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I posted this in the article thread dedicated to his send off, it seems to fit here as well. James Doohan had an autobiography, which I found to be quite interesting. Mine was hardcover, and I hope that local libraries for those interested have a copy. Here is an Amazon link to the thing.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0671 520563/qid=1129645719/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_1/104-2949 821-4630339?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

Actually Amazon has it "on sale" for $38.99, with the regular retail price being $59.99. Most shows are coming out with retail pricing of $60 for popular/current shows, or $40 for less popular/cancelled shows, and Amazon discount pricing around $20-$40.

So $24 per season sounds about right to get episodes within a week of their airing and pre-DVD release. Except for the fact that you aren't getting DVD quality video, and it takes significant, non-obvious effort to "backup" your purchase onto hard media. Having a corrupted hard drive and losing all of that downloaded media is much more likely than scratching or damaging a physical DVD, and I'm sure they aren't going to let you re-download for free to replace damaged or lost files.

It doesn't compare with the world's highest bus.

You sound like Trekkie Monster.

It may have something to do with the book he's releasing next month. He's a sad sack of crap that plays on the ignorance of politically-correct nutjobs. Granted, he does it very well, but he's still a sad sack of crap. I would hate to think that this post might entice someone to actually put money in his sad sack of crap's pocket, but it's a fact that should be brought to your collective attention.

I had the first out-loud laugh of the day when I saw that Amazon's "Customers viewing this book also viewed" feature returned a single entry for his book: Advanced Sex : 101 Positions and Techniques, for the Sexually Adventurous by Randi Foxx

Mod parent down! This book is offered on Amazon for only $16.47 (not $199). The article advertises a Palm Tungsten E2 Handheld, which is obviously not his book, but an ad for something else.

You might enjoy First Meetings In the Enderverse. My local (Charlottesville, VA) B&N had the hardcover in the bargain/clearance books area for ~$5. It consists of four novellas, at least two published previously in Analog SF Magazine, and the other two perhaps published elsewhere. Don't pay even full Amazon cover price for it, though. Check for a used or bargain bin-copy, or patronize your local library.

The main reason I think you might find it worthwhile is because it includes the original novella length version of Ender's Game... frankly, one I think is much more subtle and elegant than the novel. (I also picked it up because my copy of the original Analog Magazine is getting a little dog eared.)

I rather enjoyed "Ender's Shadow" as well — Card's second visit to the story of Ender's Game, from a different character perspective — but the Hegemon-related followups struck me as weaker, in much the same way that Speaker For the Dead struck me as weaker than Ender's Game. I would tend to agree that far too much of Card's work is not worth paying even new paperback prices for. Also, given his political stance on a number of issues, I prefer picking up his works in the clearance bin (for which sales authors usually get almost no royalties) or at the local library, rather than as new hardcovers.

I wholly support this way of paying for a subscription, $2.50 is not bad at all.

PS the book 'Ender's Game' by Orson Scott Card is excellent, I recommend it to anyone.

LINK: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0812 550706/103-3928436-9214253?v=glance

Professional divers reorient themselves by doing this sort of thing, as do astronauts in space. A good - though mathematical - discussion appears in http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0821 892002/.

Note that the speed at which you execute this maneuver has no bearing - barring the effects of friction - on the net angle through which you rotate. The rotation is an example of "geometric phase," or "holonomy."

Was my favourite riddle book when I was in school; it's by Yuri B Chernyak and Robert M Rose.

It apparently comes from a Russian tradition of maths and science riddles.

chicken from minsk or chicken from minsk (UK)

Eg, from chapter 6:1

"A plumbing problem"
A faucet / tap has been left slightly open for some time, and a gentle stream of water flows downward. Why does the stream become thinner as it gets farther away from the faucet / tap.

There are lots of simple problems like this that can really make you wonder why you'd not looked at water streams as closely in the past! There are some pretty brutal problems too. You get hints and full answers (usually with equations).

As far as secrecy I go with the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-NY).

'.. one of the first members of the United States government openly to predict the imminent collapse of the Soviet Union--and, by extension, statist communism--as far back as the late '70s, as political historian Richard Gid Powers reminds readers in a lengthy introduction (comprising approximately one-fifth of Secrecy's total length). Had we spent less time trying to gather secret information about the Soviets and more time openly discussing rather easily interpretable data, Sen. Moynihan argues, we might have been far less paranoid about the supposed Red menace. The problem, he writes, lies in the essential nature of government secrecy: "Departments and agencies hoard information, and the government becomes a kind of market. Secrets become organizational assets, never to be shared save in exchange for another organization's assets.... The system costs can be enormous. In the void created by absent or withheld information, decisions are either made poorly or not at all."'

Mathematical Puzzles: A connoisseur's Collection by Peter Winkler: at Amazon. The first chapter is readable at Amazon! With wonderful puzzles.

The Sandbaggers

Remember those trays people used to have on their desks in the 70's? The ones marked "in" and "out"? You can see how they work in old movies... a clerk sits at his desk, working at a task, and when he finishes it he puts the completed task in the "out" box, and gets the next task from the "in" box.

One of the lessons I learned in dealing with many people and many emails at once, is that you have to treat e-mail a little like an old-fashioned "in"-box. You look at it only after you finish the task you are currently working on. Your inbox requires processing (not just reading): set aside time for this task. It can be twice a day, 5 times a day, or whenever you feel like it; the right moment depends a great deal on the nature of your work. Just as long as you remember that reading email is a task in its own right, and should not be done alongside anything else.

Another good rule to keep is that you have to process the entire inbox, once you get started on it. That's right, it should be empty after you have processed it. If you keep older read items alongside new messages, at some point you'll probably just give up and cry "I get way too much email". Simply process them one by one, each will require one of the following:
1) A short action, say, under 2 minutes. Take this action right away (quick and easy replies, noting appointments in your calendar, things like that).
2) A longer action... anything over 2 minutes or anything that requires a lot of thought. Stick these emails in an "action" folder and get to them later (when you are back into "action" mode).
3) No action. The email can be deleted or archived if it has info you'll need later.

A simple and nicely mindless process... 30 minutes will probably get you through 100 emails, and you will have a good idea about the priority of each of the ones in your action folder.

This is simply about being organised and not allowing interruptions. The hardest thing might be to not read your email while doing other things. Just shut down your email client so you cannot see incoming new mails. If there is something really important, people will call you if you don't respond within 30 minutes, believe me.

Speaking of interruptions... if the nature of your work is such that interruptions can really mess you up (coding springs to mind), turn off e-mail and IM. If you are blessed with a good office phone system, you may also be able to turn your phone off and redirect it to voicemail.

I got this way of dealing with communication tools from the book Getting Things Done; a great book on time management in general. The tips in this book have helped me getting from a state of feeling swamped in work, to feeling relaxed about taking a 2-hour lunch to let some material sink in, or just ignoring emails, things like that. (Yes I am still doing the same amount of work).

Metabracketing is now old hat. I first came accross it in G. Bateson's book Steps to an Ecology of the Mind. I've taken the idea to be one of understanding the presuppositions of any proposition and to understand the context any proposition is set in.

In terms of 'Information is no longer a scarce resource - attention is." I don't see a problem. The article seems to impy that a surfiet of information is a deluge overwhelming workers, but, in any given work situation a worker can be defined as someone, hopefully, fully conversant with the task at hand. If a worker is fully conversant with the task then it's likely that, prior to the information age, a worker was equally deluged with information it terms of our capacity to hold and operate on any given body of information.

The value of a worker is h/er/is abililty to cull the immediatley pertainent information. Culling information implies a vertical, as well as a horizontal perspective and the ability to oversee the job in terms like a metabracketing process. Goes to one of my favourite quotes: "Concentration without elimination." T.S. Eliot one of the 4 Quartets.

Crying about information overload is just an excuse for inability.

e.g. the archos jukebox, first released on August 29, 2002. Steve Jobs originally claimed that they wouldn't make PVP's, because there wasn't enough demand for them. (http://portables.about.com/cs/portablevideo/a/app lepvp.htm)

Terrorism is the spread of fear among people for political control. The fear can be ignited by sabotage or murder, like planebombing the World Trade Center or "ethnic cleansing". The scary act itself is not the terrorism per se - the spread of the fear, and its use for political control is the actual terrorism. President Kalam has harnessed Google's act of publishing easily used satellite photos of India to spread fear, to achieve political ends. Both simply passing laws to censor Google, and any other "extra" items that get packaged in those laws, and all the international political clout he accumulates along the way. His campaign is terrorism, and Kalam is a terrorist. Terrorism is InfoWar, fought in the media, in our minds, and by ourselves against each other.

President Kalam knows all about terrorism - he was a rocket scientist who developed missile technology that puts fear of India's nuclear force into everyone in Asia, and therefore everyone in the world. Nuclear "deterrence" is fear harnessed for geopolitical ends, and therefore terrorism. All militarism is terrorism when used for political control, as it always is.

Terrorism is awful, unacceptable. So is the barbaric destruction terrorists harness, nearly always directed at civilians, either in "total war" or even the orwellian "collateral damage". We're so swamped with terrorism and the rhetoric about it that makes it work that we have to grow up and learn what it really is. The only cure for fear is to dispel the ignorance that lets the fear spread so widely, that lets fear of one threat contribute to control over management of another unrelated one. We have to develop the reactions to people selling fear so we can drop it. That wisdom is the only deterrence to terrorism, which makes it less successful, therefore less likely to be used. As long as terrorists get high ratings, we're doing most of their work for them, and they'll keep pumping out new products, winning, and destroying us. The more we learn to recognize them, the more we'll win. That's how we win "the war on terrorism". It's an infowar that can only be won by winning in our own minds.

I give media execs I'd like to innoculate against terrorism copies of War and Peace in the Global Village. Marshall McLuhan wrote this peppy little book about how every tech innovation in history was followed by a "new kind of warfare", including global telecommunications. Martin Fiore revised it for _Wired_ to republish, with marginal quotes from James Joyce, updating it for the Internet age. Learning its lessons is like taking a dose of terrorism vaccine. If only _Wired_ were more than tech marketing, they'd rerelease it as a Flash movie, and it would virus its way around the Net, spreading immunity as it went. When we're sophisticated enough to see that happen "spontaneously", we might show signs that we'll win the InfoWar against terrorism.

I read this in a novel (Mark Hadden's excellent The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time). You are a contestant in a game show. The host tells you that behind the three doors in front of you are two goats and one car (one item behind each door; the idea is to win the car, by the way...). You pick a door, and then the host opens one of the other two doors to show you a goat. The host now offers you one last chance to change your mind and pick the other remaining unopened door. Should you? (In other words, which strategy is better overall: stick or change?)

High & Mighty, a great book on the subject, painstakingly shows how American car companies shoe horned SUVs into the light truck category to avoid safety and environmental requirements. Free of these requirements, SUVs evolved to become as dangerous to fellow drivers as possible. They were built high, with bumpers that rode over other cars, and stiff under bodies that did impaled its victims. The government looked the other way, protecting American Motors, and then Chrysler, until it was too late.

And your other point about the physics of big cars being fundamentally safer ignores all the improvements in car design that has occurred over the past 35 years. Cars are now built with air bags, crumple zones, and unibody construction. I'll let others who are more knowledgeable than me weigh in, but I think a modern Camry is actually safer for its occupants than a 1972 mid-sized car.

In closing, nobody's evil here, I have close family who drive SUVs, and calling them names doesn't go over well at reunions. That being said, Randy Cohen, the New York Times' Ethicist eloquently concluded that it is selfish to drive a vehicle that puts others at mortal risk for style or comfort. Food for thought when deciding what our next vehicle should be.

...try reading The Secret House. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0425 188426/102-6215914-2321763?v=glance

I loved the book. His time in the war, everything he did (invented Klingon-ese, wouldn't you know), he was always very modest about himself. Please give it a read if you feel you might at all be interested. I should hope your local library has a copy, but here is the amazon link just in case.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0671 520563/qid=1129403831/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_1/102-5334 151-6528956?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

OK, so does anybody actually know of a device that's basically just the equivalent of a vcr with a hard drive? Sure, having the super duper tv guide on the tivo is cool, but it's not $15 a month cool.

Why not go with a digital VHS deck or DVD recorder?

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0000ACY2B/104-22 47805-7425544?v=glance&n=172282&n=507846&s=electro nics&v=glance
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B000 6GWIJO/qid=1129380861/sr=8-7/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i4_xgl 23/104-2247805-7425544?v=glance&s=electronics&n=50 7846

OK, so does anybody actually know of a device that's basically just the equivalent of a vcr with a hard drive? Sure, having the super duper tv guide on the tivo is cool, but it's not $15 a month cool.

Why not go with a digital VHS deck or DVD recorder?

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0000ACY2B/104-22 47805-7425544?v=glance&n=172282&n=507846&s=electro nics&v=glance
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B000 6GWIJO/qid=1129380861/sr=8-7/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i4_xgl 23/104-2247805-7425544?v=glance&s=electronics&n=50 7846

However, we would probably need to use a base 12 or base 60 counting system to take advantage of it. The Intelligent Designer should have given us 6 fingers on each hand

Well actually, I read about this in the Universal History of Numbers. Counting in 12 and 60 is quite easy for people if you use your thumb to count each of the 3 segments of the other 4 fingers. If you use the 5 fingers of your other hand to keep track of each group of 12 - tada, you have 60. They theorize this is why the Babylonians used base 60, and we have 360 degrees in a circle, etc.

Now I have actually figured out that in the country where there are a multitude of responsibility write-offs (read USA) the electrical plugs are still "unsafe at any handling" (compare with Unsafe at any speed) I have since figured out that the Underwriters Laboratories isn't doing a good enough job when they are checking the safety of our household utilities. A most notably thing is the electrical plug for 220V 30/50A applinces where you actually can grab around the plug and come in contact with both the live pins at the same time when inserting/removing the plug. This can be prevented by a design that protects the user from coming into contact with the pins while inserting the plug. This picture shows the outlet in a well that actually serves two purposes - protecting the userd during insert/removal and also catching any mechanical sideway stresses that can break the pins inside the connector.

I have also noted that NEMA is not doing a very good job either since the amount of different electrical plug pinnings that are present is more confusing than helping. Too many pin configurations for the same electrical rating is not very good.

The issue that I would like to point out is that even if there is an international standard that standard isn't followed and adopted as superseding the national standards.

In his novel Voyage, Stephen Baxter postulated an alternate reality where NASA went to Mars after the Moon. There were no landings post-Apollo 13, and much space science was sacrificed on the altar of Mars. No Voyager, no Pioneer, etc... They didn't even believe that a Venus flyby gravity assist trajectory to Mars would work or even be possible.

The policy that eBay is legally akin do a classified section and not an auction was started by its first lawyer, Brad Handler, when he joined in October of 1997. There are a number of reasons for it to take this position, foremost among them being that if they were an auction, then they would have legal responsibility to vet all auctioned items up front. Which is impossible for them to do since they never have possession.

In January, 2001 eBay won Gentry v. eBay, which established that US courts agreed with this policy.

They have since fought this same legal battle in a number of venues, including most sensationally a case about a year ago in India where the president of eBay India was briefly put in jail over an auction of CDs with illegal porn on them.

Disclaimer: I am an eBay employee. However none of this is secret - I learned this from The Perfect Store except the item about India, which was widely reported in the media when it happened.

Someday, a creative person will come up with a plan that convinces the nation this is the right thing to do and the IRS tax code books will be used to heat the planet for a week or 3.

You mean like The FairTax book by Neal Boortz and John Linder. Check out more info here including reviews (lots of them) http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0060875410/103-09 69181-3668659?v=glance&n=283155&s=books&v=glance

We clearly have different sources on the matter.

IBM and the Holocaust: The Strategic Alliance between Nazi Germany and America's Most Powerful Corporation

Justice Delayed: IBM 's Collaboration with Nazi Germany

Profits uber Alles! American Corporations and Hitler

What are your sources? I'd be interested in reading some alternate interpretations of the existing documentation.

It's important to keep in mind that the IBM of today doesn't share much (if any) staff with the IBM of 1935. They aren't the same corporation at this point.

Regardless of the example I chose, my point remains. Western countries providing the tools necessary to support oppressive regimes is nothing new. You can reach back further if you want to the American companies manufacturing guns in the 19th century. My point is, this is hardly news, and it's depressing that there are people so ignorant of history and how the world works that they think this is somehow a "new" development, just because it's software instead of hardware.

We clearly have different sources on the matter.

IBM and the Holocaust: The Strategic Alliance between Nazi Germany and America's Most Powerful Corporation

Justice Delayed: IBM 's Collaboration with Nazi Germany

Profits uber Alles! American Corporations and Hitler

What are your sources? I'd be interested in reading some alternate interpretations of the existing documentation.

It's important to keep in mind that the IBM of today doesn't share much (if any) staff with the IBM of 1935. They aren't the same corporation at this point.

Regardless of the example I chose, my point remains. Western countries providing the tools necessary to support oppressive regimes is nothing new. You can reach back further if you want to the American companies manufacturing guns in the 19th century. My point is, this is hardly news, and it's depressing that there are people so ignorant of history and how the world works that they think this is somehow a "new" development, just because it's software instead of hardware.

We clearly have different sources on the matter.

IBM and the Holocaust: The Strategic Alliance between Nazi Germany and America's Most Powerful Corporation

Justice Delayed: IBM 's Collaboration with Nazi Germany

Profits uber Alles! American Corporations and Hitler

What are your sources? I'd be interested in reading some alternate interpretations of the existing documentation.

It's important to keep in mind that the IBM of today doesn't share much (if any) staff with the IBM of 1935. They aren't the same corporation at this point.

Regardless of the example I chose, my point remains. Western countries providing the tools necessary to support oppressive regimes is nothing new. You can reach back further if you want to the American companies manufacturing guns in the 19th century. My point is, this is hardly news, and it's depressing that there are people so ignorant of history and how the world works that they think this is somehow a "new" development, just because it's software instead of hardware.

I think consumers are going to be turned off by the fact that they can just get the DVD for the same price or less. That said, I'm sure the people who come home and miss the show once or twice will download it. Or the ones who can't wait to watch it all at once. They might even lure in the people who won't make big buys but will shell out the same amount a dollar or 2 at a time. But I think they need to price below the DVDs to really get it kicked off.

That said, just the idea is definately enough to get me to install iTunes on my media center box back home. And, you know, I might shell out a buck or 2 for a few shows. Just to see what I think. I hope there is an option to burn to DVD though.

Take a 22 episode TV season... that's almost $44 in iTunes. I could buy the DVD (if it was available) for less.

Right back at ya'.

Read this book The Weather Makers by Tim Flannery, if you are genuinely interested in doing something about climate chnage.

It is brilliant and timely call to action for everyone to reconsider their energy use as it applies to C02 emmissions.

The stock market can't go poof in one day? If you think we're invulnerable now, just think what would happen if we ran out of oil, not to mention any of several other catastrophe scenarios. And at 22 years old, you know everything there is about life and finances. I'm 24, but I could see how a 30 year old might have problems saving money. Just imagine your current financial situation + supporting 2 kids; even worse: a divorce. I'm not saying that it's dumb to save for retirement, but the idea of not saving for retirement also has its supporters.

I just took a few basic damn econ courses. I recommend everyone else do the same.

While it's a good idea, I also recommend people read Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations" as well as his "The Theory of Moral Sentiments".

But we shouldn't stop there.

Let's look at other Scientific ideas which cannot be fully explains. Gravity is one such example. Nobody really understands how gravity works, the theories explaining gravity are not inconsistant and leave huge gaps in understanding-- and heck, much of the math doesn't even add up. And don't even get me started about Quantum Mechanics and Gravity.

The Neo-Newtonian theory of gravity is a "theory in crisis". I bet you didn't know that, despite centuries of research, this topic has long been a focal point for vigorous debate within the scientific & intellectual community! There are countless numbers of scientists who dispute theories like Neo-Darwinian evolution and Neo-Newtonian Gravity!!!

This is why I say we should introduce the theory of Intelligent Falling in schools. When you fall, you are not actually being pulled down; but rather, you are being pushed by a Higher Intelligence-- it may be God, the Flying Spaghetti Monster or something else... but it's quite clear that science cannot adequately explain why we are pulled to the ground.

I'm inclined to believe that Bill Gates was a sharp programmer back in the late 1970's and early 1980's from what I've read.

Not to mention that he has a talent for reading legalese (Dad was a lawyer) that typically turns off many programmers. That talent was instrumental in his company's ascendency; people didn't expect a computer nerd to pay attention to contract language and he was able to attack and defend his interests the better due to his opponents underestimating his ability.

But what I (and I suspect many other programmers here) are curious about is to see actual examples of code Bill Gates has written. Someone's code tells a lot about them, in the same way that written language in general is emblematic of the author, his personality, outlook on life, etc.

So, I'd like to see examples of Bill Gates' code, just out of historical curiousity.

Or is it still closed source after a quarter of a century?

Not Since Carrie might need a new edition after that one closes.

"The idea of man being steeped in violence is largely lacking in evidence prior to the city states and predicated on the view that we must be violemt because other primates (and therefore occur primate ancestors) are violent. Which they largely aren't."

Ah huh. I guess that is why there is a huge amount of evidence out there that says otherwise. Perhaps you should do some reading?

See below for primates.

"Also, you misunderstand the use of violence in animal status. Real physical harm for many, probably most, animals is a last resort. If you lose a contest to a superior male, you don't feel dissed and come back with a pair of nines, you walk away. You do, however fight the next male that tries to capitalise on it. Or lose out big time as you indeed state. But often it never comes to a fight. It's called posturing. The idea that violence as a retort to loss of status has some historical basis is bilge."

Bzzz. Wrong. Thanks for playing. Status, reputation, and honor are far from trivial. A loss of status could have been catastrophic in the currency of survival and reproduction. Please see here and here for more proof of this.

"Evidence? Like I said, apes and other simians are less prone to intra-species violence than we currently are, and the emphasis in a contest is often not on actual violence. You're following old science."

Once again you are misinformed and it is you are that are following old science without an ounce of evidence to back up your pathetic statements. Chimpanzees regularly form coalitions to raid neighbouring territories. Please read this, this and this.

It sounds like you who is the one following the old science.

"The idea of man being steeped in violence is largely lacking in evidence prior to the city states and predicated on the view that we must be violemt because other primates (and therefore occur primate ancestors) are violent. Which they largely aren't."

Ah huh. I guess that is why there is a huge amount of evidence out there that says otherwise. Perhaps you should do some reading?

See below for primates.

"Also, you misunderstand the use of violence in animal status. Real physical harm for many, probably most, animals is a last resort. If you lose a contest to a superior male, you don't feel dissed and come back with a pair of nines, you walk away. You do, however fight the next male that tries to capitalise on it. Or lose out big time as you indeed state. But often it never comes to a fight. It's called posturing. The idea that violence as a retort to loss of status has some historical basis is bilge."

Bzzz. Wrong. Thanks for playing. Status, reputation, and honor are far from trivial. A loss of status could have been catastrophic in the currency of survival and reproduction. Please see here and here for more proof of this.

"Evidence? Like I said, apes and other simians are less prone to intra-species violence than we currently are, and the emphasis in a contest is often not on actual violence. You're following old science."

Once again you are misinformed and it is you are that are following old science without an ounce of evidence to back up your pathetic statements. Chimpanzees regularly form coalitions to raid neighbouring territories. Please read this, this and this.

It sounds like you who is the one following the old science.

"The idea of man being steeped in violence is largely lacking in evidence prior to the city states and predicated on the view that we must be violemt because other primates (and therefore occur primate ancestors) are violent. Which they largely aren't."

Ah huh. I guess that is why there is a huge amount of evidence out there that says otherwise. Perhaps you should do some reading?

See below for primates.

"Also, you misunderstand the use of violence in animal status. Real physical harm for many, probably most, animals is a last resort. If you lose a contest to a superior male, you don't feel dissed and come back with a pair of nines, you walk away. You do, however fight the next male that tries to capitalise on it. Or lose out big time as you indeed state. But often it never comes to a fight. It's called posturing. The idea that violence as a retort to loss of status has some historical basis is bilge."

Bzzz. Wrong. Thanks for playing. Status, reputation, and honor are far from trivial. A loss of status could have been catastrophic in the currency of survival and reproduction. Please see here and here for more proof of this.

"Evidence? Like I said, apes and other simians are less prone to intra-species violence than we currently are, and the emphasis in a contest is often not on actual violence. You're following old science."

Once again you are misinformed and it is you are that are following old science without an ounce of evidence to back up your pathetic statements. Chimpanzees regularly form coalitions to raid neighbouring territories. Please read this, this and this.

It sounds like you who is the one following the old science.

I really believe that despite a person's upbringing they can achieve what they want in the US. And despite statistics showing that blacks are underprivileged they have an opportunity to do what they want, but it will require hard work. Someone is always able to learn, if they want to.

Saying that blacks don't go to college because of a long history of discrimination is sweeping quite a lot under the rug.

I don't know who's more pathetic: you, because you've obviously been casing the Amazon underwear ads, or me, because I clicked on the link, noticed that Amazon has apparently taken it down, and then Googled for it and found it here.

sigh.

First and most important: Who mandates it? Nobody has authority over the interwebbernet.
That said, what defines adult content?
    What about a national geographic-style site that would include topless women from some tribe in africa?
    What about a site selling underwear? For example, you can see bush on this amazon ad: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B000 7XLONC/ref=pd_sbs_a_4/102-1256598-6028138?_encodin g=UTF8&v=glance
    What about webcam sites where people are free to be as nude or not-nude as they like?
    What about informative sites teaching kids about their own body? (clitical, jackinworld, etc)
    What about non comercial personal pages that include nudes (Be they self nudes, or "my wild vacation pictures", or whatever).

The gray area is huge. But again, more importantly, who can mandate such a requirement? Why would someone want to host their site in a banned by many .xxx tld when they can get more profit from a .com? Because of potential us law you propose? Only people that care about silly US laws are silly US citizens.

The better proposal is a .kids tld (or better yet, an entire arin assignment or VPN you could limit your kids inside), which anybody could set up and be responsible for. If you could get a few big isps behind it, you'd have a large enough base that the big names (Disney, Nick, etc) would want access to host their sites inside your system, and the only stuff inside would be safe.

Even if you could block a .xxx, you'll never block the millions of nude pictures already out there lurking in peoples personal sites, forgotten dir indexes, and whatever else.

Ahem. Office Standard $333 at Amazon. Office Student $125. Average of these 2 prices: $229 .

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/feature/-/528 734/104-5098651-8249553

Regarding MS OS being a higher percentage of the overall cost of a PC - hardware costs have fallen dramatically. The cost to develop software is higher than ever before. No big surprise here. By your logic, since the cost of the physical CD media has dropped from $2 to $0.20, software titles should have dropped by that same factor of 10. You know it doesn't work that way. The fact that the media is 10 times cheaper does not mean you can pay your army of games developers 1/10th of their former salary. If anything, as software complexity rises, costs rise as well. To assert that software costs should track hardware costs is simply silly and you should know better.

And regarding my missing the whole point, I think the shoe is squarely on the other foot. As products evolve the list of standard features expands. Things that were add-on options become built-in. This is done for many reasons - cost savings, reliabiltiy and better integration being among them. As an application developer I can really appreciate knowing that if I build an application that requires audio playback, or web-page viewing, I can use built-in facilities in the platform. I don't have to design, code and test for every possible combination. Or worse, arrange for installing these utilities with my application. This leads to a dramatically better end-user experience, and a more robust product. Now, there may be many reasons why Microsoft chooses to integrate those facilities, and one of them may have to do with locking in users, but you cannot deny the obvious, tangible and substantial benefits to application developers, who are then able to pass those benefits on to their end users.

Continuing with the car analogy. My car has built-in sunroof, built-in tinted windows, built-in heated seats, built-in security system, built-in halogen headlights, a built-in stereo, etc etc. All of those things started out as add-ons. That is simply the way products evolve. Designers build in more and more features to differentiate themselves. Just because Microsoft is way better at it than most is no reason to pretend this is a bad thing.

And by the way, if you want to talk predatory, let's talk Redhat Linux - Standard Enterprise Edition - $1499 ($2499 for the Premium Edition). That's up quite a bit from free.

http://www.redhat.com/software/rhel/compare/server /

The specs say the T|X runs Palm OS 5.4, and the camera says it's good for OS 5, without specifying a subrevision, so one would think it'd work ok. $80.00 doesn't seem out of line, either, though the reviews on Amazon are a bit mixed.

I also found this Veo camera, which is 640 x 680 instead of 1.3 MP, and is about 25% less expensive.

Thanks to the Apple Herd Effect, I assume there will now be a critical mass of video-enabled personal media devices. Welcome, it's been a lonely three years or so without you on the bleeding edge.

Anyway, now I assume that video RSS downloads, ala "podcasts", will now gain traction. What to call them? Will they still be "podcasts", or "vidcasts", or "podvids"?

THose thoughts aside, I can recommend The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell which revolves around Jesuits and ETs. Good read.