live. If I want to paint a wall I paint it, if I want to tear down a wall I tear it down, re-do kitchens and bath rooms, replace the flooring, or put in a pool. I can own pets, raise chickens and goats, tear up a 2000sqft section of my lawn and plant a vegetable garden. All things I've done. There is a kind of freedom to not answering to anyone when you want to modify the environment where you live in order to make it more fitting to your own needs or liking. I am more than willing to pay extra for that. If it turns out in the end I didn't pay extra or even made money, that is just gravy. In life there are no do-overs, you only get one chance to get it right. If you have any goal at all when it comes to your personal housing, it should be to find a way to live where and how you want to live. Long story short, if you enjoy renting you should keep renting.

Well put. DTE: do you think that the government can do anything that doesn't involve legalized theft? (this is rkabang's cue) Sorry I'm late, I just started reading this topic today. Taxation is the taking of property under the threat of violence. Unless someone has a difference definition of "theft" than I do, I think your question answers itself. You can think of the taking of this persons house as simply an increase in his tax rate to 100%. There is no moral difference between taking 1% and 100%, it is the same crime just perpetrated to a different degree. Sure if I'm mugged on the street I'd be happier if the thief takes $10 rather than $1000, but the crime is the same either way. Whether you pay a 2% property tax or they take your whole house, you've still been mugged.

The cheap hack can damage the environment, which is why detergents today are less powerful than in the golden age of whiter than white. Compared to the tons and tons and tons of phosphates that are dumped on lawns and used in farming the amount from home detergent use was negligible and even that negligible amount can be filtered out effectively as beerbaron stated above. There was no reason for the ban other than over zealous green politics. Making everyone's life worse so some greenies can feel good. We won't even talk about all of the millions of dishwashers that were thrown out and replaced because they no longer cleaned well and the owners thought it was the machine (not knowing the soap had changed). That probably had more of a negative effect on the environment than the phophate in the detergents ever had.

I've been using Keepass, I first heard of it from someone here on this board. I tried it out and have been using it ever since. My old method was very tedious in comparison. I used to save all my passwords in text files organized into directories based on what they were, then I encrypted the whole directory structure with truecrypt and stored it on Google Docs so I could access it from anywhere. This was no where near as easy as using Keepass, there was no way to decrypt it on an iPad for example. Now I store my keepass file on Google Docs and I can access it from any computer/tablet/phone/etc.

+1 While I don't know how hackers got hold of Sanjeev's password, I would also recommend using a password management application like, for example, 1Password. They help you remember all those unique passwords: http://alternativeto.net/software/1password/ This image is also relevant: https://xkcd.com/936/ Thanks Guys! Not sure if it was a hack or an email spoof emulating an email with my address, since there was no indication of any activity in the account...deleted emails...etc. Regardless, passwords have been changed and I probably will use the 2-step verification. Cheers! So how do we know this is really you? :)

^^^ Yes. Also, I spill coffee on myself far too often. No detergent gets the stain out of my shirts unless some TSP is added.

If you're interested in detergents read this article on why none of them work as well now as all of them did 30 years ago, along with a cheap hack to fix that yourself at home. Why Everything Is Dirtier

I'm reviving an old topic, because I've been looking to replace my gen-1 nook. I'm interested in the Kobo Aura HD. Anyone have one of these? If so, how do you like it? (Screen/software/web browser/etc). I'm not really interested in the Kindle, because I've got hundreds of epub format books which the kindle can't read. The Aura HD has 256dpi with a 6.8" screen, 1GHz processor, and from the online reviews a better built-in light than the kindle. I like the idea of the bigger screen with the built in light. The other issue is that Kobo only has it available right now in brown. I inquired about the other colors and received this in reply: I don't really like the look of the brown, either black or white would be okay.

Hi property taxes to make up for what you don't pay elsewhere... Maybe I'm biased - I lived there for years and I'd take florida anytime - I like Manchester though (except for winter). In fact I'll be flying there later today.. It depends on what you call high and what town you are moving to. The rates vary from $0/$K to about $29/K depending on the town (yes there are towns with no property tax. New Hampshire 2012 Property Tax Rates by town I moved to NH 2 years ago from MA and the property taxes were almost the same between the town in MA I moved from and the town in NH that I moved to, but I no longer pay all of those other state taxes, nor a huge water bill, my car insurance is less than half of what it was. I only moved about 70 miles, yet the cost of living is much lower here. Florida? No way. I'm not a big fan of heat, humidity, insects, or old people on the roads, all of which is why winter is my favorite season in NH.

Don't forget New Hampshire. No income tax, no capital gains tax, no sales tax. A lot of healthcare in the Manchester/Nashua area, plus a short commute to MA 128 tech region/Boston (from southern NH) as a last resort. Drive 5 minutes from Manchester and you can live in a rural area, yet have a short drive to Manchester, Nashua, Boston(MA), Worcester(MA).

Wasn't he the one that after one of his topics was deleted by Sanjeev he started another topic just to complain about the previous topic being deleted?