Have you read any super-depressing articles lately? If not, try this one: http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/22790-the-vanishing-arctic-ice-cap

Nothing new, really. Just another reminder that we're thorougly bummed.

"The 40-year lag between emissions of greenhouse gases and consequent rise in global-average temperature suggests our planetary fate was sealed decades ago."

It would have ruined my day, but a coworker brought some delicious cheese cake along, so everything's in balance.

Reminds me of the time a coworker warned us not to get her a vibrator for her birthday. It was pink and really big.

Somewhat disturbing that they did this with a green laser. These are just the sort of people who should not be allowed to have one. Reminds me of a coworker worker of mine who saw I had a laser on my desk; she immediately picked it up, pointed it into her eye, and turned it on, while exclaiming "Ohh! laser." Thankfully it was a red laser, and she suffered no real damage.

Anyway the jackass with the green laser could have easily damaged the sleeping guy's vision.

I've got a coworker like this. Works for State Revenue office, yet hates the IRS and buys into all these gov't conspiracy theories. Hates government, but cashes a gov't paycheck.

and yep....a republican

Even other republicans in the office can't stand him and mock him.

Men tend to not pick up on the subtle nuances of sexism.
About 3 months ago I entered a room at work. A female colleague of mine, one of the most attractive ones at that time, was eating a sandwich or something like that. Nothing phallic like a banana. Across the room stood another coworker, freshly married father of a newborn son. He was watching her eating with an expression of certain interest and after I inquired what's so interesting he proclaimed loudly enough for her to her "I could watch her do that all day." His tone said way more than his words.
The woman was eating a fucking sandwich. I'm still waiting for the day when I'm licking an icecream cone and any woman tells me she could watch me do that all day long.

And that's just the subtle stuff, the socially acceptable creepiness.

Like a BO -- err.. Like a COWORKER!

One of my ex-coworkers actually was part of a company that makes 3D printers that are just about cheap enough to buy yourself. Starting at $2200, it's reasonably feasible to buy one yourself if you have a good chunk of disposable income.

http://makerbot.com

Another cool thing that came out of this is http://www.thingiverse.com/, a huge database of models you can print out.

I sound like a marketer, but I promise I ain't.

My guess is that one of her coworkers is a jackass.

I despise the two party system, but one side, (or to be more specific, one subfaction of one side) is demonstrably more harmful than the other.

I'm all in favor of abolishing parties in this nation, this "but they're equally bad" argument is bull.

Government was actually designed that way though, sure we don't like shutdowns (but then again, here's the problem, some people DO want the gov't to be shut down so that corporations can run everything) but government WAS designed to be slow and not easy to change laws. It has the side benefit of being very resistant to tyranny since it requires so many people and multiple branches to agree

It's one thing to not like how government works, but its quite another to be willing to shutdown gov't over ONE piece of legislation that has the support of the people and the branches of gov't. It's quite another to have a faction completely and utterly oppose the president purely on the basis of the color of his skin.

The big tent GOP is being left behind and that tent is getting smaller and smaller. Gerrymandered districts are pretty much the only reason they are still retaining control. And typically when a company isn't doing so hot, they tend to not actually change tactics, but they do change their name so people with short memories get fooled, so then they called themselves the Tea Party, well that's not working out so well since again, they haven't really changed at all, so now they're rebranding themselves again and calling themselves Libertarians, but it's the same bullshit, just a different name.

No one ever said the ACA is perfect...no one. It was a compromise, What the public WANTED was single payer, but this was the compromise. You want to tweak it? change it? improve it? I'd agree with getting rid of all the exceptions people of talked about,

but you don't threaten to shutdown the gov't over it. especially when you've already failed to repeal it 40+ times in the past. Shutting down the gov't and waging message warfare trying to blame it on the president when it's 100% a congress issue is deranged behavior and basically counts on people being stupid enough to not know how the gov't works (like @lantern53) to believe the message.

People are dumb, but they're not quite THAT stupid, most people do know that it's the Tea Party holding the gov't hostage and not the President. This little stunt is really not helping their chances in the next election so in a weird way, I'm glad they're doing this because it just hastens them getting kicked out in 2014

Anecdotally speaking, a lot of my coworkers are conservatives and every single one of them is saying "fuck the Tea Party"

I also believe there are more good cops than bad cops. The issue is the concentration. In most large cities, almost all the cops are/can be bad cops under certain circumstances.

One of my friends in Southern California had multiple members in the Long Beach PD; his dad, and his younger brother who'd just joined. My friend told me how his brother came home during his first week and told him this story:

"We went to this guys house to talk to him and found him in the garage. My superior said 'this is how we get compliance. it also helps to blow off a little steam'. He shut the door to the garage, pulls out his club, and starts repeating 'Stop resisting! Stop resisting!', as he goes to town on the guy. Guy wasn't doing anything other than being uncooperative."

Events like that were something everyone in the area laughed off as being part of life there.

The job also attracts a certain kind of person. When I lived in San Francisco I had an ex-coworker who'd lost his job, and applied to the police force with the absolutely-serious reason of "I want a free-pass to beat the living shit out of people". He was a dark guy really full of hate, and I eventually cut off ties with him. Happily he was never accepted to the Academy.

I was telling a coworker today that here in Canada we can own A .50 Cal BMG for about $10,000. We don't need to register it at all with anyone, only need a basic non restricted lic. to own. and can shoot it wherever legal shooting is allowed in the countryside.

Same time, a gun that shoots .22 long rifle, one of the (if not the) smallest cal. used, usually for target shooting or squirls, small bullet. If the .22 LOOKS like...yes LOOKS like an AK47 it's Prohibeted to own. If it LOOKS like an AR15 .223 (smallish bullet still) it's treated like a handgun, special lic. register it only the range not in country, no hunting with it etc.

so ya I can own a gun that'd shoot through an engine block and not have anyone know about it but can't have a .22lr tin can plinker if it LOOKS like a scary AK.....serious logic fail.

I have never seen a gun as big as this one, wow.

As far as Facebook being a spying tool, in the couple years I've been on they have gathered quite the cornucopia of intelligence:

* the financial manager for where I worked in the early 90s believes it should be OK to have multiple sexual partners

* my niece likes to drink, dance and listen to live music every weekend

* a coworker of mine owns several german shepards

* my other niece is a repeat spongebob fanatic

If this is the intelligence they gather from facebook, good... swamp em with this useless crap.

Heroic, and yet stupid. The guy bearhugs her, then his coworkers strap him to her.

If she had really wanted to leave and got enough leverage...

From what I recall, it was a setup. The programmer who ends up getting yelled at thought it would be funny to fuck with Mayhem but his coworkers decided to turn it around on him. Everyone else in the room knew what was coming.

Here's a longer version:
http://allelbows.com/2009/09/vid-mayhem-king-mo-visit-ea-sports-studios/

I read somewhere that he sent an email to his coworkers the night before he died explaining that he believed himself to be under surveillance, that they should seek legal council if approached by any suits and that he'd be going off the grid for a bit chasing a big story. And then he dies at 4am in the morning in a crash nobody is saying anything about. it certainly reads like a scene from a hollywood thriller and I'm sure thats the narrative the news media would love to repeat.

It wouldn't at all surprise me if he was being watched given his history and all this NSA business. Maybe as little as a year ago I would have scoffed at the idea of him being killed...now I'm not so sure. I'd normally say the simplest explanation was probably the right one, but given the details of the crash that have been made public I've no idea what that might be. So no speculation from me, apart from to say that I think something stinks here.

Oh, and I'd love to know what that story he was working on was.