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I understand that there are many programs out there that use ./configure make make install. But the LSB has already proposed a standardized package managment system to be used across distributions.
This way the instalation of a program will be the same as windows: a double click of the rpm file.

However, after installation I believe that there are some issues about how the program should be made available to the user. This is an area that needs more standarization.
Some add a directory to the GNOME/KDE menu.
Other programs programs install a program to a directory in $PATH. Others don't make any chances and force the user to find the program and make changes accordingly.

In order to help linux make it to the desktop market, package management should eliminate the problem of. "Ok, the program is installed, what do I do next? How do I use it?" A possible extention is to enforce an additional "user discovery" such as a standardized start menu, a "most recently installed programs" directory, a unread README files, etc. etc.

Err... what prominence?

According to this site, the Communists were part of the ruling coalition starting in the 1950s and members of the party were in the cabinet from 1966 to 1982, including the Minister of the Interior at one point.

It's not very surprising that many people felt the need to distance themselves from the Nazis as much as possible, even if it meant getting "closer" to the ideology of Finland's worst enemy.

If ideology was the issue, the ideology of the Stalinists was hardly an alternative. In addition, during the Cold War, Finland engaged in some fancy diplomacy to fend off Soviet subversion and the threat of a Soviet invasion. It seem unlikely that those threats from allies of the local Communists would have made people more sympathetic.

It would be silly to call the Left Alliance people "communists"

According to this site:

Practically Left Alliance is a follower of the Finnish People's Democratic League, which was an "umbrella party" uniting most of the extreme left. The largest member organization of People's Democratic League, with a share close to 90%, was Communist Party of Finland, which went bankrupt in 1990. Practically all the activities were transferred to the new party.

In other European democracies, the Social Democrats almost always avoided alliances with the Communists. One would have thought that pattern would have applied even more so in Finland given the Communists' connection to Finland's worst enemy. Instead, one sees the Social Democrats in Finland forming coalitions fairly frequently without being punished by voters in subsequent elections.

Maybe if one lives in Finland it makes some kind of sense, like the alliance between liberal Republicans in the U.S.A. with white supremists in the South. However, from the outside it is highly incongruous.

primus inter pares: http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/primus%2 0inter%20pares

Ah this is when their terminology really starts hurting us.

1 terabyte = 1,000,000,000,000 bytes

Try 1024^4 = 1,099,511,627,776.. wait, where'd my 100 gigs go?

Due to the exponential nature this little white lie hurts a bit more for every increment, here sacrificing just about 10% of the storage. I'm surprised they don't say 1000 gigs just to dodge the 10% mark.

For those who insist that tera means one trillon for bytes, I reference
Here, here , here, here, here, and how about here. Now I'll admit the wikipedia entry has the trillion byte definition, but they basically said it is used in storage advertising.

Re:DES3 (Score:4, Informative) by wwest4 (183559) on Thursday July 29, @11:18AM (#9834409)
no, the confusion comes from DES being 64-bit with a byte's worth of parity. effective length of single DES key is 56 bits. now, to really mess it up - the effective key length of 3DES is 112 bits, because only 2 keys are actually used, key A and B. Encrypt with A, then B, then A.

graham writes that hackers loathe to work on ill defined projects with users who don't know what they want. yet, in real life, that's what happens.

they will call you with some great idea about software they want, and you will go there and slowly but surely figure out that they have no idea what they are talking about - the project is ill defined. users have no clue.

i have seen people react to this situation with disgust: they try to pin down the customers, maybe eventually get then to sign something and then develop exactly as per spec. the outcome is not pleasing for anyone.

in the article graham also writes that great hackers are distinguished by knowing which problems to solve.
the trick to still enjoy these kinds of situations is to get back that: know what your problem is. your problem is that the customers want something, but don't know what. so that problem needs to be solved before any other problems are known.
it's a challenge: can you make the users find out what they want?
so you go ahead and make that your highest priority. talk to them. suggest graphic solutions to them - if they reject them, they will realize more clearly what they want.

this is a long process, and it certainly involves a lot more talking than some hackers can stand. but in the end, coming up with a great product is so satisfying, it's all worth it. besides, while you talk to them you yourself understand more clearly what the problem is, which basically saves you implementation work. because really understanding the problem is also, at the same time, the solution.

disclaimer: in the real world, i see other people miscommunicate with customers first, then implementing a crappy solution to the wrong problem, then, disaster. in fact, in the real world, when they ask me what they did wrong/should improve, all i can answer is mu

I don't believe in the No Win scenario!</kirk>

Price Discrimination is fairly common in almost all industries. But it is extremely common in industries where there are large initial capital requirements in R&D, compared to the marginal cost of production (such as microprocessors, automobiles, and pharmaceuticals).

Before 200 years ago or so, price discrimination was standard operating procedure, as most products were haggled for. The seller would haggle to determine the highest price the buyer is willing to pay.

The industrial revolution, telecommunications advances, and the rise of the catalog store (such as Sears) made it less advantageous to haggle with every customer, and the standard price became popular. Imagine haggling with your checkout clerk at the local grocery store.

But price discrimination never went away. "Price skimming," charging higher prices to early adopters, is standard with consumer electronics. Brand and off-branding is another means of price discrimination, as is pricing by region or country.

No, I meant what I said. Look here.

I'm not sure what it is exactly, but it's a T1 until it's bridged onto the microwave link.

And, as a matter of fact, INMARSAT _is_ in a geosync orbit:

http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Inmarsat

But last I knew, Pole didn't use INMARSAT (except as a backup, like McMurdo can). INMARSAT is _extremely_ expensive in per-minute charges. I don't recall what bird Pole uses for their main comms. I do know some folks down there now, so I'll find out.

BTW, When I was there, we didn't _have_ ATMs. We got a cash disbursement from each paycheck in the form of travelers checks (or, rarely, cash).

ABM? Anti- Ballistic Missile? I would think we'd be promoting ballistic missiles as a solution to the SPAM problem...

I didn't walk away from "The Anarchist In the Library" with anything more than yet-another dialectic view that 'the only true alternative to something is its opposite' ... Bring on the real intellectuals, the ones who are capable of a little more than just pedantic materialism...

Ok. How's this for starters ...

"Broadly speaking, a dialectic is an exchange of propositions (thesis) and counter-propositions (anti-thesis)resulting in a synthesis of the opposing assertions or at least a qualitative transformation of the direction of the dialogue." (link Got it so far? Ok, scrach your head a bit and when you're ready go onto the next paragraph.

Now try contrasting what you just read with this quote from Shaw's Pygamalion: "It is so intensely and deliberately didactic, and its subject is esteemed so dry, that I delight in throwing it at the heads of the wiseacres who repeat the parrot cry that art should never be didactic."

As soon as I can figure WTF pedantic materialism means (if anything), I'll be able to decide which (if either) of the above two words you meant to use. In the meantime, perhaps you want to consider that being able to write ...something worth reading can be challenging even for unpublished Slashdot posters and that perhaps we shouldn't be so cavalier about dismissing something with which we may disagree. Or not understand.

I didn't walk away from "The Anarchist In the Library" with anything more than yet-another dialectic view that 'the only true alternative to something is its opposite' ... Bring on the real intellectuals, the ones who are capable of a little more than just pedantic materialism...

Ok. How's this for starters ...

"Broadly speaking, a dialectic is an exchange of propositions (thesis) and counter-propositions (anti-thesis)resulting in a synthesis of the opposing assertions or at least a qualitative transformation of the direction of the dialogue." (link Got it so far? Ok, scrach your head a bit and when you're ready go onto the next paragraph.

Now try contrasting what you just read with this quote from Shaw's Pygamalion: "It is so intensely and deliberately didactic, and its subject is esteemed so dry, that I delight in throwing it at the heads of the wiseacres who repeat the parrot cry that art should never be didactic."

As soon as I can figure WTF pedantic materialism means (if anything), I'll be able to decide which (if either) of the above two words you meant to use. In the meantime, perhaps you want to consider that being able to write ...something worth reading can be challenging even for unpublished Slashdot posters and that perhaps we shouldn't be so cavalier about dismissing something with which we may disagree. Or not understand.

Interesting note: the bone to pick is actually with the "is"

Yes, the use of the word "is" matters a lot legally, according to Bill Clinton.

The comment about it being Warren Buffet, rather than Warren Beatty, is right. Warren Buffet is often referred to as the "Oracle of Omaha" for his success in understanding and predicting the financial / economic climate.

There's actually a neat story about Warren Buffet when he was young. There was a man whose young neighbor once approached him with a (set of) wild investment idea and asked him if he wanted to go in on it with him. The guy figured the neighbor for either a con artist or a hack and turned him down. Well, decades later, that young man is a very successful Warren Buffet, and I'll bet the other is kicking himself for turning down that once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

Sorry, I looked all over for a link to that anecdote, but I couldn't find it among the sea of "young Warren Buffet neighbor" google hits. -- Paul

According to http://www.dvorak.org/scotimeline/, the SCO suit was launched on March 6, 2003.

According to http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Timeline %20of%20Linux%20development Linux Kernel 2.4 was released on January 4, 2001 so it would follow that the code for 2.5 would be under development until the release of 2.6 on December 18, 2003.

So it's possible that SCO code was incorporated into 2.5 at the time of the lawsuit, but if they had actually seen that happening when they filed the suit you'd think they might have mentioned it. Afterall, they would have been able to make a reasonable argument for an injunction.

While you have gotten the main point of my argument, a few notes I feel I should point out.

On steps 4, 5, and 6, these are not government-mandated. They are voluntary "benifits" to people being used to constant survailance. Hence, the Habituation part of my argument.

Back to the current thread:

There are more then a few definitions of a "Slippery Slope", most of which do not require inevitability, but only probability.

A link to support my statements:

Slippery Slope Definition and Discussion

As far as I can tell, my definition and it's application were logical and demonstrated enough of a direct path from one event to the next, that it does not turn my slippery slope argument into a fallacy. Had I continued on and added "The law would easially be mended to require the cameras in the home", then I would have promptly lost the argument, as there is no logical reason that they would be so. Many things are legislated for businesses that are not required in the home. Hence, my logic would falter at that point.

I will admit, freely, that (like Godwin's Law) the slippery slope is so misused that it's lost most of it's credability in rational debate. I do, however, feel that I applied it in appropriate context, backed with enough logic, to support my claims.

Yes, my first post sucked. It was karma whoring at its basest. I've read your entire post and nodded my head. Your post, this article, AndroidCat's reply, and this article have made this teenager slightly less ignorant. Thank you. (I'll be willing to put that in writing if you want.)

Now, here's why I think this article is dangerous, sans my contorted view of Godwin's Rule.

Rather than discuss the negative ramnfications of recording people in public, the ACLU director Barry Steinhardt is quoted as saying "What this demonstrates is that '1984' is now technologically possible."

The problems with this I have are that 75 cameras viewing the public does not demonstrate that 1984's millions of cameras in home and in public are feasable. It does not discuss the negative effects of cameras in public. It stirs fear by using a book as reference, a book that includes torture as a punishment for thought crime.Plus, references to 1984 are almost as done to death as references to Nazis.

What people haven't commented on in the Business Week piece is the detail from Scott McNealy's biography -- when he crossed a United Auto Workers picket line during a strike.

According to the article, "One summer, he worked in an auto-parts factory. When the United Auto Workers at the plant went on strike, McNealy didn't think twice about crossing the picket lines -- despite bomb threats and jeers from angry union members. 'It seemed incredibly stupid,' he said. 'I couldn't see how highly paid UAW workers were helping their cause' by losing the company money."

The young Scott McNealy showed the same kind of arrogance, short-sightedness, and contempt for others way back then that he has shown now. That attitude, which led him to scab on fellow workers, is the same attitude that drove a once-great company like Sun into the ground.

This is an interesting article on the Apollo Guidance Computer - with details of the internal architecture of the CPU, and its Assembly language.

Interestingly, it seems early desicions about the address/op code size gave the designers x86 type headaches when they later wanted more address space & op codes/registers..

reference the zeroth law (Robots and Empire). Asimov knew the three laws didn't work. That was the whole point. The laws are still flawed, but not bad as a framework. see this link

Hercules CGA? I thought that Herclues cards used the HERCULES standard, and to run a CGA app, you had to use an emulator.

It would be nice it you got your facts straight... Most of your statements are outright lies !!

"The Price-Andersen Act simply allows the government to act as an insurance broker for nuclear power plants. The plants PAY for the insurance, and it only covers small accidents-- maximum liability for the government is something like $10 million. Furthermore, the act allows for private companies to step in to take over the insurance after a period of some years-- something that private companies have indeed done. (The PA Act has actually made taxpayers money, as plants have paid out more than they have received, just like any successful insurance company. So it doesn't count as subsidy at all.)"

Wow.. talk about deception.... Time for a dose of the truth and here.

"NRC's procedures for ensuring that licensees comply with Price-Anderson Act liability insurance provisions include requirements that licensees provide proof of primary and secondary insurance coverage. NRC requires each licensee to show proof that it has liability insurance that includes the $300 million of primary insurance coverage per site required by the Price Anderson Act. NRC and the licensee also sign an indemnity agreement that requires the licensee to maintain an insurance policy in this amount. This agreement is in effect as long as the owner is licensed to operate the plant."

Note: This is a per plant policy.

"in the event of a nuclear incident causing damages exceeding $300 million, would be collected from each nuclear power plant licensee at a rate of up to $10 million per year and up to a maximum of $95.8 million per incident for each nuclear power plant."

Or roughly 8.5 Billion dollars in total, enforced by a form a government socialism. (Post accident levy).

As for maximum liability.. it goes into the Tragedy of the commons category..
"The key to the tragedy of the commons is when individuals use a public good, they do not bear the entire cost of their several actions."

As for estimate of REAL damages.. take a look a Chernobyl catastrophe

"If accident damages exceed that amount, taxpayers will be asked to make up the difference. Compare that to the 1982 Sandia National Laboratories study (CRAC-2), which projected economic damages of up to $300 Billion (in 1982 dollars) resulting from an accident at the Indian Point, NY reactor site. The 1986 Chernobyl catastrophe already has cost Russia, Ukraine and Belarus some $300 Billion, and the costs-from interdicted land, from radioactive waste disposal, from ongoing health effects-mount daily."

"Moreover, no other hazardous industry has such a subsidized insurance scheme. "

Yes, the Feds and ultimately the Taxpayers are on the hook for unlimited liability, since no company has that type of resources to pay the real cost of a catastrophe, and someone will have to pay for the damages.

Furthermore.. "The Price Anderson Act directs DOE to fully indemnify its contractors for any and all public liability in connection with nuclear activities - even with accidents resulting from a contractor's bad faith, reckless behavior, gross negligence, or willful misconduct."

This is an ancient scam, a variant of 'The Spanish Prisoner' which dates back at least to the 17th century

The project has even a feature named Rollback which would permit to go back in time, eliminating these pesky viruses.

The project has even a feature named Rollback which would permit to go back in time, eliminating these pesky viruses.

Of note- just a few years ago, he would have gotten in a lot of trouble for his little radio, especially if it played music or was used by a woman. Hmph. Maybe getting rid of a totalitarian regime can have a positive outcome after all!

Maybe they had a SAM at that site, the same way they protected the G8 Summit in Genoa...

A 6.5-kilometer no-go zone has been established around Kananaskis Village and three anti-aircraft missile batteries set up, as a last line of defence should a plane evade the CF-18 fighters that are policing a 150-kilometer radius no-fly zone.

Hm, looking at the Cello page, I think I had the two confused. Seing a screenshot of Cello I think this is the one I didn't like at the time. However from the FAQs of both browsers they don't seem to be related. Especially when you see the sophistication of Viola and the lameness of Cello... :)

This period was when I moved one of my home machines to the office and installed Slackware on it and soon made that my main desktop. As I was part of a team setting up one of the first local ISPs I probably used Viola at the time since I must have tried every donloadable browser that ran on Unix, DOS or MacOS at the time but I don't really remember it. :(

I'm not sure this is new. I believe the Stardent Titan Graphic Supercomputer I worked on in 1990 had the capability of supporting two graphics consoles (FBs, keyboards, mice, etc.) with two independent X servers running. Our system at Purdue only had one graphics head (and it was pretty buggy at that) but I seem to remeber learning that that the "a" in "hostname:a.b" was for selecting the particular graphics terminal (and corresponding X server) while reading the documentation for that beast. IIRC, the actual console (i.e. the terminal you typed on to boot it up) for that machine was a serial-tty off a supervisor/network board next to the R3000 CPU boards while the graphics board(s) sat in one (or both) end(s) of the card cage. These graphic systems were peripheral systems which were brought up after the machine was booted via the serial console. The idea being the system could be purchased with 0, 1, or 2 graphics head to suit the users' needs. (For the day, these were very expensive grpahics systems.) I believe SGI systems of the day or very shortly after were available with the same capability.

In any event, I really don't see what the big deal is. In the '80s there were numerous universities running UNIX systems that simultaneously supported hundreds of concurrent users. Yeah, they were doing it with serial (dumb) terminals or (semi-intelligent) X terminals, but the end result was largely the same. I wonder if a Linux/FreeBSD box could really support 150 undergrads doing their homework like the {super}minicomputers of that era could. (Imagine typing who and watching 150 logins scroll by. You almost always had to pipe who or finger into more!) Tuning BSD 4.x and its variants to operate under that load was quite an accomplishement.

--zawada

The reason they do so is because they are scientists not theologians and they do not rely on faith which would be what such thinking would require. If we create said life here on this planet that can exist in such enviroments a la Astrochicken than we can begin postulating more on the viability of life in differing enviros. Until than we look for life where we know we should find it based on past observations, and we hope we do.

One reason.

The problem is a good deal more complex than you suggest.

Ever watch the movie Who Framed Roger Rabbit? It was partly based on events surrounding the destruction of the streetcar here in the US.

The trolley didn't fall--it was pushed.

Pages 3 and 4 of the linked article get to the nitty gritty. in a nutshell, the street railway companies were specifically targeted to be acquired, their trackage torn up, and replaced with buses. The antitrust laws on the books at the time didn't specifically address the notion of one industry infiltrating a competing one in order to destroy it from within, so the parties involved got less than a wrist slap when finally hauled into court. And they kept doing it after being found guilty.

At one time it was possible (if not completely practical) to travel from Hoboken to Delaware by streetcar, from Times Square to practically any other streetcar system in the Northeast just by transferring from one company's service to another where systems met (the tracks were often interconnected even where services didn't overlap at the meet point). It was even supposedly possible at one time to travel from New York City to Wisconsin by trolley, minus two stretches that had to be covered by railroad passenger services.

And all of it was privately built, owned and operated. No doubt much of it would have faltered even without the cancerous infiltration of the auto industry in the mid 20th century, but a significant portion of the system would more than likely be in place today (no doubt under municipal ownership) had it not been outright destroyed.

Here is a list of streetcar systems that were taken over by National City Lines, a bus company owned at the time by an alliance of major players in the auto, petroleum and tire industries.

---PCJ

God No
Its just not fair...

I belive it was Uday, Saddam's now dead son, who ran the Internet in Iraq. Citizen could not access it, but he himself was usually found surfing online when not attending to his daily torture-sessions afaik. Uday got hold of this kind of administrative jobs after his younger brother Qusay was given executive power due to him being disabled after assassination-attempts.

I belive it was Uday, Saddam's now dead son, who ran the Internet in Iraq. Citizen could not access it, but he himself was usually found surfing online when not attending to his daily torture-sessions afaik. Uday got hold of this kind of administrative jobs after his younger brother Qusay was given executive power due to him being disabled after assassination-attempts.

Or one might simply peruse a copy of Huxley's prophetic Brave New World...

And wonder how are the themes of Brave New World any different than the themes of the US government (or any government) of today?

The Themes of Brave New World

1. COMMUNITY, IDENTITY, STABILITY- VERSUS INDIVIDUAL FREEDOM

Community, Identity, Stability is the motto of the World State. It lists the Utopia's prime goals. Community is in part a result of identity and stability. It is also achieved through a religion that satirizes Christianity- a religion that encourages people to reach solidarity through sexual orgy. And it is achieved by organizing life so that a person is almost never alone.

Identity is in large part the result of genetic engineering. Society is divided into five classes or castes, hereditary social groups. In the lower three classes, people are cloned in order to produce up to 96 identical "twins." Identity is also achieved by teaching everyone to conform, so that someone who has or feels more than a minimum of individuality is made to feel different, odd, almost an outcast.

Stability is the third of the three goals, but it is the one the characters mention most often- the reason for designing society this way. The desire for stability, for instance, requires the production of large numbers of genetically identical "individuals," because people who are exactly the same are less likely to come into conflict. Stability means minimizing conflict, risk, and change.

2. SCIENCE AS A MEANS OF CONTROL

Brave New World is not only a Utopian book, it is also a science-fiction novel. But it does not predict much about science in general. Its theme "is the advancement of science as it affects human individuals," Huxley said in the Foreword he wrote in 1946, 15 years after he wrote the book. He did not focus on physical sciences like nuclear physics, though even in 1931 he knew that the production of nuclear energy (and weapons) was probable. He was more worried about dangers that appeared more obvious at that time- the possible misuse of biology, physiology, and psychology to achieve community, identity, and stability. Ironically, it becomes clear at the end of the book that the World State's complete control over human activity destroys even the scientific progress that gained it such control.

3. THE THREAT OF GENETIC ENGINEERING Genetic engineering is a term that has come into use in recent years as scientists have learned to manipulate RNA and DNA, the proteins in every cell that determine the basic inherited characteristics of life. Huxley didn't use the phrase but he describes genetic engineering when he explains how his new world breeds prescribed numbers of humans artificially for specified qualities.

4. THE MISUSE OF PSYCHOLOGICAL CONDITIONING Every human being in the new world is conditioned to fit society's needs- to like the work he will have to do. Human embryos do not grow inside their mothers' wombs but in bottles. Biological or physiological conditioning consists of adding chemicals or spinning the bottles to prepare the embryos for the levels of strength, intelligence, and aptitude required for given jobs. After they are "decanted" from the bottles, people are psychologically conditioned, mainly by hypnopaedia or sleep-teaching. You might say that at every stage the society brainwashes its citizens.

5. THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS CARRIED TO AN EXTREME A society can achieve stability only when everyone is happy, and the brave new world tries hard to ensure that every person is happy. It does its best to eliminate any painful emotion, which means every deep feeling, every passion. It uses genetic engineering and conditioning to ensure that everyone is happy with his or her work.

6. THE CHEAPENING OF

Is using the X-No-Archive header so hard? I belive they have a form to remove your messages after the fact as well.

Many of history's more excellent weapons were developed by individuals or small teams, not by corporations. John M Browning personally developed several weapons for the US Military. The Neostead combat shotgun was the work of two individuals not working for any company. The AK-47 was developed personally by Kalashnikov, and the Uzi was designed by Uziel Gal while staying in a Yagur prison.

Corporate arms manufacturers have not been a significant source of innovation in the past century. The US Army has tried to replace Browning's M2 .50-BMG twice now with corporate models, and failed because the corporate teams could not get it right. Abrams tanks stationed in Iraq today still mount Browning's 60+ year old design (qv).

It is significant, I think, that the more advanced firearm designs of the last fifty years come from countries where individuals are free to develop new technologies, while America has remained stagnant under the shadow of draconian government regulations which make it nearly impossible for any individual to legally tinker with weapon design in the privacy of their own homes.

Do not underestimate the power of individual initiative and innovation.

-- TTK

But face it, wouldn't you rather be Allen with millions in the bank doing something that interests you, and not Gates with billions in the bank, married to the woman responsible for Bob?

Well i think we're getting a shitty deal in the UK when 0.99 euro converts to 65p and UK users have to pay 79p a track!

The pricing strategy is doubtless based on price point psychology rather than exchange rate parity.

Capitalism is like that. The product manager seeks to optimize revenue but his/her choices are constrained by a granularity imposed by price point psychology.

Of course, this phenomenon leads to an obvious argument in favor of common currency in geographically and commercially related regions. That is probably a whole other topic, but one which becomes increasingly relevant when considering sub 100 priced commodities.

I wonder if it could give Inspector Rex a run for his money...

(although the TV show is Austrian, not German...)

The reason the i860 might be remembered as a graphics processor is that it did have special graphics instructions (think MMX) and very high peak floating-point performance, and after it became clear that it would never cut it as a true general-purpose CPU it lived on for a while as a dedicated CPU on high-end graphics boards.

There's a pretty good overview here.

For those who think the i860 looks pretty nice, consider this: it had a "push" pipeline for floating point, which meant that the pipeline would only advance when new instructions were issued. So if it took four stages to do an operation, the result of the first operation came out when you issued the fourth one. Just to keep things exciting, I believe the result of the first instruction was stored in the register specified by the fourth instruction (so the pipeline didn't have to bother remembering the destination register specified by the first instruction).

"BTW, if you ever saw the processor specs for the i860, its byzantine complexity made the x86 architecture look clean and elegant. There's no wonder it never took off."

Agreed, but damn, looking at this that i860 was a damn sexy proc in those days!

1. \Theft\, n. [OE. thefte, AS. [thorn]i['e]f[eth]e, [thorn][=y]f[eth]e, [thorn]e['o]f[eth]e. See Thief.] 1. (Law) The act of stealing; specifically, the felonious taking and removing of personal property, with an intent to deprive the rightful owner of the same; larceny.
2. 
   
   Note: To constitute theft there must be a taking without the owner's consent, and it must be unlawful or felonious; every part of the property stolen must be removed, however slightly, from its former position; and it must be, at least momentarily, in the complete possession of the thief.

The dictionary doesn't make any distinction between the victim having possession of anything. The language simply makes a distinction of acquisition without permission of owner. That's at least the linguistic definition.

As for the legal defintion, it's similar.

Please point to any authoritative source that defines stealing that involve the victim no longer in possession of some good.

And dont even get me started on the automatic congestion charge cameras.
More details here

This is some weird combination of revisionist history (the ancient Greeks knew about irrational numbers) and just plain making shit up (irrational means it can't be expressed as a ratio of integers). See Mathworld's definition of irrational number for one more credible, and more researched, version.

Imaginary numbers under a variety of names were discussed at least as early the 16th and 17th centuries and credible sources claim references back to the ancient Egyptians; this reference also says the term "imaginary" was in common use at the time of Descartes (though makes no reference in the online material as to who coined the term). Many less credible online sources place the name as coming from Descartes and claim it to be dergatory, but many of those sites appear to be copying from some common source of unknown origin. So, the guess that imaginary was derogatory may be correct.

I suppose one of four (calling the fact of the name and date of discovery each as guesses at the truth)possibly correct speculations isn't bad for just spewing stuff that sounds credible

The spreadsheet has no real-life corollary

Technically, it was real-life that gave Bricklin his idea in the first place. To quote:

Bricklin has spoken of watching his university professor create a table of calculation results on a blackboard. When the professor found an error, he had to tediously erase and rewrite a number of sequential entries in the table, triggering Bricklin to think that he could replicate the process on a computer....