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Who's the fscking idiot who thought having \0 indicate end-of-string was a good idea??!!?

My guess would be either Brian Kernighan or Dennis Ritchie.

Neither of which I'd characterise as 'an idiot' though they probably thought of the C programming language as a gigantic practical joke at the time...

http://www.elsop.com/wrc/humor/unixhoax.htm

First, I am not a lawyer.

Linden Lab, the company responsible for Second Life [SL] is physically located in California, therefore it seems that they would fall under that jurisdiction in taxation matters.

There are no California taxes collected on monies paid to Linden Lab, AFAIK, unless they are bundled into the cost. Neither the TOS nor the membership plan page nor the pricing plan page nor the billing policies make any reference to any included taxes.

The California Tax Service Center page says clearly that "Retail sales of tangible personal property in California are generally subject to sales tax." However, software delivered over the net is *not* taxed by CA under Reg. 1502of the California State Board of Equalization. {From LinkScan(tm)}.

State of California

BOARD OF EQUALIZATION

SALES AND USE TAX REGULATIONS

Regulation 1502. COMPUTERS, PROGRAMS, AND DATA PROCESSING.

Reference: Sections 995.2, 6006, 6007, 6010, 6010.9, 6011, 6012, 6015, and 6016, Revenue and Taxation Code.

(b) DEFINITIONS OF TERMS.

Prewritten Program - A program held or existing for general or repeated sale or lease. The term also includes a program developed for in-house use which is subsequently offered for sale or lease as a product.

(f) COMPUTER PROGRAMS.

(D) The sale or lease of a prewritten program is not a taxable transaction if the program is transferred by remote telecommunications from the seller's place of business, to or through the purchaser's computer and the purchaser does not obtain possession of any tangible personal property, such as storage media, in the transaction.

-----

This is certainly the case with Second Life software. The server software remains in California while the client is downloaded to your computer. This is the general business model for most MMORGs. However, not all states support this model of software taxation. This non-uniformity between states is the wedge that will be seized upon by Congress (under its interstate regulation powers (U.S. Constitution, Article I, Sec.8) to tax virtual wealth.

Of course, they *could* just as easily apply the over-the-net exemption as the state of California does. Considering how godawful-friendly they are to the business community, and how much they scream about "new taxes", you'd think that they would. Unfortunately, their second loyalty is to themselves and the "public pocketbook" (citizens, of course, are dead last), and so they are likely to grab that pie with both hands and start stuffing their faces (after assuring their corporate overlords that it is an unfortunate "necessity".)

The scroll wheel is strongly reminiscent of the
Spinning Alphabet Wheel, say what?

... and 1,441,749 more useful, informative articles. Well done Microsoft!

The Computer at Stonehenge
Strange things are done to be number one
In selling the computer
IBM has their stratagem
Which steadily grows acuter,
And Honeywell competes like Hell,
But the story's missing link
Is the system old at Stonehenge sold
By the firm of Druids, Inc.

The Druids were entrepreneurs,
And they built a granite box
It tracked the moon, warned of monsoons,
And forecast the equinox
Their price was right, their future bright,
The prototype was sold;
From Stonehenge site their bits and byte
Would ship for Celtic gold.

The movers came to crate the frame;
It weighed a million ton!
The traffic folk thought it a joke
(the wagon wheels just spun);
"They'll nay sell that," the foreman spat,
"Just leave the wild weeds grow;
It's Druid-kind, over-designed,
And belly up they'll go.''

The man spoke true, and thus to you
A warning from the ages;
Your stock will slip if you can't ship
What's in your brochure's pages.
See if it sells without the bells
And strings that ring and quiver;
Druid repute went down the chute
Because they couldn't deliver.

You could be in serious trouble. There was such a virus - or at least it had the powers to do what you are experiencing.

I got infected with this virus once. It caused uncontrollable cachinnation.

Windows 95 can be a major problem when working with a newbie who still thinks that the mouse is a "foot pedal" like that on a sewing machine (yes it's true, I actually had a call like that). (emphasis added)

I don't believe you. I've heard the same story from many people who claimed it happened to them when they worked the support lines. This is almost a urban legend of sorts. A search on Google turns up the same story all over the place.

http://www.cyberspaceplace.com/nightbeforepgrm.htm l
http://www.mathstat.usouthal.edu/humor.html
http://eserver.org/cyber/befuddle.txt
http://www.laughnet.net/archive/compute/helpme.htm
http://www.auricular.com/TST/tst1.html
http://www.elsop.com/wrc/humor/truetech.htm

You may want to look at Structured Computer Organization from Andrew S. Tanenbaum (Creator of MINIX). It covers the changes of programming languages, instruction set, computer architecture, milestones in development of digital computers (Vaccuum Tubes to Transistors to VLSI), Moore's Law, Pentium , UltraSPARC, picoJava, storage, RAM, .... to how to design your own CPU.

You may find it too advance to under the whole designing CPU chapters, but it sure gives you a general idea of the history of computer in its introduction chapters.

You can also try the Computer History Association of California, and the Computer Industry History page from Electronic Software Publishing Corp.

• Index Generator 2.0 is a freeware Windows-tool which has an easy interface and is fairly powerful too. The website is horrible though :)
• LinkScan 7.2 is a commercial tool for Unix/Windows that has a free evaluation version available. Haven't tried it out, does seem to have loads of features.
• Tree.pl is opensource and therefor easily customizable, but doesn't have too many features standard, so a good basis if you know Perl.