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The classic problem: What happens if you put Star Wars Stormtroopers - who can't hit the broadside of a planet - up against Star Trek red shirts - who get killed the moment they do anything?

The classic answer.

Maybe they just thought you took a wrong turn.

George W. Bush isn't stimpy's cousin. He is obviously closely related to this other George. In fact, the family resemblance is astounding!

I think I saw this on http://www.grudge-match.com/History/rott-chi.shtml . No, it was a rottweiler, but still...

This scenario isn't different from computer company tales of the past.

Microsoft is a shark, at the top of its food chain. It cannot be eaten and cannot be stopped unless it stops itself. It is predictably hungry and efficient. It can take its time and wait.

But it now swims in a sea filled with other fish that are just as ravenous. They can't and won't attack the shark; they don't have to. They'll just eat the same thing the shark eats.

And that food--the market--is in short supply.

Apple, the largest desktop competitor to the "WinTel" market, is no Microsoft, but it doesn't have to be. Microsoft cannot directly attack Apple without causing legal waves as it is already a convicted monopoly. Apple hasn't the capital or mindset in the enterprise to fully cause an IT schism where businesses move in droves to Mac OS workstations and servers. But it can erode the reputation of the larger opponent by being flexible enough to try new technologies by taking advantage of the fact that people turn to places like Apple for interesting gadgets and DON'T see Microsoft as the place to buy "cool" gadgets (the Xbox notwithstanding, but do you think people really associate the Xbox with the same company that makes Windows?)

A shark moves too slowly to eat smaller fish, especially schools. And even if the shark grabs a few (buys out), they are still plenty of new fish to take their place. Time will tell if the school of fish is more flexible and malliable than the overweight, overfed and relatively uncreative and inefficient fish that Microsoft has become.

Or, you can use the Rottweiler vs. a Rottweiler's Weight in Chahuahuas analogy. Either way, Microsoft needs some weight loss. A Federally-mandated breakup might have actually been a good thing for MS a few years back to keep it stronger in the game and not this laggard monolith.

Actually, if I recall correctly, the design for Marvin looks an awful lot like a design (read: almost exact, amended to account for a less than stellar memory) for the chronically depressed droid that was going into a video game that DNA was very heavily involved in. He did have final say in character design for that project, I believe. So, in a way, he did approve of it.

Besides, with that slouch, and the head hanging forward and seemingly downward like that, it is a great portrayal of a robot designed to be a happy companion, but gone horribly wrong.

And just because, here's a link to Marvin vs. C-3PO on Grudge-Match.com.

Yes, maybe Bobby Fischer has played on the ICC. But has Joshua a.k.a. WOPR made an appearance? That would be something.

He can bunk with "Tim Taylor"

Either live with it, or split out the XML-generation code into a separate module. The world and his dog has long since learned to separate out logic code and database-access code so that it's possible to change DBMS by just rewriting the database-access module rather than the entire application - exactly the same thing applies with XML.

Well, in this case, I did right -- the code I'd have to rewrite is the logic that creates my XML file, not the database access that retrieves the data.

I'll tell my dog that you agreed with him. We had quite a fight over the issue during the code walkthru! Looks like I'll be sleeping outside tonight.

Yes, the P2P program installs a virus called DRM onto your computer, which wrests away control from you, and allows a third party total control over your system. Any "pirated materials"[1] will be deleted from your hard drive.

Either that, or since Kazaa isn't made by M$ ( ooh they are very jealous of any competitors) and Palladium hasn't been released yet (not that Microsoft would allow Kazaa to run on a pure Palladium system anyway), the p2p program probably just does something stupid. Probably downloads the file to a "secret" location on your hard drive, lauches the player, waits until you close your video player program, then deletes the file.

[1] Pirated materials are files containing any material critical of our great overlord.

You really have to salute SCO for their persistence.

I am still pissed off about Bill Nye. He came along quite a bit after Beakman (of Beakman's World), which was many orders of magnitude better that that shallow clone pretender Nye could ever hope to be. It was simply more fun, more interesting, and did a better job explaining the science than Nye's puffery. Plus it had a guy in a rat suit, and the beloved assistant Josie.

Like so many other of the truly fine things in life, Nye had much biigger backing and after a while Beakman was gone. Now I just get sad whenever I see Nye. I hope he has realized his crime to humanity and joined a monestary to live the rest of his days seeking forgivness for displacing Beakman from the airwaves.

If you think my rant is something, take a look at Nye Vs. Beakman. The page is a sad reflection of real life in that Nye still won even though the comments about Nye were dead on.

The Dumbledore/Gandalf match already happened. Dumbledore got his wizardly ass handed to him.

B5 vs. DS9

Is this anything like Enterprise vs the Death Star?

BTW nice home page, but you've gotta plant the T-Chia so we can watch it grow.

Here's where it's currently hanging out. Still fun stuff.

TSG