Modern technology makes it so much easier to flirt with burnout without even realizing it. The laptop is always open on the kitchen table. The cell is never out of reach. There's no conscious thought to the work day or work week having a beginning and an end. It's amazing how easily all of this just becomes "normal."

I fully agree with this one. By simply switching my blackberry to not buzz me when emails came in felt like a vacation. I realized at that point that I was close to burn-out.

You make an excellent point. We are many times heavily mentally engaged -- even when relaxing.

I think sometimes people think that because something is "work", it can burn you out. But anything that you can't do forever can burn you out, right?

It's a great point, I'm sure many of us here are in a situation running their own things or looking after things where they essentially would have to drop everything 24/7 should a problem arise or start losing money/ pissing off customers.

Sure it's not always working but it is something that is always present and has to be jumped into at short notice even if inconvenient.

My daughter at bedtime says she's giving me infinity times infinity time infinity kisses. That's the biggest number, I don't care what any of you math whizzes have to say about the matter. ... OK, let's call it the best not the biggest.

It's going to be a long night.

These prosecutions aren't just wrong, they're un-American. How police and prosecutors sworn to uphold the law can abuse it to this extent boggles the mind.

The US has the highest incarceration rate in the world, so it unfortunately looks very American. (If "American" refers to the US alone.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_incarceration_rat...

Indeed. The US laws at various levels are riddled with outdated laws, some centuries old, which can often be conservative enough to do the Taliban proud. At their discretion, the police can decide to enforce one of these on you, which gives them arbitrary power to oppress anyone who pisses them off enough.

Good grief - that's almost 1%. I thought the UK rate was rather high but that's about five times more!

Allow me to be the first to call BS. (Am I allowed to do that with Google?)

If Coke had simply let Honest Tea be Honest Tea, there's a strong likelihood that no one would have ever even made an issue of their differing stances on corn syrup. By attempting to impose its will, however, Coke all but guaranteed that it would become a public matter and that the company would look bad in the process. And along comes the New York Times to stir the drink.

Coke is acting out of fear of future liability. Coke is fearing that someday HFCS will be proven to be materially more damaging than sugar, and when that day arrives the US Surgeon General will be pointing at the Honest Kids label as proof that Coke knew something was bad about HFCS but still continues using it in its other products.

Spending all of this money and having an allegedly free society subjected to this level of government secrecy would be difficult to justify under the best of circumstances. Given that no one knows if it's helping -- or even necessary -- nudges difficult pretty darn close to impossible.