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I spent some time in the US Air Force, where the "Whole Person" concept was highly valued. That is, a person should know their job, and pay attention to the world outside their jobs.

As a military job is strongly affected by world events, politics, economics, and whatnot, this was a good idea.

On the other side of the coin, my education started out in Electrical Engineering at the University of Texas, in Austin.

I remember an editorial letter from a liberal arts major, who complained that we "students of the sciences" were getting way too focussed an education, without a proper rounding out of said education. Of course, we had to respond.

In prinipal, we agreed, we said. But we saw a definite lack of technical courses in the syllabi of the typical liberal arts student, and offered to take a literature course, say, if they would likewise require one of our introductory engineering courses.

We pointed out that for us, it would be a welcome vacation from the hard-core technical classes, but that liberal arts majors would likely harm their GPAs by reciprocating (grin).

Personally, I think that any education is valuable, but the best "rounding" of your formal education is obtained merely by paying attention to the rest of the world.

Someone pointed out that it would be nice to have classes on resume writing, and how to interview. I say that you simply weren't looking at student services. Most colleges have this and more. Moreover, my experience has been that this is a free service, even for part time students.

Someone else pointed out that they documented for three hours, for a program that took an hour to write. For heaven's sake, there is rarely such a thing as a throw away program. When you move on to greener pastures, someone else has to maintain that program. Speaking from experience, good documetation has saved my job time and time again, while no- or bad-documentation has made my life a living hell on more than one occasion, especially if coupled with bad programming practices.

Business, Management, and Economics courses try to give us a hint of the reason we write the software - in the corporate world, you should have a good business case (gads, I sound like Dilbert's boss) for even starting a new project, because the bottom line depends on wasting as little of a company's resources as possible.

Now, I hated having to take all the "extra classes" as much as anyone. After all, I wanted to just get on track with my career, and fill in the details as I went. It's easier if you already have some of those details when you go...

Mark Edwards

Proof of Sanity Forged Upon Request

Dammit, Scott Adams, Curt Cobain, and Paul McCartney are going to be so upset when the mailing list is sold, since those were the names I used so I could get a cat to hack up... or rolling in graves for two of them...

Mark Edwards
Proof of Sanity forged upon request

What you are doing is not illegal. [...] you can just download Title 17 of the US Code off of some of the various web sites and check it out

Umm, care to support this with cites? I have studied Title 17, and I think you need to read it more closely. You may be able to argue that when I download stuff off of Napster I'm not breaking the law -- but the guy who ripped the song off of the CD and then proceeded to distribute it is, whether he's getting paid or not. And if I rip CDs and put them on the net, I am unquestionably breaking the law. And if I don't I'm a steenkin' freeloader.

Title 17, section 106 says that the owner of a copyrighted work has certain exclusive rights, including the right to reproduce the work and the right to distribute copies (whether by "sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease or lending" -- the lending part covers free distribution, and the revision notes attached to the section make the legislative intent even more clear by adding "gift" to the list). Other sections grant exceptions to this exclusivity, but none of them apply. Fair use doesn't apply (section 107) because the use of the material isn't limited to review, criticism, commentary, teaching or research. Also, it's hard to argue that Napster doesn't damage the commercial value of the music (maybe it doesn't, but it's a hard case to make). The library exception (section 108) doesn't apply for many reasons, among which 108 only grants permission to make one copy, even if you somehow argue that all Napster users are "libraries". 109 gives you the right to sell your CD, but does not permit you to copy it. And so on. I won't go through all of the other sections (110-121) here, but I'd like you to point out the "Napster exclusion" to me.

Making unauthorized copies of copyrighted music and distributing them is illegal, and all your wishful thinking and "big propaganda campaign" theories won't make it otherwise.

They made a big deal about illegal copying in the media, but the cases they brought to court always were carefully choosen instances of people using illegal software for a business, or people selling copies of software. (Occasionally a they did go after someone else, and the strategy was to run them into bankruptcy with legal fees before the case was adaquatly reveiwed, but they still failed occasionally.)

Can you give some other examples? The one you mention is a poor one, because the court did not rule that it wasn't copyright infringement, it only ruled that electronic distribution of infringing copies doesn not also constitute wire fraud. This is like if I murdered a black guy and I was found innocent of committing a hate crime (because I have nothing against blacks, I just didn't like him) that doesn't mean that I get off on the murder too.

What you are doing is not illegal. Just because Lars says something is stealing doesn't mean that it is. Since we (well, the lucky ones) don't live in Russia where laws can be kept secrete, you can just download Title 17 of the US Code off of some of the various web sites and check it out. It's a bit dense, but understandable. I left it by the toilet and worked few a few more pages each day.

I think the conclusion you will draw is that as long as no money is changing hands, as long as you aren't paying for the music files, then you are not in violation. (Of course, one still might hold the position that Title 17 should be updated to cover the non-commercial distribution of computer files, but I don't think the position that it is currently illegal is tenable.)

You see, what is happening is similar to the big anti-piracy propaganda campaign of the 80s and 90s. Remember those posters in school computer labs extorting people not to pirate software ? Remember the ads in industry magazines ? They made a big deal about illegal copying in the media, but the cases they brought to court always were carefully choosen instances of people using illegal software for a business, or people selling copies of software. (Occasionally a they did go after someone else, and the strategy was to run them into bankruptcy with legal fees before the case was adaquatly reveiwed, but they still failed occasionally.)

So don't be such a pansy. Don't let the legal shit intimidate you. (I'm not saying that you shouldn't look for ways to support the music you like to make sure their will be more of it, although I would suggest that to little of that $16 for the CD serves that purpose to make it cost effective.)

Microsoft wants to centralize all the aplications, and sell access to the application servers.

I seem to remember that groups like People's Computer Company and YIPL fought long and hard to get the power out of the hands of the "white-coated computer priesthood", where all services were centralized, and you had to submit your job and wait for the results.

How is .NET so very different than 'the old days'? This is an attempt to take the power back away from the people (granted, people are idiots...) and to never give it back.


Mark Edwards
Proof of Sanity Forged Upon Request

I've been contracting - start a project in March, get laid off in December because they cancelled the project for some obscure reason that has nothing to do with the project, spend a month job hunting and talking to recruiters before you even get to an interview...

Get tired of that, so take a permanent job in March, only to get laid off in December because they forgot to market the product that is supposed to pay your salary, spend a month job hunting and talking to recruiters before you even get to an interview...

Does anyone see a pattern here?

Mark Edwards
Proof of Sanity Forged Upon Request

>> And who is this Keanu Reeves-looking clown they've
>> got starring in it??

I mistakenly replied:
>I thought it was the guy from the defunct TV show, "Sliders" - um, Jerry O'Connell.

Oops. Just got back from the movie. Yep, Justin Whalin, aka Jimmy Olsen from "Lois and Clark".

It's sorta disturbing to see Jimmy doing a fantasy pic, and Lois doing TV commercials (grin). What is Clark doing nowadays?

Mark Edwards
Proof of Sanity Forged Upon Request

> And who is this Keanu Reeves-looking clown they've
> got starring in it??


I thought it was the guy from the defunct TV show, "Sliders" - um, Jerry O'Connell. Yeah, that was him.

He also did a reasonably funny movie, "Joe and the Cockroaches" (title?) a few years back.

Mark Edwards
Proof of Sanity Forged Upon Request

As for your reference to Title 17 section 107 paragraphs 1 and 3, you really mean section 106 don't you ? There is no such phrase in section 107. Another nitpick: in legelese don't say "negate copyright", because that means something else. Say "infringe copyright." I think "negating a copyright" means that the copyright holder looses everything he was given -- for example if he infringed on someone else's copyright by putting their stuff in his work. It is obvious that if I make a photocopy of DA's work his copyright to it does not vanish.

And finally, why are you wrong ? Because of the modifier clause where it says "Subject to sections 107 through 121." Those are the sections that outline "fair use".

The whole of Section 106:

Subject to sections 107 through 121, the owner of copyright under this title has the exclusive rights to do and to authorize any of the following:
(1) to reproduce the copyrighted work in copies or phonorecords;
(2) to prepare derivative works based upon the copyrighted work;
(3) to distribute copies or phonorecords of the copyrighted work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending;
(4) in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and motion pictures and other audiovisual works, to perform the copyrighted work publicly;
(5) in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and pictorial, graphic, or sculptural works, including the individual images of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, to display the copyrighted work publicly; and
(6) in the case of sound recordings, to perform the copyrighted work publicly by means of a digital audio transmission.

Finally, if you go to look at the Sections 107 through 121 that this is subject to, the first thing you see is:

Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include -
(1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature . . .

There's more to it, I won't quote the whole thing here; it is kind of vague, but you have a lot more work to do to make an argument that uncompensated copying doesn't fall under fair use.

If you want to see an actual court rulling, in which someone made thousands of copies of Word and other commercial software and was ruled to not be in infringement of copyrights because they didn't receive money for it, look at US vs. LaMachia. Search for the phrase "what LaMacchia is alleged to have done is not criminal conduct."

Do you happen to know where I could get a copy of British copyright law online ?

Thanks. It was my freshman year also.

I did a search on the name. I found the ruling.

There are a couple of good quotes in that. I've bookmarked it for a more complete persual later, but consider these:

" . . . the simple reason that what LaMacchia is alleged to have done is not criminal conduct
under s 506(a) of the Copyright Act."

" . . . the copyright holder owns only a bundle of intangible rights which can be infringed, but not stolen or converted."

" . . . requiring prosecutors to prove that the defendant infringed a copyright 'willfully and for purpose of commercial advantage or private financial gain.'"

Wow. Lots of stuff to quote against the knee-jerk corporate defenders here.

What the government was trying to do with LaMacchia was claim that interstate wire fraud laws could be applied to LaMachia's actions, and the court ruled against them. I think I'll have to search down the decisions quoted as precedent in this one to understand everything. Looks like I've found some more stuff to print out and leave by the toilet.

Speaking of the number six, just thought I'd mention that Patrick McGoohan will be doing a "Prisoner" Simpsons episode this season.

Mark Edwards
Proof of Sanity Forged Upon Request

We had a similar experience here, but it was "All programs must compile on our gcc boxes running Dec Alpha *nix" (big grin).

We were told, however, that we could develop under whatever operating system or IDE we wished, as long as we could port it to and compile it under the school's system.

Personally I chose vi and gcc because that's what I had on my laptop (well, still do, as a matter of fact), while 3/4 of the class was trying to figure out how to get from VC++ to gcc, and were confused by command lines...

Proof of Sanity Forged Upon Request
Mark Edwards

...This is not Star Trek, and Linix/Perl is not the answer to every problem.

In Geneva, today, a nine judge panel finally reached its verdict in the trial of cyberterrorist Jon Katz, who single handedly fomented the so called Corporatist Rebellions.

Katz stirred up people through his series of articles on the fledgling Slashdot Conglomerate web site, inciting riots against McDonalds, Barnes & Noble, Walmart , and a small hot dog vendor name Sam .

As in the case of the Unibomber, nobody knows why Katz set out upon this quest, but some have suggestions.

"He was a lousy writer," says a member of the Anonymous Coward Gestalt , "and I suppose that comments related to Natalie portman and hot grits just sent him over the edge. Hee hee."

World Triad leaders Steve Case, Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos, set a reward for Katz's capture when local Starbucks stores were trashed as a result of one of Mr. Katz's articles.

Says Mr. Case, "That was the last straw. He was directly responsible for the attack on the epitomy of lowest common denominator marketing in this country. We had to respond."

As part of his punishment, Jon Katz will now be required to publish nothing but press releases for the Microsoft A and Microsoft B monopolies, and patent specifications for Amazon International .

Mark Edwards
Proof of Sanity Forged Upon Request

I thought it was funny that after all Microsoft's delay tactics, they publicly stated that with the Appeals Court taking the case, the government can no longer delay the outcome of the trial.

Huh? Spinning the hell out of it, and pretending that nobody else would notice?

I have a feeling that Judge Jackson's stay of the conduct remedies is just an attempt to give Microsoft enough rope to hang itself, by showing that they still won't play nice in the interim...


Mark Edwards
Proof of Sanity Forged Upon Request

And The Matrix is one of the best Anime movies ever. It just happens to use live actors and not be from Japan.

My long term goal is to continue being paid for playing with computers.

I've slid down the slippery slope of systems administration. I've done technical writing, I've performed tech support and phone firewall. At one point, I've even done data entry. I'm currently a programmer.

My point is that my life revolves around all the things you can do with computers, and I want my work life to always reflect that. Sort of a hacking for hacking's sake kind of life.

Mark Edwards
Proof of Sanity Forged Upon Request

Aarg, yer evil rat bastards. I just spent two hours looking at every plif strip since 1995.

Mark Edwards
Proof of Sanity Forged Upon Request

Dune is an absolute classic, and probably my favorite book of all time. I'm hoping they don't screw it up.

I remember the day I unpacked my Bell & Howell Apple ][+, which came with three or four full manuals on the operating system, BASIC, and so on. I spent the next three days reading them from cover to cover before I so much as plugged the box into the wall.

Then I remember when the new PCs came out. Documentation was an "introductory" booklet. Real Documentation was available for additional money, in nice three ring notebooks and a hard cardboard box.

Suddenly, stuff came out with "installation pamphlets" and online help only.

These days, the online "help" is usually weak, and you have to buy a book to get any real idea of what the hell the software/hardware/OS even does, never mind any advanced functionality.

THEN, to add insult to injury, the books are so badly indexed that you are lucky if you can find anything. As an ex technical writer, this really pisses me off. Indexing is critical...

All I want is proper documentation in a portable format, in which it is easy to locate the help I need.


Mark Edwards
Proof of Sanity Forged Upon Request

I've been online, one place or another, for 20 years. I've had some of the things I've said published in someone else's books.

But in each case, the author either contacted me directly, or posted a note saying "Hey, I'd like to use some of the comments here in my book. email me and let me know if I can use something you said."

If anything I said on /. was in the Jon's book, I don't really mind. I doubt I said anything worthy of more than a Bronx cheer, but I don't like being blindsided.

How hard would it have been to say up front, "Hey y'all, can I publish your comments?"

Oh well.


Mark Edwards
Comments posted to Slashdot may be used freely, but only if I am directly contacted for permission prior to publication.

We could run a beowulf cluster of thousands of 65C02 emulators, on a single Intel machine, and exceed even the power of our modern systems!

Oh wait, today's the second...

Mark Edwards
Proof of Sanity Forged Upon Request

How come they can't do this at a more convenient time? Like between 2 and 3 am Sunday morning?

Mark Edwards
Proof of Sanity forged upon request

This really isn't much different than it ever was - an 'open notes' policy is just another way to slow down the people who really don't know the material, or weeding out the people who don't know how to index their notes (grin).

I would imagine that students with Linux and Lynx would have an advantage over those with Internet Explorer, with graphics and javascript enabled...

On the plus side, I learned a lot of the material simply by indexing notes, textbooks, and whatnot.

Mark Edwards
Proof of Sanity Forged Upon Request

To most people, The Internet is The Web, or more accurately, AOL with a web connection.

How many people have heard of Gopher, Archie, or Veronica? I just sold a client a gui FTP client because claimed that he "just couldn't" use an FTP command line. Heaven help me if I'd had to explain Telnet.

And what ever happened to the old Internet Scavenger Hunt (circa 1993-1995) where you had to use any and all net resources to solve the questions?

Oh well, I sound like I'm in old fogie mode:

"Kids today! Why, when I were a youngster, we had to bang two rocks together to get ones and zeroes!"

Mark Edwards
Proof of Sanity Forged Upon Request

I can see that the record companies are worried because this is Yet Another Way to copy the recordings they distribute.

Of course we can copy tapes and CD's but the record companies basically have a lock on the distribution channels.

But with MP3, anyone on the net can have a site. Even if the site is removed, another one can spring up in a matter of hours. They can no longer prevent 'illicit distribution'.


Mark Edwards
Proof of Sanity Forged Upon Request

I am really hesitant to post anything about this since it will most likely be flamed to a crisp.

However, Mills stuff is just the tip of the iceberg. There has been quite a bit of active research in this whole, particularly in Japan and Europe.

The most interesting work has not been in the original electolysis using heavy water and palladium although SRI and to a lesser extent Los Alamos have been doing work in this area and have essentially confirmed the *original* observations of Pons and Fleischman. The major problem with this type of experiment is that you need to get close to a 1:1 (.9 as I recall) ratio of hydrogen atoms for each atom of the palladium crystal matrix before you get results. If you have cracks or other impurities you will NOT achieve that level of packing. If you use bulk materials the stuff gets explosive. One SRI researcher died from this. Also this whole area is *very* close to weapons research so Los Alamos has become very quite in the last couple of years while SRI is still plugging along. Here is a link to a page that has a nice summary of the issues.

The most interesting area, in my opinion, has been in the area of light water electrolysis where some people have seen signs of transmutation - which of course goes from 'fradulence' to 'outright witch craft' as far as conventional science goes.

Mills work is actually kind of on the sidelines from the 'mainstream' research in this area. He does have a lot of backing by reasonably conservative investors (2 mid size power utilities). He does have a comprehensive theory and has done numerous experiments to validate various aspects of his theory that have allegedly been confirmed by independent labratories.

Here is a link to a reprint of a recent Wall Street Journal article on BlackLight and its recent work.

Here are some other 'Cold Fusion' sites:

Cold Fusion Times
Infite Energy Online
BlackLight Power
Clean Energy Technologies a company that has done a lot with light water cold fusion and has recieved a number of patents in the area.
A Cold Fusion Bibliograph by Dieter Britz

I used to make a decent living as an Information Broker - basically, a trained database searcher for hire. Along came the net, and suddenly everyone with a modem could search for themselves. So I wrapped my shingle up, and stored it away.

These days, there is so much junk and bad indexing, that I may as well put the shingle back out. Almost any search will find mostly commercial sites, unrelated to the search, or completely useless garbage.

You almost have to be in a bizarre frame of mind to create a good search term these days.

Mark Edwards
Proof of Sanity Forged Upon Request

When Conde Nast bought WIRED, it was obvious that the end was probably imminent. WIRED used to be a pretty decent magazine despite the neon colors and drug-induced layout (grin). When the 'net started to take off, it was really the only thing remotely close to what was really going on.

I stopped buying them six months ago. I looked at the latest issue, just out of curiosoty - BYTE didn't have that many pages when it died!

A good magazine? That would be a build-it-yourself magazine, constructed from articles at different sources. Since the print mags can't do this, and search engines are (finally!) entering a heyday, only online mags can do it.


Mark Edwards
Proof of Sanity Forged Upon Request

One of the nice things I have found about online relationships of any sort is that you get to choose who your relationships are with, by virtue of the commonality you share in the 'spaces' that you meet. Your neighbors and friends are often the result of main chance - wh o moved in next to you, or who happened to apply for a job at your company.

Online, we tend to form our communities by looking for special interests. X-Files people tend to hang out on alt.tv.x-files or #X-Files on Usenet and IRC. Cat people go to their own spaces. So we define the types of people with whom we associate, by virtue of the communities to which we devote our time.

We are no longer limited to local geography. We can meet neat and interesting people all over the country - any country with Internet access!

And therein lies the rub.

I have had several great online relationships - business relationships, friendships, and romances. The romances are the hardest because it is difficult, if not impossible, to consummate the relationship, when typing with one hand (grin). I am still on very good terms with my cyber-girlfriends, but we couldn't overcome the steep barrier to entry (if you'll pardon the pun) of plane fare and such.

I'm in Texas. One girlfriend is in Toronto, one in Washington State, another is in Oz. I've been fortunate that I have one online buddy who lives down the street from me, but he is the rare exception.

In the long run, it all depends on random chance that you will meet someone you can get to. At least there are more females online than when I started 20 years ago (BIG grin).

Mark Edwards
Proof of Sanity Forged Upon Request

> Remember young Jedi Knight Windows leads
> to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads
> to Linux. :)

Not to mention:

It is by Linux alone I set my PC in motion.
It is by the open source that patches acquire speed,
the kernel acquires modules.
The modules become a new release.
It is by Linux alone I set my PC in motion.

Mark Edwards
Proof of Sanity Forged Upon Request

How about an "obvious artist type" holding a laptop like a paint palette, standing in front of a standard canvas on a rack (that thingie that holds a painting in progress - grin).

The computer screen has X running, with the GIMP logo up... He is dipping his paintbrush into the colors on the screen, implying use of GIMP to paint the "real-life" painting.

Mark Edwards
Proof of Sanity Forged Upon Request

I remember my eighth grade English class in which Mrs. Johnson noticed my interest in Edgar Allen Poe, and assigned me an extra credit assignment.

She asked me to read The Predicament to the class.

Now, we had a split class - half an hour of class, lunch, then another half hour of class. The Predicament describes, in excruciating detail, how a woman looks out through a "window" in the clock tower of a building, and getting her head trapped by the advancing minute hand of the clock. Her eyeballs pop out, her head falls off, and so on, all carefully described by the protagonist.

One poor girl was positively sick, and couldn't finish lunch.

But nobody thought anything of this! Neither the teacher nor I were considered to be social deviants... Oh well.


Mark Edwards
Proof of Sanity Forged Upon Request

Not being entirely flip, but Weird Al Yankovic has apparently had the surgery. if you went to his site and emailed him, he might answer. He seems enough like a regular guy...

Mark Edwards
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Every time I see news about NCs, I can't help but be reminded of why the computer revolution came about in the first place - to fight the centralization of computer resources that was so prevalent in the 60s.

Now, here we are, the industry is fomenting a counter-revolution to take power back out of the hands of the users. What happens if NCs are successful? Will we have to submit batch jobs to use a Word for Windows server? Important documants delayed a week because our priorty is too low?

Mark Edwards
Proof of Sanity Forged Upon Request

I interned at $Very_Big_Multinational, and they were very into monitoring. According to the admin, they used it primarily to screen "undesirable" sites for the filters, which they also applied.

If a site was on the filtered list, the filtering software popped up an "unauthorized" page and a reason for its being unauthorized.

Sites such as Salon were banned for being "alternative news sources", while the Dallas Morning News was fine. Suck was not banned, but The San Jose Mercury News was.

I was told from time to time that I "should be careful" what sites I went to. I never felt the need to be careful, because all I ever went to were for news (/. and Wired), or I might take a break to play solitaire. But the engineers were scared shitless that anything they did could and would be misconstrued.

The place I work now doesn't do any of the fancy monitoring stuff, and my cow-orkers and I are happy, productive people who wouldn't abuse the network anyway. we like what we do. We like that we aren't violated.

I'm currently a [non-brittle - grin] Tech Writer, and I often have to back away from what I'm doing so I can consider how I'm doing it. A little free play helps. It clears the mind (Keptin, we have vacuum in the IS Department!).

Anyway, Monitoring? Don't care for it. I can work with it in place, but it bugs the hell out of me, even though I'm not doing anything wrong.

Mark Edwards
Proof of Sanity Forged Upon Request

Gee, all you really have to do is scan for 25 megabyte files... Oh, waitaminute - that's a two word attachment in Word for windows. Uh... never mind.

Mark Edwards
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There are those who are addicted, and there are those who just know the value of a good communications medium. I have a friend who *is* addicted, and she's almost always in some chat room or another. in fact, that's how she and I met. That was seven years ago.

Then there are folks like me, for whom life online is simply part of life. I communicate via the net, do research on problems and items of interest, keep up with the news, and so on.

It would irritate me to lose my connection, but I'm not going to become depressed or suicidal or homicidal because of it. I do have a life, and lots of other stuff to do.

Besides, I went through the no logon shakes fifteen years ago (grin).

Mark Edwards
Proof of Sanity Forged Upon Request

Now we're able to run ActiveState Perl for Win 32 (I AM joking, y'all).

Mark Edwards
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Shoot, I never heard the religious or political stuff about geek either.

Personally, I'm Wiccan, but my religion doesn't interfere with or drivethe way I interact with my interest(s) in computers and technolog(y|ies).

Personally, I'm a Republican, and the only way this relates to my 'geekiness' is in how the candidates stand in relation to my pet (peeves|projects).


Mark Edwards
You might be a redneck pagan if your sacramental chalice says 'Budweiser', your sacramental dagger says 'Buck', and your High Priest's name is Billy Joe Bob

> ...aiming for the more sophisticated user...

More like they are aiming for the ignorant new linux user who hasn't got a clue what they're getting.

Mark Edwards
"You'll never go broke underestimating
the intelligence of the American Public"

We waited all day to be the first in line for the 7PM show, and Simpson just waltzes right in using his celebrity powers. I don't know where he got the idea the rules don't apply to him...

This seems an appropriate time to put in a link to the Happynet Manifesto. Happynet, where everyone is equally equal.