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First off, you spelled the man's name wrong. It's Krakow, not Krackow.

Secondly, as Mr. Krakow points out, it's a Beta. Do we all know the concept of that word? It's still being tested. Ironically, he loves the operating system but his main gripe seems to be ill-supported hardware drivers. Laptops are notorious for having odds n' ends hardware in them as everyone thinks their proprietary integrated devices are the best but oddly stop supporting them after that model is done selling.

Ever installed Linux in a laptop? I think you'll find that the scavenger hunt for drivers is similar to what Gary experienced. It's a bit of a pain in the ass but a big payout at the end. Give Vista the year or two and when it's released, I'm pretty certain companies will start updating their drivers to be "Vista ready." Is this Microsoft's fault? Possibly for not making certain the early Beta versions were universal and adaptive to different hardware but I don't know enough about drivers to speculate any further.

The points he makes about the actual Vista operating system sound optimistic. In fact, I didn't hear him complain at all about the functioning aspects and features.

All in all, this review was a waste of my time to read. The man spent all his time bitching about his laptop/driver problems and no time at all on analyzing what the operating system has to offer.

Perhaps the next time he reviews Lenovo Laptops and raves about them, he'll actually check if their drivers are supporting all operating systems. I don't know if you can depend on IBM to support their old laptops or expect the new makers of Lenovo to support the old hardware. Hell, even my Dell laptop has some obscure sound and wireless card models which are painful to find the right drivers for.

I don't want to spout conspiracies but I think that Mr. Krakow favors the "almighty Apple" over "evil Microsoft." You can read his other reviews which may be a bit biased. That last one is really pro-iTunes. I guess what I'm trying to say is that this man may be a tad biased ... save yourself some time and just thoroughly read the Wikipedia article on it.

First off, you spelled the man's name wrong. It's Krakow, not Krackow.

Secondly, as Mr. Krakow points out, it's a Beta. Do we all know the concept of that word? It's still being tested. Ironically, he loves the operating system but his main gripe seems to be ill-supported hardware drivers. Laptops are notorious for having odds n' ends hardware in them as everyone thinks their proprietary integrated devices are the best but oddly stop supporting them after that model is done selling.

Ever installed Linux in a laptop? I think you'll find that the scavenger hunt for drivers is similar to what Gary experienced. It's a bit of a pain in the ass but a big payout at the end. Give Vista the year or two and when it's released, I'm pretty certain companies will start updating their drivers to be "Vista ready." Is this Microsoft's fault? Possibly for not making certain the early Beta versions were universal and adaptive to different hardware but I don't know enough about drivers to speculate any further.

The points he makes about the actual Vista operating system sound optimistic. In fact, I didn't hear him complain at all about the functioning aspects and features.

All in all, this review was a waste of my time to read. The man spent all his time bitching about his laptop/driver problems and no time at all on analyzing what the operating system has to offer.

Perhaps the next time he reviews Lenovo Laptops and raves about them, he'll actually check if their drivers are supporting all operating systems. I don't know if you can depend on IBM to support their old laptops or expect the new makers of Lenovo to support the old hardware. Hell, even my Dell laptop has some obscure sound and wireless card models which are painful to find the right drivers for.

I don't want to spout conspiracies but I think that Mr. Krakow favors the "almighty Apple" over "evil Microsoft." You can read his other reviews which may be a bit biased. That last one is really pro-iTunes. I guess what I'm trying to say is that this man may be a tad biased ... save yourself some time and just thoroughly read the Wikipedia article on it.

First off, you spelled the man's name wrong. It's Krakow, not Krackow.

Secondly, as Mr. Krakow points out, it's a Beta. Do we all know the concept of that word? It's still being tested. Ironically, he loves the operating system but his main gripe seems to be ill-supported hardware drivers. Laptops are notorious for having odds n' ends hardware in them as everyone thinks their proprietary integrated devices are the best but oddly stop supporting them after that model is done selling.

Ever installed Linux in a laptop? I think you'll find that the scavenger hunt for drivers is similar to what Gary experienced. It's a bit of a pain in the ass but a big payout at the end. Give Vista the year or two and when it's released, I'm pretty certain companies will start updating their drivers to be "Vista ready." Is this Microsoft's fault? Possibly for not making certain the early Beta versions were universal and adaptive to different hardware but I don't know enough about drivers to speculate any further.

The points he makes about the actual Vista operating system sound optimistic. In fact, I didn't hear him complain at all about the functioning aspects and features.

All in all, this review was a waste of my time to read. The man spent all his time bitching about his laptop/driver problems and no time at all on analyzing what the operating system has to offer.

Perhaps the next time he reviews Lenovo Laptops and raves about them, he'll actually check if their drivers are supporting all operating systems. I don't know if you can depend on IBM to support their old laptops or expect the new makers of Lenovo to support the old hardware. Hell, even my Dell laptop has some obscure sound and wireless card models which are painful to find the right drivers for.

I don't want to spout conspiracies but I think that Mr. Krakow favors the "almighty Apple" over "evil Microsoft." You can read his other reviews which may be a bit biased. That last one is really pro-iTunes. I guess what I'm trying to say is that this man may be a tad biased ... save yourself some time and just thoroughly read the Wikipedia article on it.

First off, you spelled the man's name wrong. It's Krakow, not Krackow.

Secondly, as Mr. Krakow points out, it's a Beta. Do we all know the concept of that word? It's still being tested. Ironically, he loves the operating system but his main gripe seems to be ill-supported hardware drivers. Laptops are notorious for having odds n' ends hardware in them as everyone thinks their proprietary integrated devices are the best but oddly stop supporting them after that model is done selling.

Ever installed Linux in a laptop? I think you'll find that the scavenger hunt for drivers is similar to what Gary experienced. It's a bit of a pain in the ass but a big payout at the end. Give Vista the year or two and when it's released, I'm pretty certain companies will start updating their drivers to be "Vista ready." Is this Microsoft's fault? Possibly for not making certain the early Beta versions were universal and adaptive to different hardware but I don't know enough about drivers to speculate any further.

The points he makes about the actual Vista operating system sound optimistic. In fact, I didn't hear him complain at all about the functioning aspects and features.

All in all, this review was a waste of my time to read. The man spent all his time bitching about his laptop/driver problems and no time at all on analyzing what the operating system has to offer.

Perhaps the next time he reviews Lenovo Laptops and raves about them, he'll actually check if their drivers are supporting all operating systems. I don't know if you can depend on IBM to support their old laptops or expect the new makers of Lenovo to support the old hardware. Hell, even my Dell laptop has some obscure sound and wireless card models which are painful to find the right drivers for.

I don't want to spout conspiracies but I think that Mr. Krakow favors the "almighty Apple" over "evil Microsoft." You can read his other reviews which may be a bit biased. That last one is really pro-iTunes. I guess what I'm trying to say is that this man may be a tad biased ... save yourself some time and just thoroughly read the Wikipedia article on it.

The glass balls would be recycled and refilled:

"The refueling process would be in two steps. First, a vacuum would suck the used spheres out and send them to a tank for refilling. New, filled spheres would then be pumped in from a different tank. The consumer would not see much difference from today's system."

From a 2004 news item.

Considering the war on terror is well on course to cost $1 trillion, I guess it's no expense spared to make America safe. After all, it's not real money anyway, just extra 0's on the end of the deficit.

A future for glass in a hydrogen economy?
Researchers envision tiny spheres storing the gas in cars

When it comes to developing an economy based on hydrogen instead of fossil fuels, one of the key issues is how to store the gas in vehicles. Playing David next to Goliath national labs, researchers at a small university are looking at using ultrathin glass spheres as a storage device that's cheaper, more reliable and safer than metal tanks.

Well, if you really wanted to demonstrate that you weren't listening to anything I said, then you couldn't have done a better job.

The government is using surveilance to weed out discenters instead of turning on TV or cracking open the NYT's editorial page.

They aren't being "weeded out" yet, but they are being spied on and intimidated. The way to do it right is to do a rerun of the COINTELPRO operations from the 50s-70s designed to drives wedges between groups, discredit them in the media, and to smear their leaders like Martin Luther King, Jr. You don't round them up and slap them in gulags, not in the current political environment anyway.

Our current lack of freedoms makes our lives not worth living anyway. Somehow though, under presidents like FDR and Lincoln who used far more executive power, the US citizens managed to keep from commiting suicide.

It's not yet not worth living; it's not yet North Korea. I don't think it could be within 5-10 years even under the worse case scenarios. However, it's not as free as it was even 10-30 years ago. I don't believe in "good enough America." I was raised to believe we stood for principles and that it was those principles that were worth dying for and not some flag, some piece of land, or some shared ethnicity.

Lincoln I have few issues with. Overall I admire the steps he took even if I think that suspension of habeus corpus is never justifiable. While the Emancipation Proclamation was certainly unconstitutional at the time, it was at the very least a declaration of principle and justice. We rapidly followed that up by making it formally right in the Constitution in the three amendments that most demonstration America's continuing belief in advancing freedom in my mind (to be followed later by the 19th).

WWII America frightens me in many ways. There was a full-time propoganda machine controlling public perception. There were mass internment camps for Japanese-Americans. There was a wide net for the draft. There was a 4 term President -- far long than most democratically elected leaders have stayed in power with a peaceful transition afterwards.

We bounced back from FDR because FDR wanted us to stay a democracy. He could've taken the role of a dictator. In fact, in the 30s many people were bemoaning that democracy had failed us and that strong leadership was needed. He chose not to take that path, though. America bounced back from WWII only because the men at the helm were solidly motivated by principles, and I cannot say the same for the current administration given many of the policies that it has publicly and privately advanced.

America will bounce back from this crisis of democracy but only because of people like me who fight against programs like this and not because of people like you who welcome them and ignore their potential for abuse.

The government should not have classified information, including information on how it is spying on our enemies. It should all be out in the public.

The government should have classified information when it is a threat to our enemies and not a threat to the people of the nation. Technologies, locations and identities of secret agents and facilities, war-fighting capabilities, etc. should be kept secret. However, the government should never be allowed to turn the weapons of the state on its own citizens.

Any program that can be abused against the population of the country should not be kept secret, and I think that it's morally indefensible to say that an abusable program like this should have no oversight and should be hideable from the public's eyes at the whim of the chief executive. One need only look at history to see how men in power have abused surveillance powers to oppress opposition.

http://moneycentral.msn.com/investor/charts/chartd l.asp?FC=5&Symbol=%2FCADUS+%2FEURUS&CP=0&PT=6&D5=1
Actually, last trip I made to Canada a few weeks ago, no business was offering an exchange rate on U.S. dollars (they used to offer something mildly unfavourable - like 4/3rds or 3/2ves or 5/4ths depending on value of Canadian dollar).
For the small amount of money I needed to spend off of Visa, after factoring in hassle and two-way exchange hits, was easier just to give them their 9%-10% "tip"

It's knowledge required (vertical axis) vs. usability (horizontal axis).

learn.ing curve (plural learn.ing curves)

noun
Definition:

1. rate of learning: the rate at which a new subject or skill is learned

2. graph plotting learning outcomes: a graph that shows the relation between the rate at which knowledge or a skill is learned and the time spent acquiring it

so a "steep" learning curve is one where knowledge is mastered quickly...

While I believe the actions going after the "whistleblowers" in this case may be quite overzealous. They did release classified information, and that has always been wrong. Whether or not that information should be classified is debatable, and whether or not the government should be collecting it is also debatable. But anyone charged can have that debate during their trial.

That debate is pointless if the law explicitly states that state secrets trump press freedom in all cases. The Chilling Effect is already present and all that is left is for the brave to sacrifice themselves needlessly. I believe that the balance of power should always be in the favor of the people and not in favor of the appointed guardians of the people.

If the Rosenbergs had given the details on the bomb to a newspaper to be printed, instead of handing it over to the Soviets, do you think they should have been protected just because a newspaper has a right to publish under the first amendment?

No, in that case the secret of the state was a particular weapons technology. That we had such a device was already public knowledge. The people in fact had a right to know that we had the bomb once it was used. The implementation details of how to make such a weapon however did not need to be as it was not a significant threat to the liberty of the people to be deprived of such knowledge. No political party or movement could be persecuted or intimidated and democracy is not threatened by nuclear weapon implementation details.

That's an essential difference between these two example. However, a program that spies on the activity of Americans that was kept secret from the people is another thing because it is ripe for abuse. In this case, the state secret is that it is acting in a manner that is arguably counter to the interests of the people. That sort of secret should never be kept.

Given the actions of the current administration against peace groups and the historical precident of what happened to civil rights leaders during the 1960s, I cannot trust the government not to ever use this power against its own citizens for "ends justify the means" purposes.

To let the executive branch should have the power to simply quash all public debate on its actions by slapping a security clearance on its programs is extremely dangerous. It's a Soviet-like power grab. To say that the people do not have a right to know (and thus be able to protest) some of the actions of their government is to forfit all your power over government in these areas. Any place in government where the people do not have control is a crack in the levee and will widen over time as our current adminstration is making more and more clear each day.

This includes things like "we are investigating a known terrorist, and since you just published his face in the paper he went so far underground he won't even be able to find his asshole to wipe it after he takes a dump"...

AP) Police in seven European countries struck Tuesday at a sophisticated child abuse and pornography ring dubbed "Shadowz Brotherhood," arresting 50 people and seizing computer equipment, CD-ROMs and videos, authorities said.

Police described the images created and distributed by the group as some of the most shocking they had ever seen. Members of the ring allegedly broadcast live pictures of abuse on the Internet and posted images of children, including babies, being sexually abused and tortured.

"In terms of the kind of material they are posting and allowing access to, it's the worst group I have ever encountered," said Detective Chief Supt. Len Hynds of Britain's National High-tech Crime Unit, which coordinated a yearlong investigation with the European police organization Europol.

I wouldn't suggest you go looking for it.

This "pedophilia in the internet" meme is actually more disgusting than adults having sex with children.

If you really believe that, your values put you in a very tiny minority, and near some very unsavory people.

Because a true pedophile can only harm a limited number of people, whereas the people who keep bringing the fear of pedophiles are the meanest evil bastards one can find in the world.

This guy had hundreds of pictures, which means hundreds of victims:

TALLAHASSEE - Attorney General Charlie Crist today announced the arrest of a Clay County convicted sex offender for violating his probation. Authorities arrested Robert Reed, a registered sex offender since 1999, after receiving a tip that he had child pornography on his computer and was distributing it over the internet. The case will be prosecuted by the Attorney General's Office of Statewide Prosecution.

A joint investigation by the Attorney General's CyberCrime Unit, the FBI Cyber Crime Task Force and the Florida Department of Corrections Probation and Parole Services revealed that Reed, 26, placed pornographic videos on the internet and made them available to others online. A search of Reed's computer was conducted, unearthing hundreds of images of child pornography. Reed was arrested by officers with Probation and Parole Services.

Children for sale documents an enormous problem.

The FBI documents an enormous problem:

Dr. Hernandez concluded that 76 percent of the child pornographers or travelers (those who travel or intend to travel interstate for the purpose of having sex with a minor) who participated in his study admitted to having committed contact sex crimes which went undetected by the criminal justice system. These offenders had an average of 30.5 child sex victims each. In fact, this group of offenders admitted to having molested a combined total of 1,433 victims without ever having been detected. That is not 1,433 more offenses - - it is 1,433 more victims. If you factor in the number of times they offended against each individual victim, the number would be significantly higher. In addition, while Dr. Hernandez' study lumped child pornographers and travelers in the same category, his data shows that the number of undetected sex crimes was significantly higher for child pornographers than it was for travelers. In short, child pornographers, who consisted of 49 of the 62 subjects, were responsible for the vast majority of the 1,433 victims reported for that group.

History has repeatedly demonstrated that you cannot open a door to censorship, because once you have it, who will

How about firing the whole lot of politicians and PHBs and hire visionaries, pioneers, and engineers? Folks such as Burt Rutan, for example.

Although not quite as extreme as your proposal, NASA is currently hoping to have some of the same results with its Commercial Orbital Transportation Services program. A number of private companies, including the Rutan-affiliated t/Space, are competing for contracts to deliver cargo and crew to the International Space Station. If this is successful, hopefully funding for the program will increase and NASA will rely more on private enterprise in the future.

Of course, this is assuming that Boeing and Lockheed Martin don't feel threatened and apply pressure to have the program cancelled.

>There can't be too many of those.

Especially when the military keeps firing them.

Am I the only one that remembers when the CIA put defective chips into a pipeline system -- and blew it up on purpose?

Jeez, you guys act like this is "just a product" and it's wayyyy more than that, when your national security infrastructure is being manufactured outside the US. There is nothing to prevent the Chinese from supplying the same thing to us and I am quite sure they have the technical competency to pull it off.

So the remedy is simple: don't buy Lenovo.

It seems rather shortsighted to single out Lenovo. It would make a lot more sense for government computers to pass some sort of actual security audit, rather than simply singling out a single manufacturer. Most IBMs were probably manufactured in China anyway, even before the sale to Lenovo.

A large percentage of consumer eletronics are produced in China - if we're truly worried about the Chinese government spying on us through consumer electronics, why only care about a single brand?

That was a rhetorical question, of course. Obviously the answer is: "political grandstanding in an election year"

Still, this thing isn't totally without merit. After all, do we really want our government using computers manufactured by a company owned in part by the Chinese government? The American government has sabotaged other countries with software Trojan horses before. While I certainly don't believe that Lenovo Thinkpads have anything malicious lurking in the firmware, it's not totally impossible or anything.

Become a ... doctor, whatever

Umm, no.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4946229/
http://www.news24.com/News24/Technology/News/0,,2- 13-1443_1824893,00.html
http://www.medgadget.com/archives/2006/04/very_rem ote_rob.html
http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1:143341452/Long-dis tance+doctor~R~(usage+of+robotics).html?refid=SEO
etc.

Ah, but it's not. They're already monitoring reporters calls to find their sources for stories that might embarrass the administration.

Combine that with the fact that they already get news outlets to bury many of the stories that do get out, it looks like they're already stomping on the first amendment.

--MarkusQ

Bush keeps changing his account of what happened during the attack that it would be laughable to hear what he would say if he were not publicly visible. Revisiting 9/11 Bush has publicly reported twice that he saw the first plane hit the WTC live on a TV at the school even though it was not televised until a couple days later.

Maybe you can't hear the difference with the (rather average) buds that come with the ipod, but even a $30 pair (and they can be had for $20 if you shop around) will make the difference between itms's offering and a CD (for some music anyway) pretty obvious.

List to opening track of Hendrix's 'Axis, bold as love' with the headphones, first the AAC, then the original. You'll see the difference.

(and that doesn't even touch the DRM issue).

this is almost too appropriate. I mean, they are going after people who are leaking things about illegal programs using those illegal programs!!! All the while being under investigation for leaking things!!!

Plus, they're denying security clearances to the people who are investigating them: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12727867

Everybody who wants to do something wrong/illegal/unethical, just take a lesson from this administration: do it as BLATANTLY as possible, then say you have your reasons, and don't say anything else. You'll get away with it.

That's the scariest part of the whole thing. There is no oversight whatsoever unless Congress manages to do something personally.

The justice department attempted to investigate the NSA spying program, but they were denied a security clearance. With this sort of political climate, the public has to rely on leaks from people inside to even know what's going on.

"Microsoft isnt making huge amounts of money like you seem to think."

They didn't say that Microsoft had high revenues. They said that Microsoft had high cash reserves. Most companies don't maintain $33 billion cash reserves, both because that would make them takeover targets (the buyer can borrow against the cash reserves when making the purchase) and because share holders generally insist on getting the money in the form of dividends.

Btw, Microsoft has similar profits to Wal-Mart. Some quick googling found

Wal-Mart: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8969481/

Microsoft: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A531 43-2004Oct21.html

Revenue is irrelevant to this discussion which is about companies ability to fund money losing operations. Despite having six times the revenue, Wal-Mart is only about as profitable as Microsoft because their costs are so much higher. Microsoft is considerably more profitable than Target, even with lower revenue. Of course, if the claim is "Microsoft has $33 billion in cash reserves, which it can use to fund years worth of money losing operations in search," then even profits don't enter into it. Although the truth is that it can fund search indefinitely even if the search space is not internally profitable for them.

It's also worth noting that Microsoft is not competing with Wal-Mart here. They're competing with Yahoo (and Google), which is a much smaller company (both combined are smaller than Microsoft; heck throw in Amazon and the three are smaller). See http://www.investopedia.com/articles/basics/03/031 703.asp for some relative comparisons. Incidentally, Wal-Mart's market capitalization has dropped since then. They would no longer qualify as a mega cap.

I had to go look, because I don't recall what it looks like, and just compare the difference between MSN and Google and the difference is like black and white, night and day, Sith and jedi, um,...anyway, the difference is obvious. Although I freely admit that it wasn't obvious maybe at first about Senator Palpatine.

You'll look long and hard for a slow-loading Google page. I suppose you could bloat your own. You won't find even PNGs, let alone blinking banners or flash.

Check out these if you haven't for awhile MSN and Yahoo. I don't think you'll see anything like your talking about.

I certainly love Google and thier practices, but I was just speaking about search technology and how they are basically identical (see my post to reply just before yours).

BTW, don't talk about Google Earth like that, your just asking for people to tell you all about how Microsoft released TerraServer to do the same thing (yes without the Web2.0 yumminess) almost a decade before Google even existed ;-)

You might say Microsoft's good at tedious, but you have to hand it to them: This time they're really trying something new. Where the other search engines tries to achieve quality and relevance trough variations of link cardinality, anchor text, page rank (how many and how highly valued pages links to a page), etc., Microsoft's trying neural networks and some kind of "artificial intelligence".

So far MSN Search/Windows Live Search is worst of the three big players when it comes to relevance. But they're not too bad, either, and I think there's been a lot of improvement since they launched their beta last year (the beta was incredibly bad). If this "self learning" idea works out, MSN Search very well could become the best engine of them all.

See http://www.searchenginejournal.com/?p=2273 (Search Engine Watch) and http://blogs.msdn.com/msnsearch/archive/2005/10/22 /483846.aspx (Robert Scoble's video inteview with the guys behind the search engine).

I'd also like to point out that relevance is a subjective matter, and sometimes the correct answer to a query might not come from the web index at all. Microsoft already emphasizes answers from Encarta when suitable (Google and Yahoo is doing similar things), as seen in this example: http://search.msn.com/results.aspx?q=what+is+chimp anzee&FORM=QBRE

I think we'll see more similar stuff from MSN Search in the future. Also, Microsoft seems to be the only one interested in experimenting with the search interface on a major service, as can bee seen on their live.com site -- see http://www.live.com/#q=what%20is%20chimpanzee&offs et=1 and the image search http://www.live.com/#q=chimpanzee&scope=images&lod =2&page=results for examples.

(Yahoo also has an interesting interface experiment going on an obscure part of an almost forgotten search engine: http://livesearch.alltheweb.com/)

My point is quite simply that what they're doing may be tedious, but this time they're also trying some fresh ideas.

PC: Typically used with a screen too small to fit four players.

That doesn't make sense at all.

First of all, the indie dev community is alive and well. You'll find most of them working on web games: from larger houses such as GameHouse and PopCap, to your Garage Games, Reflexive Entertainment, etc. You can play a lot of these games at sites like http://games.msn.com/ http://games.yahoo.com/ http://www.realarcade.com/ and more.

Most of the games they make are single-player, but some can be multiplayer. And you're an idiot if you think that all multiplayer games must require broadband (as you alluded to in another comment).

As for getting on consoles, MS is leading the way with Xbox Live Arcade, where you can find a number of games by indie titles. And they're selling quite well. Both Nintendo and Sony are hinting towards having downloadable games to consoles as well, although it's still unknown whether they are welcoming indie developers the same way. I would imagine they have to, and that would be a good thing.

Now, if you're lamenting that an indie developer is never going to be able to create the next Halo or Madden title, then that's probably true ... since those games feature high production values. But that doesn't mean indie companies can't make fun games, or make money to boot. They can, and are.

Once the indie developers start getting larger and have more capital, then you will see them start creating more traditional console titles. They'll work with the platform companies in the usual way, so they're more like regular developers now.

-- MarkusQ

Saddam Huseein sponsored terrorists, allowed them to form training camps in Iraq

Both of these are false. I'd say that the third statement was false too, but I've got nothing to back that up, mostly since I've never seen anyone ever make that assertion before.

The terrorist camps in Iraq were in Kurd-controlled sections. You know, the sections that Saddam was banned from ever entering because he kept gassing the Kurds? clearly biased source less biased source and another.

I think the most ironic thing about this whole Iraq war was that Saddam was doing the anti-terrorism job we couldn't do, and now we've replaced his secular rule with a fundie muslim regime that will almost certainly start sponsoring terrorists of their own, just like all the other fundie muslim nations in the region. All because he was such a bad man for gassing the terrorists.

Those eco-friendly germans not content with recycling industrial waste have found a novel way to despose of the neighbours moggie that you've just accidentally reversed over:

http://www.tnn.co.uk/EuropeanNews/plonearticle.200 5-09-14.1389094726

and the inventors denial:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9339530/

Just think; turning the key in your turbo-diesel sports car, and hearing the engine purr :)

...you're not the only one. Take a look: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12729893/

My political principles, if this were the 90s, would be a mix of Democrat and Republican and I would feel fairly comfortable labelling myself a liberterian and not sweating it. However, the things I liked about the Republicans, like fiscal responsibility, a strong military, and fierce protection of privacy, have all been thrown to the winds. Believe me, funneling billions of dollars into fat cat contractors and wearing down our servicemembers in conflict after conflict does not make a strong military. Eisenhower warned against the military-industrial complex, saying "In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist."

Eisenhower said a lot of smart stuff, check it out: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/d/dwight _d_eisenhower.html/
"Whatever America hopes to bring to pass in the world must first come to pass in the heart of America."
"When people speak to you about a preventive war, you tell them to go and fight it. After my experience, I have come to hate war."
"Together we must learn how to compose differences, not with arms, but with intellect and decent purpose."
"The problem in defense is how far you can go without destroying from within what you are trying to defend from without."
"Only Americans can hurt America."
And a personal favorite,
"Here in America we are descended in blood and in spirit from revolutionists and rebels - men and women who dare to dissent from accepted doctrine. As their heirs, may we never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion."

Wish I'd been around for him.

They have visited multiple cities, posed as underage girls on myspace, and invited the men to their staged house. Dozens of men have showed up.

Oh yes, it would be so hard.


Could not locate remote server

You tried to access the address http://webmessenger.msn.com/, which is currently unavailable. Please make sure that the Web address (URL) is correctly spelled and punctuated, then try reloading the page.

* Make sure your Internet connection is active and check whether other applications that rely on the same connection are working.
* Check that the setup of any Internet security software is correct and does not interfere with ordinary Web browsing.
* If you are behind a firewall on a Local Area Network and think this may be causing problems, talk to your systems administrator.
* Try pressing the F12 key on your keyboard and disabling proxy servers, unless you know that you are required to use a proxy to connect to the Internet. Reload the page.

Need help?
* Open the Opera Help.
* Go to Opera's on-line support desk.


If a russian spammer can do it to a security company illegally, imagine what the guy holding up your end of the pipe and dictating terms can do.

http://webmessenger.msn.com/

Uses standard HTTP over port 80.

Lets see them block that :)

Interesting (but not at all a shock) that students are recruited to rat out their peers.

Hmmm... Something about cleaning one's own house comes to mind.

FTL: Without any public hearing or debate, NEWSWEEK has learned, Defense officials recently slipped a provision into a bill before Congress that could vastly expand the Pentagon's ability to gather intelligence inside the United States, including recruiting citizens as informants. Emphasis mine

Pricing for a feature film will be about the same as the DVD release.

Warner added that whether a TV show or feature film, it will only play on the initial computer used to make the download.

The downloads will not therefore work on other PCs or standard DVD players.

• Warner Bros. wants to appear as if they are supporting movie downloads,
  while,
  
• Warner Bros.' actual objective is to discourage the adoption of downloadable content as a standard.
  

Maybe I don't read the papers, but i do read the news online and in places not accessible to many here. Thousands of pounds of pre-Gulf War Stock remains in the bunkers at Al-Muthanna and Khamisayaa. Everything from mustard gas to cyclosarin to VX-2. Terrorists have used, albeit probably unknowingly, chemical munitions as IED's. Why was this not more widely reported? I leave that to your speculation. http://www.google.com/search?q=sarin+iraq+ied http://odci.gov/cia/reports/iraq_wmd_2004/chap5_an nxF.html http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,120137,00.html http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4997808/ http://www.katc.com/Global/story.asp?S=1873019&nav =EyB0NBHX ...

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/7425082/

The biggest hope for saving people at the start of a bird flu pandemic, before a vaccine is available, is the antiviral drug Tamiflu

• Flu drugs 'will not work' if pandemic strikes
  
• Tamiflu May Not Be So Effective Against Bird Flu
  
• Bird flu proving resistant to Tamiflu treatment
  

The FBI is just pretending. Homeland Security does it for real.

I found the link for you. Turns out it doesn't work with IE 7 either.

http://advertising.msn.com/msn-adcenter/essentials /system-requirements

It gets worse- if you try to report the problem here: http://support.adcenter.msn.com/ and you click on the link that says "I am having difficulty creating an account" it takes you to an Email support form that *requires you to enter your adcenter ID*. I thought I just told you I was having trouble creating an account and now you *require* my adcenter ID? Some people just don't want my business...

It looks like you're interested in buying a computer!

Would you like help?

• Take me to tech.msn.com
• ...

<shudder />

If I actually wanted to run an ad with this service, I would go to adcenter.msn.com, click the "Sign up today" link and get "Microsoft adCenter does not currently support the web browser you are using. Please sign in using Internet Explorer 6+." If I then click the "More about system requirements" link nothing happens. I guess I'll just keep my money.

AP: Why not release both the originals and special editions on DVD?

Lucas: The special edition, that's the one I wanted out there. The other movie, it's on VHS, if anybody wants it. ... I'm not going to spend the, we're talking millions of dollars here, the money and the time to refurbish that, because to me, it doesn't really exist anymore.

Source (9/15/2004)

Ummmm...sure. Perhaps you might want to look up 'monopoly' in the dictionary. With all the varients of linux available, MS is not the only option. My cable company...who has exclusive rights to my area with no competition...thats a monopoly.

BTW, I have better things to do than read the lawsuit. I know when my rights are being abused, and a friggin MSN toolbar search in an Internet Explorer browser (that I will open only to test cross browser compliance for web design anyway) is not that...

Does microsoft really have any chance to overtake google? Their shareholders sure don't seem to think so, or so the share drop indicates...

A cursory glance at msn shows me a portal, the likes of which I might have seen in the late 90s. A million different sites compacted into one, totally unintelligable.

What's sad is you can go here http://search.msn.com/ for a major improvement. How does it improvement? It looks exactly like google, that's how.

How exactly do they plan to innovate, aside from copy things that google has already done? Microsoft is dumping all this money into a "fight" with google, but do they actually have a business plan? Massive R&D without any overall direction other than "beat google" will do nothing. What are they going to do anyway? Release a version of mail that looks exactly like gmail? Release microsoft earth? Bah. Microsofts main strength when expanding into new markets lies in their ability to integrate with other microsoft products, but with the web, that's not particularly helpful.

As a stockholder, I don't want them to waste any more money that I don't think they can recoup. They are dumping billions into a business (msn) which has maybe 100 million profit a year? And no real guarantee to ever go beyond that? This mindless expansion in every direction is just going to hurt them in the long run, when the profits on windows and office can no longer cover the massive losses on *all* of their other products. I want them to make their business *profitable* and to focus on doing well in their key markets. Microsoft seems to think that they only way to defend windows, is to conquer every other market on the planet as well, which is just stupid. They can't do it, and it they thought about it they'd realize that.

Meanwhile, Apple has carefully manuevered into a position where they can take a chunk out of microsofts ass. I'm not saying they will, but if they don't it's not because the potential isn't there. I'd like to see them spend that research money on getting OS releases out faster and higher quality, so that they can deal with emerging competition. In many ways (aside from marketshare of course) microsoft is playing catch up with apple in the OS game, and that's kind of a dangerous situation now considering that apple could start selectively chewing into their market with mac clones, or an osx server release that supports some third party manufacturer's hardware.

What if I-95 announced an exclusive deal with General Motors to provide a special "rush-hour" lane for GM cars only?

This is kind of a crappy Slashdot item, as it links to a Yahoo-hosted news article that will be gone in a month. Yahoo collects and temporarily hosts news items. Their links are dead usually after about a month, in my experience. Future readers won't be able to use the link given in the OP. Wayback doesn't archive Yahoo-hosted articles either, so far as I know. Users can get the same Associated Press article here or here.

I find it annoying when I read a Slashdot item from yesteryear and the links are dead. When you link to Yahoo, you're ensuring that you're giving a link that'll be worthless in the not-too-distant future.

Just take a second to search for the name of the article in Google News or something to get a more permanent link. It's not hard.