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There is a rather detailed self-interview with script writer Karey Kirkpatrick here: http:http://hitchhikers.movies.go.com/movienews/in terview.html

It is not new but sheds some insight what was done to HHGG and why

You can't necessarily take the radio script word-for-word. There are obviously no visuals, so there is a need for more words to describe the environments and to fill time.

Movies have a lot of visual elements that take time away from dialog. There are establishing shots, transitions, etc. There are also cases where something that takes a long time to describe with words actually happens very quickly in real time.

It can also be tedious to be constantly commenting on the action. "Sin City" frequently fell into this trap with its noir-style monologues. I can see that he is tired and lighting a cigarette; you don't have to tell me that too.

I was watching "From the Earth to the Moon" and one of the characters who was describing the Apollo 1 fire made the point that it may have taken two or three minutes to say what happened, but the whole thing was over and done in about 15 seconds.

A lot of people complained that the Spiderman movies missed a lot of Spidey's one-liners, but visually the fights had to be fast and brutual to make it believable that super-beings were having it out. They move faster and hit harder than normal people. And there just isn't a lot of time for dialog when your head is being busted in by an armored tentacle.

Somebody reading this post is probably tallying up what I say is longer and shorter in both mediums and saying, "Well, by his math, there should still be time for all of the parts we love." The point I'm making is: each medium has different constraints; dealing with those constraints is the difficult and fun part of making content for that medium. MP3 software for desktop machines and embedded hardware have significant differences in implementation and interface.

That said, it doesn't sound like the makers of this movie did a good job dealing with those constraints. I would have sat through another 10 or 15 minutes of the movie to get some of the guide entries back or to explain the 'logic' behind some of the events in the movie.

And I am disturbed by the screenwriter's admission that he really didn't understand improbability. DA had lots of dialog from Trillian and others in the books commenting on the fact that very convenient things kept happening because the ship was doing it. DA got to have it both ways: he got a plot device that could string the story together AND everyone accepts it because the characters all realized that improbable, but fortuitous things are happening. It's self-referential humor, which Hollywood should be very good at by now. Sounds like they blew their chance there.

I hope the movie is still good, but this article really gave me concerns. Sadly, we vote with our dollar before seeing the film.

Although, Douglas Adams wrote the script to the movie himself. If the entire book was included it would be longer than watching LOTR back-to-back.

Douglas Adams knew the film-making process well, his final draft left out many ideas from the books which were added back in. http://hitchhikers.movies.go.com/movienews/intervi ew.html

The transition to film would always be difficult for a well-renowned book and it's not always done well but let's hope it leaves in the best parts.

The odd thing is, though, that here the screenwriter, Karey Kirkpatrick, discusses just those things that make Adams' writing Adams' writing, and it really seemed he got it.

From the article: http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/news/04132004_bb_sapph ire.html Charles Gibson/Good Morning America: "It looks like water, but it's not." Well, Gasoline is a clear liquid, so it looks like water, I guess it must put out a fire! Also, can I get modded up cause I made a link?

You are complaining that the anonymous Terry Schiavo Republican Talking Points memo was faked by the Democratcs. Because, of course, any reporting on criticism of the Republicans is a partisan trick and an indication of media bias?

Actually, no. The Terry Schiavo memo is true - this morning the Washington Post is reporting that a Republican Senator fired a his staffer who admitted writing it.

Look I hate to break it to you, but the all the evidence and actions of the Republicans in Washington (Schiavo, Delay, lies about cost of Medicare, Social Security "Crisis", WMD's, torture policy, Clinton Impeachment, budget busting deficits and concurrent tax cuts for the hyper-rich, media consolidation, "nuclear-option" of taking away the filibuster option from the minority party, lack of any sort of investigation of White House actions) demonstrate that the Republicans in Washington are acting like amoral, unethical, hacks who will do anything for power and their party, in contrast to acting for the benefit of the country.

There are some principled Republicans in the country, I know some. But what are the core values that the ones in Washington are demonstrating? Why is it "media bias" to report on their actions?

Reporting on unethical actions is not media bias - and not reporting on false speculation that the Democrats "faked it" without any evidence suggesting that they did is not "media bias". Because, again, the Republican Senate staff DID write the Terry Schiavo Talking points memo. And it is good that people reported it, and that people be held accountable for it.

I have voted Republican, and will again for the right people. But this crop's willingess to lie, and to tolerate lies for their own benefit and to the long-term detriment of the country and our democracy is shameful and disturbing. I don't care if you vote Republican or Democrat - but vote for someone better than the current schmucks in power. There are some candidates our there who care more about what is good for the country than for their personal short-term gain, and who can still tell the difference between the two. We deserve, and need, better leaders than are currently running the show in Washington.

Technically, it's the Unintentional Comedy Rating (UCR) scale, and don't steal from Simmons without giving credit where credit is due.

Plenty of people, and why are you digging so deep.

I'm not in the pay of anyone, but I reckon you are, proof, digging on stuff below the front page. Big Warming can't loose all that funding in for bogus science. I'm sure they pay you people well to come in push their PR firms.

Both your links are known fronts for enviornmentalists groups. Not only are they PR companies, but they work for PR groups, which is another name for enviornmentalist groups. How much did Greenpeace spend on PR last year? 150 Million? It was 140 Million in 2000.

And By the way both realclimate and altenergyaction are not run by scientists, they are run by enviornmentalists.

I imagine your one of the ones that believes dandruff and farming are also large factors in global warming. You must also believe they cause Tsunamis.

Well you would wouldn't you I mean your paid to believe these things and spread disinformation.

No, DON'T burn it !!! There's a treasure map on the back !!!!!

I wish we had the money

"Report Says Pentagon Spending on Weapons to Soar"

"The government is readying a plan to spend more than $2 billion on a routine 10-year overhaul to extend the life of the aging warheads. At the same time, some weapons scientists say the warheads have a fundamental design flaw...."

"The shift away from basic research is alarming many leading computer scientists and electrical engineers, who warn that there will be long-term consequences for the nation's economy."

"The voice of science is being stifled in the Bush administration"

"Led by twenty Nobel laureates, the scientists say Bush's government has systematically distorted and undermined scientific information in pursuit of political objectives."

"For Bush, science is a dirty word"

http://abc.go.com/video/video320x240.html?channel= featured&clip=/Primetime/lost_117_recap_joi8_high. asx

I couldn't get it to stream in Windows Media player, but maybe you will have better luck on your apple.

The asx file is here, and it eventually points to mms://a36.v9890f.c9890.g.vm.akamaistream.net/ 7/36/9890/v0001/abcvod.download.akamai.com/9890/ media/Primetime/lost_117_recap_joi8_high.asf (get rid of the spaces)

Can anyone go to http://abc.go.com/video/player.html, click the Episode 19 recap for Lost, and post the direct URL of the Windows Media stream? I know it's offtopic, but I don't know where else to ask. The WMV plugin's not working on my (Mac OS X) computer, and I'd like to see the video. Thanks.

Can anyone go to http://abc.go.com/video/player.html, click the Episode 19 recap for Lost, and figure out the direct URL for the Windows Media stream? I know this is offtopic, but I don't know where else to ask. The WMV plugin's not working on my (Mac OS X) computer, and I'd like to see the video. Thanks.

Can anyone go to http://abc.go.com/video/player.html, click the Episode 19 recap for Lost, and figure out the direct URL for the Windows Media stream? I know this is offtopic, but I don't know where else to ask. The WMV plugin's not working on my (Mac OS X) computer, and I'd like to see the video. Thanks.

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory?id=6298 02

They need to think about pushing the launch date back to April 28th, the main reason being the scheduled demolition of Earth on the 29th.

Idjit @ NASA Langley Research Center

RobertB, did you notice that your beloved Dixie Chicks were in the court today, on the side of the RIAA?

That's teh suck. After all the trouble they had with Sony screwing them around, you'd think they'd know better than to kiss the hand that slaps them. The reason the music industry is losing money is because they produce crap. Artists who don't produce crap get shuffled aside in favor of the next Brittney or Shania.

The Chicks were expected to appeal to a limited number of alt.country fans, and only got big by their willingness to tell Sony to go to hell when they needed to. What are they doing now? This is the dumbest thing since the time Natalie went up against Woody Harrelson on the topic of Marijuana on Politically Incorrect.

Additional details:
Supreme Court Weighs in on File-Sharing
"The case has star power on both sides.

"Don Henley, Sheryl Crow, the Dixie Chicks and other musicians are backing the major recording labels, saying their livelihoods are threatened if millions of people can obtain their songs for nothing.

"About 20 independent recording artists, including musician and producer Brian Eno, rockers Heart and rapper-activist Chuck D, support the file-sharing technology. They say it allows greater distribution of their music and limits the power of huge record companies."

For what it's worth, I'm a fan of Heart, too...

I shouldn't reply to trolls, but what the hell:

CNN
MSNBC
CBS
ABC

And, in the interests of impartiality:

Fox News.

Sorry, what was your point?

In other words, gimme the finger, I want the whole hand.

I wouldn't eat at Wendy's today, if I were you.

Half of all bankruptcies are due to medical issues.

Three quarters of those had health insurance.

Source: http://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory?id=463499

By the way, please tell me how even, say, 100k stashed away in an "emergency situation" account will last a year of cancer treatment. It won't. Hospital stay alone is well over 1k/day.

Enjoy your delusional little life, and hopefully you don't get sick!

Disney is charge $32 / 26 minute episode. For a grand total of over $3200 for all 100 episodes. On the bright side, they provide free shipping.

For that price, Bill better give me a back rub as well. The link to the videos.

I mean, it's not like I've ever heard of bullshit lawsuits before.

Obviously, since you are so quick to pronouce this suit bullshit before it has even been heard, based on a single news article. You're just as quick as Senator/Doctor Bill Frist, who judged that Schiavo's doctors were wrong about her condition based solely on highly edited news footage he saw on TV. You are in great company!

LOL, are you saying I'm making this shit up?

Yes I am. "I have a list but I don't want to bother posting it." Bullshit. Of course, you could prove me wrong by posting your list of retarded rules. But I see you haven't bothered still. Maybe you don't really have a point to make, but just wanted to pile on. In that case, I can see why you wouldn't bother to support your position with the facts you claim to possess. It makes perfect sense, in that case.

Your move.

Ah. Let me guess - you used to be an employee and got shafted by a company, who then hired a temp (or consultant if we're talking above burger flipping or bubble wrapping) in your place, correct?

No. I have worked as a temp in the chemical industries, however. I've been subject to the same scam the plaintiffs are filing suit over,: employers using temps to get around labor laws.

Don't fucking sign it then. This is still a free country, after all.

Not entirely free. You are not free to enter into an illegal contract, and you are not free to enforce one.

Am I the only one that doesn't see anything demonic, but more of a cartoon dragon/dinosaur? Hell, it kinda even looks like Goofy's face (slackjawed and all)

The Fort Worth Museum of Science and History, which supposedly didn't want to show "Volcanoes of the Deep Sea", is showing Aliens of the Deep.

The Charleston Science Museum is also showing Aliens of the Deep.

"Cosmic Voyage" is from 1996. It's perhaps the biggest zoom shot of all time, starting from the quark level and zooming out to the entire universe over 35 minutes. It wasn't controversial at the time, and it doesn't seem to be that controversial now. Just dated. It's basically a remake of Powers of Ten, by Charles and Ray Eames.

Galapagos is playing at the IMAX in Fort Lauderdale, FL, along with two other IMAX theaters in the US. It's from 1999. Nobody seems to be that wound up about it.

It looks like some casual comment by the marketing guy for the museum in Fort Worth has been blown up out of proportion.

The big problem with "Volcanoes of the Deep Ocean" may be that it's "too educational". There's a teacher's guide, with quizzes and homework assignments. And really, there's a glut of undersea IMAX movies.

Here are the websites..

http://www.volcanoesofthedeepsea.com/index_flash.h tml

http://disney.go.com/disneypictures/aliensofthedee p/

I have seen Aliens of the Deep, and I know that they focus mainly on deep sea underwater ecosystem. They clearly did dodge around the facts related to creation of such ecosystems on Earth or other Planets (or Even Moons in the film). They also seemed to make everything sound like speculation. For me it seemed just like a lot of pretty pictures, with little information.

It makes if wonder if Disney attempted to remake a converstial film without all the BAD stuff in it. The bad stuff being actual science.

How did you gather statistical evidence suggesting the ratio of useful to bad CSS is 1:1000? Most people don't notice CSS at all when it's done well, so opinions tend to be skewed here, I suspect. But I'd be very interested to see some independent research in this area.

Quite simply, people should just not know if a site uses CSS or not without looking at the source. CSS is designed to separate structure and style, which has more advantages than I care to list. Really, the only time people look at a site and say "oh, this must use CSS" is when it's one of those cookie-cutter blogs covered with rectangles and sharp corners. And while some sites abuse CSS or do only basic things with it, others like ESPN.com make you wonder how they pulled it all off using nothing but divs.

While Dr. Stuart Meloy was working on a new device to treat chronic pain, he was surprised to discover it could also bring pleasure to his female patients.

While Meloy, an anesthesiologist and pain specialist in Winston-Salem, was putting an electrode into the spine of a female patient with chronic back pain, the woman reported a decrease in her pain and a delightful, but very unexpected, side effect.

"When we turned on the power in this case, she let out a moan and began hyperventilating," Meloy said on ABC News' Good Morning America. "Of course we cut the power and I looked around the drapes and asked her what was going on. Once she caught her breath, she said 'you're gonna have to teach my husband how to do that!' "

But we can tolerate Curt Schilling too cause he's been a big Everquest fan.

Mentioned here.

Everquest interview

Like http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=585990this one.

Shouldn't the Firefox team be more concerned about crashes? These two ABC news stories, Chavez: Low Oil Rates a Thing of the Past and Blair's Anti-Terrorism Law Wins Approval, for example, crash the latest version of Firefox (1.01) every time. The crashes have been known and fixed for 6 months (Copy and paste the URL, Bugzilla does not accept links from Slashdot.). They have been fixed in the recent developer builds (see bottom of page), but you are warned that recent builds may have other bugs. Shouldn't the developers of a program with "more than 25 million" users release crash fixes quickly or at least warn users?

More reports from users, sometimes imperfect, with minimal editing for clarity:

http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=141 586&cid=11864609 "The last few releases have a habit of freezing up in various ways. It's not something that happens every day, but it happens a lot more than it used to."

http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=141 586&cid=11865831 "... firefox DOES NOT let other applications that need it [memory] get it back. it [Firefox] routinely crawls the machine to a halt until it's killed and restarted."

http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=141 586&cid=11866690 "[Firefox] really shouldn't use as much memory as it does, and it shouldn't have the memory retention policy that it does either. The amount of memory that it uses does matter, because it completely fragments the heap, it pushes the address space of other programs to disk, and it performs... [badly] after you've used another program that requires a lot of memory.

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=141586&cid=118 68266 "basically after using firefox heavily for a while (many tabs open and closed, often on complex pages) firefox will start eating 100% CPU and become slow as molasses and never recover."

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=141586&cid=118 75707 "I have found that if I load a PDF document and then use 'Back' to back up to the page which had the link pointing to the pdf document that Firefox crashes. Eventually, the adobe reader process also crashes."

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=141586&cid=118 63855 "I'm on a Mac, so it tends to only actually crash when it's loaded down and I hit a bad flash or java applet"

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=141586&cid=118 63924 "Usually though it [Firefox crash] happens after an extend period of time, without fail really, as my lone firefox window often stays open for days on end, so while my usage habits aren't much (compared to some at least) in the short term, in the long term the crashes have been making me wonder if a memory leak may be the cause, but sadly I lack the time to investigate it myself."

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=141586&cid=118 64110 "There are bugs that cause memory leaks and slowdowns, relating to plugins and Javascript. Any one of the page

Shouldn't the Firefox team be more concerned about crashes? These two ABC news stories, Chavez: Low Oil Rates a Thing of the Past and Blair's Anti-Terrorism Law Wins Approval, for example, crash the latest version of Firefox (1.01) every time. The crashes have been known and fixed for 6 months (Copy and paste the URL, Bugzilla does not accept links from Slashdot.). They have been fixed in the recent developer builds (see bottom of page), but you are warned that recent builds may have other bugs. Shouldn't the developers of a program with "more than 25 million" users release crash fixes quickly or at least warn users?

More reports from users, sometimes imperfect, with minimal editing for clarity:

http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=141 586&cid=11864609 "The last few releases have a habit of freezing up in various ways. It's not something that happens every day, but it happens a lot more than it used to."

http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=141 586&cid=11865831 "... firefox DOES NOT let other applications that need it [memory] get it back. it [Firefox] routinely crawls the machine to a halt until it's killed and restarted."

http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=141 586&cid=11866690 "[Firefox] really shouldn't use as much memory as it does, and it shouldn't have the memory retention policy that it does either. The amount of memory that it uses does matter, because it completely fragments the heap, it pushes the address space of other programs to disk, and it performs... [badly] after you've used another program that requires a lot of memory.

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=141586&cid=118 68266 "basically after using firefox heavily for a while (many tabs open and closed, often on complex pages) firefox will start eating 100% CPU and become slow as molasses and never recover."

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=141586&cid=118 75707 "I have found that if I load a PDF document and then use 'Back' to back up to the page which had the link pointing to the pdf document that Firefox crashes. Eventually, the adobe reader process also crashes."

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=141586&cid=118 63855 "I'm on a Mac, so it tends to only actually crash when it's loaded down and I hit a bad flash or java applet"

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=141586&cid=118 63924 "Usually though it [Firefox crash] happens after an extend period of time, without fail really, as my lone firefox window often stays open for days on end, so while my usage habits aren't much (compared to some at least) in the short term, in the long term the crashes have been making me wonder if a memory leak may be the cause, but sadly I lack the time to investigate it myself."

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=141586&cid=118 64110 "There are bugs that cause memory leaks and slowdowns, relating to plugins and Javascript. Any one of the page

I have a rock here that wards off Tigers. People say it doesn't work ... but I don't see any tigers!

I have to agree that Rachel Bilson is plenty reason to watch the show, but all of the subplots this year suck and we now basically have a show about kids in High School that almost nobody would want to hang out with, let alone watch them on TV.

I have seen some suggestions on what is wrong and how to fix it. The best one is here, but others, have chimed in with analysis.

Saudi Arabia is a pretty factioned Kingdom with a lot of players in the Royal family bidding for control. There are extremists in the royal family. The Saudi's can't even keep terrorist operatives out of their military. I found this article regarding a recent FBI memo while reading Drudge Report. I found the following pretty disturbing.
The Saudi was sent home after it was discovered he provided information to al Qaeda figures in Saudi Arabia, including "coordinates on landmarks in the US," the report says.
"It's not surprising because we believe the Saudi military is infiltrated at the junior officer level in Saudi Arabia," said Dick Clarke, a former White House counterterrorism czar and now an ABC News Consultant. "And there are so many of them who come here for training."
Saying that Iraq was sponsoring Terrorism is a pretty week argument to Justify the Iraq war. The U.S. and just about every other political player sponsors some third party group to achieve it's goals. I don't think I have to remind you of Iran/Contra and numerous dictators that were sponsored by the U.S in some form. The fact is the current administration fought hard to link Iraq to 911. The more sobering fact is that Iraq had nothing to do with 911 or our current threat to national security. Our greatest threat is still from terrorists with financing ties back to Saudi Arabi. Saudi Arabi is much more extremist and religous than Iraq. Iraq was probably the most Westernized of all the Islamic countries in the Middle East. Notice I said, "was" meaing the war has changed things. We are friendly with the current faction in charge of the Royal Family. However, it's not unreasonable to say that Saudi Arabia is a politcal event away from being run by a more extremist faction. The existing Saudi Government can not be trusted to control their own extremist factions. Perhaps we went to war with Iraq for that very reason. Meaning that Iraq was an easier target with lots of oil. We can make Saudi Arabi play a little nicer, with out damaging our currently friendly business relationship.

Bin Laden's banishment was basically a sacrificial cow to us back in the 90's. Recall that Bin Laden was very mad that US troops were stationed on Saudi Soil during the First Gulf war. The Royal Family was very happy to have us there as they needed US firepower to deal with Iraq. It was an easy peace overing for the Saudi's to make. It's also important to note that the Bin Laden family has claimed to have turned their back to Osama since the banishment. However, Bin Laden family members from Saudi Arabi were with Osama at a wedding as resently as 99 after the USS Cole atack. Osama even spoke at the wedding regarding the burning flesh of the "infidels" being a great site.

Actually, subsidies for anything but a fledgling industry are bad. They lead to higher prices for consumers and reduced competition, while the consumers continue to get taxed the same amount or more. For a fledgling industry it is ok, because the industry needs to plant some roots first to become stable. But once they're going strong they need to be gradually let go.

John Stossel did a good piece for 20/20 (I love how he exposes the "bullshit" happening all over the place to average Americans) a few weeks ago that spent 5 or 10 minutes on cotton farm subsidies. The online article (which sounds to me exactly like a transcript from the show) is italicised at the end of this post.

A few good points he made:

1) Some guy living in New York bought some land in the country that changed hands a few times. He doesn't do anything with it, but for some reason he gets cotton subsidies - and he doesn't know why. Heh.

2) Lettuce, peas, potatoes, tomatoes, plums, peaches, broccoli, green beans, and many other crops are not subsidized. Do you have problems getting any of these at the market? No. Are they prohibitively expensive? No, they actually seem to be quite cheap.

3) The only argument the farmers on the show could come up with was: (paraphrased) "What are we supposed to do with our land if the subsidies are gone?" Here's an idea ... become a more efficient business or sell the land.

From: http://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=448934&page=2

No. 5 -- NASTY BEHAVIOR -- Welfare for Farmers

President Bush gave away $83 billion of your money to farmers when he signed the 2002 Farm Security and Rural Investment Act, and Congress applauded him for it. Americans like the idea of supporting family farms, but you'd be surprised to learn where that money goes.

Hundreds of those farmers who benefited from our generosity live in New York City. Some of those farmers who are collecting farm subsidies are pretty well-off. Mike Sonnenfeldt, for example, lives in a building where Steven Spielberg and Steve Martin have apartments.

Sonnenfeldt gets a cotton subsidy from the government. "I bought a piece of property, that got traded for a piece of property ... And I'm not sure exactly even why I get it," he said.

Most of the money goes to real farms big agribusiness, actually. But politicians talk about family farms.

Some subsidies do go to family farms, like one run by Fred and Larry Starrh. But does that entitle them to $3.5 million of your money? That's what they've received over seven years.

I called them welfare queens -- and they objected. "Change it to king," Larry Starrh joked, "Welfare kings. Because 'queens' is bad in California, believe me."

The Starrhs grow mostly cotton on their 12,000-acre spread in California. It's hard to think of them as needy with all that land, but costs have increased faster than prices. Subsidies, they say, are just a small part of their income, but they and their 100 employees depend on them. Without them, they say, they can't make a profit.

Now most businesses that can't make a profit go out of business. Woolworth closed. So did TWA. So do 20,000 restaurants every year. It's that freedom to fail that's helped make America as prosperous as she is, because it frees people to do more productive things.

But subsidized farms get different treatment. When Fred and Larry can't make a profit, taxpayers give them a handout.

"I don't look at it as a handout whatsoever. I absolutely refuse to accept that," Fred Starrh said.

But it is. It's welfare.

Fred Starrh said he looks at it as "a way to maintain a viable agriculture in this country."

That's the myth. Subsidies don't maintain a viable agriculture. Lettuce isn't subsidized. In fact, most crops are not. Not peas or potatoes or tomatoes. Not plums, peaches, broccoli, green beans. Th

i don't think this law is about some sort of censorship of how-to manuals

i think this australian law is intended to deal with people like this guy

suicide pacts are not funny, in japan they are frighteningly more prevalent than elsewhere

gis, news, for "suicide pact"

coughed up this about the australian law

Here is a better link to a very critical evaluation of Fiorina as CEO of HP.

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/SiliconInsider/stor y?id=88655&page=1

FTA: "Record sales aren't going to improve until the BPI or the RIAA stop stuffing crap down our throats"

Actually, record sales have increased in 2004. The whole decrease was rather debateable, since that was only full on on-a-CD-through-retail sales that are getting quoted, not total product moved.. nevermind digital album sales.

1) Imitation the sencerest form of flattery.

2) Its not the power brick, powering this unit. But the cooling tower you also need to hang off of it! With the earplugs included in the box!

3) Intel been doing this "odd shape case thing" for years and no one has coppied them yet. Remember the Aztec pyrimid? Uggly shape and colors.

4) But Microsoft want to go to the "Teddybear" form factor case!
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory?id=5459 78&CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds0312/

5) The "low heat" and also "low power" micro/Pico-ITX form factor MB are not made by Intel but are being driven by VIA CPU's and chipset!

6) And is this from the same Intel that was hyping so much bleeding edge stuff, over the last few years. That after X months usually said we can't do it?

him the link didn't work, maybe that will teach me to use the preview button. lets try this again

This reminds me a little bit of an article I read a little while back on a spinal cord stimulation device which has been dubbed the "Orgasmatron."

Article link

Snippet:

While Dr. Stuart Meloy was working on a new device to treat chronic pain, he was surprised to discover it could also bring pleasure to his female patients.

While Meloy, an anesthesiologist and pain specialist in Winston-Salem, was putting an electrode into the spine of a female patient with chronic back pain, the woman reported a decrease in her pain and a delightful, but very unexpected, side effect.

"When we turned on the power in this case, she let out a moan and began hyperventilating," Meloy said on ABC News' Good Morning America. "Of course we cut the power and I looked around the drapes and asked her what was going on. Once she caught her breath, she said 'you're gonna have to teach my husband how to do that!' "

Meloy soon realized he may have discovered a device that could help thousands of women who have trouble achieving orgasm.

"The device is the use of a pre-existing device called a spinal cord stimulator," he said. "Instead of treating chronic pain with the stimulator, we're treating orgasmic dysfunction," Meloy said.

In a surgical procedure done in his office, Meloy implants the electrodes from this device into the back of the patient, at the bottom part of the spinal cord. When the electrodes are stimulated with a remote control, the brain interprets the signal as an orgasm, he said. The device is about the size of a pacemaker and can be turned on and off with a handheld remote control.

There isn't a "ban" on any kind of stem cell research in the US. There is a restriction on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research - entities are still free to perform embryonic stem cell research (see California's recent US$3 billion bond initiative to support such research in the state)

But this kind of cutting edge research needs gov't funding for several reasons: it's very expensive; it's long term (too much so to attract enough private money); and the federal government can make a big difference in funding if it chooses to.

The Bush administration is the first administration to allow any federal funding at all for embryonic stem cell research. Granted, this is partly due to timing, but it's still a point of information.

Wrong. Here's citation #1 about Clinton's support of stem cell research, and here's citation #2 and #3. I think that Slate, CNN, and ABC are generally trustworthy.

And it would be nice if people stopped clouding the issue with abortion arguments. While there are some similarities, the analogy breaks down very quickly, and argument by analogy is generally suspect. Oh, and BTW, here's an ABC article with some interesting statistics on ESR, including about 60% support for both ESR and federal funding of it by US citizens.

From the linked article: "If a customer attempts to activate Windows XP with an OEM key from a COA, they will be directed to call customer support specialists to obtain an override code - provided they can prove that their copy is legitimate by answering a series of questions."

Right now all those people who are night janitors for McDonald's are happily saying to themselves, "There's someone who has a much worse job than mine."

Maybe that is a way to rate business models, by the quality of the jobs they create.

It's awesomely bad, when you think of it: Presuming that Microsoft customers are pirates and making them prove they aren't by cross-examining them. And, if someone doesn't answer the questions correctly, unfairly taking away his rights to use what he bought.

Marketing people are often the least intelligent people in a company. But this is a new low! R.I.P. Microsoft? The rot is growing faster than Michael Malone predicted. If some people are pirates, the solution is to abuse everyone?

Microsoft managers should be required to attend a class in social skills. At least farting in public and chewing with your mouth open doesn't hassle every customer.

You can call bullshit all you want and you are right to do so but I don't think free speech in the US is as "pure" as you think it is. If it was how are cases like the Extreme Associates one possible and why is it not legal to show fisting sex in a video?

Really? How about all the obscenity cases in the US? AFAIK displaying fisting sex is outright illegal public or not. See also the Extreme Associates case.

Wow, Walt Disney is still alive? What great news!

Yes it is, you ignorant moron.

A U.S. appeals court on Tuesday said that regulators had overstepped their authority by imposing a rule designed to limit the copying of digital television programs.

"You crossed the line," Judge Harry Edwards told a lawyer for the Federal Communications Commission during arguments before a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
linkage

Bush just signed a bill to curb class action lawsuits. link to full story below:

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=512771

it would still be extremely hard to transport it to a place were it could be of any use for them

Nope, you're wrong. ABC successfully smuggled uranium into the US a second year in a row. After that you can stick it on a truck, or just detonate it in the harbor...