... the IT department announced a few years back that, to save server space, it would arbitrarily delete email that was more than a year old unless it was archived. This doesn't sound all that bad at first glance, but it ended up being a royal pain in the neck.

First, said company used Lotus Notes, whose email client had the worst user interface of any then on the market. (I haven't worked at this company for several years and thankfully haven't used Notes since then, so some other email client may now have this dubious honor.) Its email archiving was not exactly intuitive. Second, the volume of work-related email was such that sorting and archiving it would take up a significant chunk of your day -- time that could have been spent, well, actually doing work. Finally, despite your best efforts, you'd inevitably forget to archive some crucial email message that you'd need right after it was deleted. Or you'd forget where you stored it, and have to hunt through your archives.

The money this company saved by not springing for additional email storage was probably wasted a thousand times over in lost productivity.

Kicking a family off a flight because the kid kept repeating, "Byebye, plane!" is so far beyond the pale that it's not even worth discussing. The flight attendant was way out of line and should be disciplined accordingly. Period.

Yes, there are a lot of annoying parents and kids who make travelling hell. I've run into plenty of them on every mode of transportation. However, I'd bet the people who are bellyaching the loudest here on Salon.com have themselves annoyed the living crap out of others at one time or another. Everyone is bound to get on someone else's nerves at some point, so why don't we try going easy on each other? A little politeness, tolerance and forgiveness goes a long way; let she who is without sin cast the first stone and all that. Your little kids may annoy me, but my conversation with my seatmate or the game I'm playing my laptop may annoy you in turn. How about we give each other a break? Being stuffed in a flying sardine can is bad enough without declaring war on our fellow travellers.

Also, taking your kids on a plane is not the same thing as taking them to an expensive restaurant. This blindingly obvious fact has apparently been lost on some people here.

Finally, to the person who dislikes the noise level of travelling on a plane: get noise-cancelling headphones. They work wonders! And you can use them in the office, too, to tune out all your annoying coworkers.

Point about responsibility well taken. However, you cannot realistically expect a plane full of hundreds of people to maintain absolute silence just because you do not like noise. It isn't going to happen. Planes also have noisy fans and noisy engines that contribute significantly to the ambient noise level in the cabin.

Accommodation is a two-way street. You must be willing to change your own behavior if you are going to ask others to do the same. I've used earplugs and headphones many times in situations where I had no control over the noise level, and they work pretty well. If you choose not to use them, well, that's your lookout.

They won't go for Giuliani because they think he's soft on abortion, not because every single other position he's taken is anti-life and inconsistent with Catholic teaching.

They're just sitting at different tables.

My conservative friends are the nicest people under most circumstances. But get them talking about anything relating to politics, terrorism, or the Iraq war, and it's as if Dr. and Mrs. Jekyll turned into Mr. and Mrs. Hyde before my eyes.

I've heard this kind of talk from militant vegan acquaintances for years. Either they don't like how omnivores smell or they don't want to sleep with someone who they believe is unethical and/or immoral.

To each his or her own.

Danica McKellar is trying valiantly to show teenaged girls that math is relevant to their daily lives and isn't just the province of male nerds. She's hoping to lead at least a few of them to that moment of enlightenment when they realize mathematics is actually good for something. These are totally worthy goals, yet you criticize her because her book uses examples that are traditionally feminine, instead of praising her for trying to present math in a format that would interest ordinary girls. Sounds like the typical Broadsheet circular firing squad to me.

You are upset and angry because you've been betrayed. You're questioning your judgment for being taken in by your so-called friends and perhaps grieving a bit for friendships that turned out to be based on lies. These feelings are normal and natural, so don't feel bad or think less of yourself for them. They will lessen in time.

Meanwhile, you can use this experience to gain wisdom and empathy for the outsider, the bullied, the underdog. Realize that you are better off without these people in your life. Continue your studies. If you feel dissatisfied about your appearance, try a mini-makeover: exercise, update your wardrobe, hairstyle, and makeup (if you wear it), eat healthier foods, etc. Cultivate new, "real world" friends and hobbies. Get involved with your church if religion is your thing. Change your surroundings. You need to be moving forward. Living well is the best revenge.

And stay away from Facebook. It's the nuisance bar of the Internet.

I particularly hate it when parents give a kid the same trendy name that every other child the same age has, but creatively misspell it to show how unique and special their offspring is. All that these "uniquely" spelled names do is make the parents look like illiterates. It makes my inner editor want to break out the red pen -- "It's spelled Brittany, dammit, not Britnee or Britony or Brytinee or Britney or ..."