Slashdot Mirror

Interesting, but could use some references to sources / related material, e.g.:

Andrew Odlyzko's paper Content is Not King which I often point to - it's that good :), and the groundbreaking Understanding Media by Marshall McLuhan (written in 1964, in which he coined the phrase "the medium is the message". First 7 chapters also available online.).

I don't know about BitTorrent but it's not really hard to find on the eDonkey network (see Jigle). Anyway it doesn't seem to be a very good idea to download it. However here is the files listing.

This file listing?

Here, better link.

how many common unix tools have made their way into the windows source tree. Just a simple reading of the file list from
http://heim.ifi.uio.no/~mortehu/files.txt shows a number of familiar looking tools. A little CVS anyone? How about sed?

http://folk.uio.no/mortehu/files.txt is a much faster server.

Also, someone on the comments posted an alleged 2.3 MB list of the files leaked as well (contains no source).

It's allegedly from the file "windows_2000_source_code.zip."

(Who knows if it's real, as it's too early to tell, probably)

Full file listing with sizes: http://heim.ifi.uio.no/~mortehu/files.txt I suggest mirroring ;)

The world's first OO-language was Simula, written by the Norwegians Kristen Nygaard and Ole Johan Dahl. Stroustrup acknowledges the influence of Simula in his book, but I don't think the language was well known outside the University of Oslo, where it was used in the first programming courses until 1999 when it was replaced by Java.

So the two people really missing are Nygaard an Dahl.

Because Norwegian grammar dictates it.

A computer party in Norwegian translates to dataparty, which in two words is an adjective describing noun (data party would of course be nonsensical, because data is not an adjective)

We are in fact seeing quite the direct opposite happening here in Norway, much to the chagrin of Norwegian grammar fetishists (Being the geek I am, I am the English grammar fetishist ;))

One amusing example of this causing trouble is a sign maker's logo reading "Skilt Mann a/s" (a/s = inc.) - 'Skilt' can mean two different things - divorced (adjective), and sign(noun). Therefore, most of the Nordea banks have signs reading "Divorced Man inc." at the bottom ;)

For y'all Norwegianpeople

I'd say not, since I came out against prescriptive grammar. Parliament is actually a collective noun. And according to this source, it is one the British often treat as plural.

It should be pointed out that there is a strong tendency in American English to treat collective nouns as singular. Even in British English the plural reading is not favoured unless there are special reasons for doing so. Note, however, the common British use of the plural with names of sports teams:

26. Arsenal were playing brilliantly in the second half.

Names of legislative bodies, organisations, companies, and the like may also be treated as plural: the Commons has/have. . ., Ford is/are. . .

And in the UK it is a policy that would be illegal under the terms of the 'Sale of Goods Act 1979' (summary) . Subsequent ammendments would mean that it would also fall foul of EU Leglislation.

I expect you are wrong anyway, I can see them attempting to not give you a refund but refusing to swap it for the exact same title and you having no recourse seems unlikely, even in the land of the free.

Sorry, couldn't format it because of Slashdot's fucking filters.
ftp://ftp.is.co.za/applications/gimp/ ftp://ftp.planetmirror.com/pub/gimp/gimp/ http://ftp.planetmirror.com/pub/gimp/gimp/ ftp://mirror.aarnet.edu.au/pub/gimp/ http://mirror.aarnet.edu.au/pub/gimp/ ftp://gimp.zeta.org.au/gimp/gimp/ ftp://gd.tuwien.ac.at/graphics/gimp/gimp/ ftp://ftp.funet.fi/pub/sci/graphics/packages/gimp/ ftp://ftp.minet.net/pub/gimp/ http://ftp.iut-bm.univ-fcomte.fr/pub/gimp/ ftp://ftp.fh-heilbronn.de/mirrors/ftp.gimp.org/gim p/ ftp://ftp.gwdg.de/pub/misc/grafik/gimp/ http://ftp.gwdg.de/pub/misc/grafik/gimp/ ftp://sunsite.ics.forth.gr/sunsite/pub/gimp/ ftp://ftp.esat.net/mirrors/ftp.gimp.org/pub/gimp/ http://ftp.esat.net/mirrors/ftp.gimp.org/pub/gimp/ ftp://SunSITE.sut.ac.jp/pub/archives/packages/gimp / ftp://ftp.u-aizu.ac.jp/pub/graphics/tools/gimp/ http://www.ring.gr.jp/pub/graphics/gimp/ ftp://ftp.ring.gr.jp/pub/graphics/gimp/ http://mirror.nucba.ac.jp/mirror/gimp/ ftp://mirror.nucba.ac.jp/mirror/gimp/ ftp://ftp.kreonet.re.kr/pub/tools/X11/ftp.gimp.org / http://gnu.kookel.org/ftp/gimp/ ftp://gnu.kookel.org/pub/gimp/ ftp://sunsite.uio.no/pub/gimp/ ftp://ftp.tuniv.szczecin.pl/pub/Linux/gimp/ ftp://sunsite.icm.edu.pl/pub/graphics/gimp/ ftp://ftp.kappa.ro/pub/mirrors/ftp.gimp.org/ ftp://ftp.iasi.roedu.net/pub/mirrors/ftp.gimp.org/ http://ftp.iasi.roedu.net/mirrors/ftp.gimp.org/ ftp://ftp.sai.msu.su/pub/unix/graphics/gimp/mirror / http://gimp.tsuren.net/mirror/gimp/ ftp://ftp.acc.umu.se/pub/gimp/ ftp://ftp.sunet.se/pub/gnu/gimp/ http://ftp.sunet.se/pub/gnu/gimp/ ftp://ftp.hun.edu.tr/pub/linux/gimp/ ftp://unix.hensa.ac.uk/mirrors/ftp.gimp.org/pub/gi mp/ ftp://ftp.flirble.org/pub/X/gimp/gimp/

Africa ftp://ftp.is.co.za/applications/gimp/ Australia ftp://ftp.planetmirror.com/pub/gimp/gimp/
http://ftp.planetmirror.com/pub/gimp/gimp/
ftp://mirror.aarnet.edu.au/pub/gimp/
http://mirror.aarnet.edu.au/pub/gimp/
ftp://gimp.zeta.org.au/gimp/gimp/ Austria ftp://gd.tuwien.ac.at/graphics/gimp/gimp/ Finland ftp://ftp.funet.fi/pub/sci/graphics/packages/gimp/ France ftp://ftp.minet.net/pub/gimp/
http://ftp.iut-bm.univ-fcomte.fr/pub/gimp/ Germany ftp://ftp.fh-heilbronn.de/mirrors/ftp.gimp.org/gim p/
ftp://ftp.gwdg.de/pub/misc/grafik/gimp/
http://ftp.gwdg.de/pub/misc/grafik/gimp/ Greece ftp://sunsite.ics.forth.gr/sunsite/pub/gimp/ Ireland ftp://ftp.esat.net/mirrors/ftp.gimp.org/pub/gimp/
http://ftp.esat.net/mirrors/ftp.gimp.org/pub/gimp/ Japan ftp://SunSITE.sut.ac.jp/pub/archives/packages/gimp /
ftp://ftp.u-aizu.ac.jp/pub/graphics/tools/gimp/
http://www.ring.gr.jp/pub/graphics/gimp/
ftp://ftp.ring.gr.jp/pub/graphics/gimp/
http://mirror.nucba.ac.jp/mirror/gimp/
ftp://mirror.nucba.ac.jp/mirror/gimp/ Korea ftp://ftp.kreonet.re.kr/pub/tools/X11/ftp.gimp.org / Netherlands http://gnu.kookel.org/ftp/gimp/
ftp://gnu.kookel.org/pub/gimp/ Norway ftp://sunsite.uio.no/pub/gimp/ Poland ftp://ftp.tuniv.szczecin.pl/pub/Linux/gimp/
ftp://sunsite.icm.edu.pl/pub/graphics/gimp/ Romania ftp://ftp.kappa.ro/pub/mirrors/ftp.gimp.org/
ftp://ftp.iasi.roedu.net/pub/mirrors/ftp.gimp.org/
http://ftp.iasi.roedu.net/mirrors/ftp.gimp.org/ Russia ftp://ftp.sai.msu.su/pub/unix/graphics/gimp/mirror /
http://gimp.tsuren.net/mirror/gimp/

The translation is by Jon Bing, who also translated the judgement of the first instance court.

Note that footnote 9 is somewhat wrong. He seems to be confusing civil cases with criminal cases; in civil cases the parties may in some instances choose whether or not lay judges are to hear the case. (In civil cases the default is only professional judges.)

I don't understand the purpose of footnote 11, but it should probably read "That is 88,000,000".

Lov om rettergangsmaten i straffesaker (Straffeprosessloven) [The Criminal Procedure Code] section 307 provides that

Any person who has been acquitted may not appeal unless the court has found it proved that he committed the unlawful act referred to in the indictment.

Any person acquitted by a judgement of the Court of Appeal in a case that is tried with a jury may not appeal unless the issue of guilt has been decided against him.

I.e. you may not appeal because you are not happy with the reasonings of the court, ot because you'd like to have a higher court take a look at the case (such as to render a more authoritative ruling), as long as you were acquitted. This goes for civil cases as well.

This case was not tried before a jury, but with a combined court of three judges and four lay judges (in this case: two exptert lay judges and two regular lay judges), since the maximum sentence that could applied was less than 6 years, see the Norwegian Criminal Code section 352. The Norwegian Penal Code section 145 only provides for a maximum jail term of two years if damage is caused or the felony took place for an ulawful gain. Otherwise the maximum prison sentence would be six months.

One of the judges (Stavang) holds a Norwegian (research) doctorate in law, and a minor degree in economics, and was quite interested in the antitrust implications of the DVD region system. In an answer to a question by Glyn Ford, Mario Monti answered that "... the Commission has obtained significant amounts of information relating to the establishment and ongoing operation of the regional coding system from a broad range of film studios, DVD equipment manufacturers, and commercial retailers. The Commission is now completing its analysis of the file with a view to ascertaining the system's compatibility with the Community competition rules." See Official Journal of the European Union C 137 E of 12 June 2003 (page 34[pdf file]).

The whole criminal procedure act is available translated into Engilsh as a large PDF file. The General civil penal code is also available translated into English as a PDF file.

Or alternatively, could his supporters?

His supporters? Who are they? No, only parties to the case may appeal; you must have "legal standing".

Lov om rettergangsmaten i straffesaker (Straffeprosessloven) [The Criminal Procedure Code] section 307 provides that

Any person who has been acquitted may not appeal unless the court has found it proved that he committed the unlawful act referred to in the indictment.

Any person acquitted by a judgement of the Court of Appeal in a case that is tried with a jury may not appeal unless the issue of guilt has been decided against him.

I.e. you may not appeal because you are not happy with the reasonings of the court, ot because you'd like to have a higher court take a look at the case (such as to render a more authoritative ruling), as long as you were acquitted. This goes for civil cases as well.

This case was not tried before a jury, but with a combined court of three judges and four lay judges (in this case: two exptert lay judges and two regular lay judges), since the maximum sentence that could applied was less than 6 years, see the Norwegian Criminal Code section 352. The Norwegian Penal Code section 145 only provides for a maximum jail term of two years if damage is caused or the felony took place for an ulawful gain. Otherwise the maximum prison sentence would be six months.

One of the judges (Stavang) holds a Norwegian (research) doctorate in law, and a minor degree in economics, and was quite interested in the antitrust implications of the DVD region system. In an answer to a question by Glyn Ford, Mario Monti answered that "... the Commission has obtained significant amounts of information relating to the establishment and ongoing operation of the regional coding system from a broad range of film studios, DVD equipment manufacturers, and commercial retailers. The Commission is now completing its analysis of the file with a view to ascertaining the system's compatibility with the Community competition rules." See Official Journal of the European Union C 137 E of 12 June 2003 (page 34[pdf file]).

The whole criminal procedure act is available translated into Engilsh as a large PDF file. The General civil penal code is also available translated into English as a PDF file.

Or alternatively, could his supporters?

His supporters? Who are they? No, only parties to the case may appeal; you must have "legal standing".

"It took 38 years for radio to attract 50 million listeners. 13 years for television to attract 50 million viewers. In just 4 years the Internet has attracted 50 million surfers! Those figures can hardly be balked at, especially when you consider the Internet's beginnings. "

Well, it turns out that this dot-com myth is somewhat wrong and the growth is not so much stronger than radio and TV.

Very interesting stuff, bumped into it on Usenet.

What is even more stricking is that it's coming from a woman.

While we are on the topic of Scandinavian female matematicians, there is an interview in New Scientist with Norwegian mathematics professor Ragni Piene where she discusses why there are so few women mathematicians.

Voyager has been moving through space in ways unexplainable by physics.

Any references I can read? astro-ph will do fine... :-)

So far we have not found any of this "dark matter."

Oh yes, there are many detections of massive astrophysical compact halo objects in our galaxy, P. Popowski et al, and there is also a lot of work going on to use the same ideas to look for similar bodies in other galaxies. In fact, the microlensing ideas were first proposed for extragalactic studies by Chang and Refsdal in an article in Nature in 1979. The funny thing about this is that it doesn't matter what kind of matter it is, as long as it is gravitating. Also, it is easier if it is clumped, but it doesn't need to be.

Shameless plug: My thesis: Gravitational Microlensing of Quasar Clouds: Detectability in a Worst-Case Scenario.

I for one would be utterly elated if it turns out we have to rewrite our physics books.

Voyager isn't useless yet!

The computer science department at my university has always put notes online, but now the university (along with other universities) are switching to a common system called Classfronter that is very good.

It's a kind of portal for the students. You just log in and get an overview over your current courses, with messages from the administration, email, lecture notes, forums, chatrooms, and it's also the place where you upload your course assignments.

Its not "one of the original pure OO languages", its THE original OO language. OO as a concept was demonstrated by making smalltalk.

The creators of Simula 67 would disagree. Simula was the first object-oriented language.

Not that it really matters who came first. Smalltalk is still around, while Simula is simply a relic [1].

For another interesting flamewar/discussion, ask a Common Lisp bigot and an Ada fanatic which language was the first standardized language - they will fight it out to the death. (For the record CL was an ANSI standard before Ada95 was an ISO one).

--
1. There is a GNU Simula compiler called Cim

Its not "one of the original pure OO languages", its THE original OO language. OO as a concept was demonstrated by making smalltalk.

The creators of Simula 67 would disagree. Simula was the first object-oriented language.

Not that it really matters who came first. Smalltalk is still around, while Simula is simply a relic [1].

For another interesting flamewar/discussion, ask a Common Lisp bigot and an Ada fanatic which language was the first standardized language - they will fight it out to the death. (For the record CL was an ANSI standard before Ada95 was an ISO one).

--
1. There is a GNU Simula compiler called Cim

MIMO uses multiple antennas spaced more than half a wavelength apart on both transmitter and receiver. By doing so the signal recevied at each antenna experiences independent multipath fading. By using this information it is possible to send an independent data stream to each antenna on the same channel, i.e N antennas = N-times the datarate.

This is all done by linear algebra and matrix inversions which is probably the origin of the "taking advantage of huge amounts of computing power" claims in the articel. For more info check out this paper

I found a small cabin without water, toilet and of course no connection, but it had electricity. I lived there for a month while finishing my thesis. It was a 45 minute bike-ride on rather rugged roads down to campus (and a whole lot longer back, mainly because I would usually have a heavy backpack with food and bad uphill).

But it was absolutely great living out there. You can live at a so much slower pace, yet get so much more work done. pics from the place.

Okay. So we know that guys who call an *asterisk* asterix aren't clever like me. We've established that.

Maybe you had the comic album guy in mind?

And also at http://folk.uio.no/hakon/chandler

(yes, university pipes are nice :-)

• The Internet
  
• BSD Unix (and variations)
  
• Linux
  
• The GNU project
  
• Object Oriented Programming (and, by extension, anything built using OOP principles, like Microsoft Windows)
  
• The World Wide Web

Here is a quick primer on spatial multiplexing technology used in MIMO (Multiple Input Multiple Output) systems. For an overview of current MIMO research at the University of Oslo check this.

Here is a quick primer on spatial multiplexing technology used in MIMO (Multiple Input Multiple Output) systems. For an overview of current MIMO research at the University of Oslo check this.

Norway: Fractal dimension 1.52 (here and here, apparently from Feder.)
Google is your friend

I suspect the swedish coast has nearly as high a dimension, with Denmark a bit lower.

More to the point:

Act of 22 May 1981 No. 25 relating to Legal Procedure in Criminal Cases (The Criminal Procedure Act) with subsequent amendments, most recently by Act of 17 July 1998 No. 56

Specifically, p.22:

" 69. Even though guilt is deemed to be proved, a prosecution may be waived provided that such special circumstances exist that the prosecuting authority on an overall evaluation finds that there are weighty reasons for not prosecuting the act.
Waiver of prosecution pursuant to the first paragraph can be made conditional upon the person charged not committing any new offence during the probationary period. The probationary period is two years from the day the decision to waive the prosecution was made, but not longer than the limitation period for the institution of criminal proceedings for the act in question.
Waiver of prosecution can also be made conditional upon such conditions as are specified in section 53 of the Penal Code, subsection 2, subsection 3 litrae a to f, subsection 4, and subsection 5. The person charged shall be given the opportunity to comment on the conditions beforehand. When the circumstances of the person charged provide reason for doing so, the prosecuting authority may during the probationary period terminate or alter conditions that have been laid down and fix new conditions."

Apparently, unless a prosecution (trial) is waived, he's assumed guilty until proven innocent. Is this correct, or am I missing something?

Grad students. Doing their thesis on a topic, use archival data to support.

To elaborate on that, at my (old) institute people are discouraged from disembarking on a thesis that requires them to obtain original data, it is too risky.

To get observation time, you would have to write a really good proposal; most major observatories have at least three times as many applications as they have time for. If you're lucky enough to get time, it is maybe half a year into the future, and you're getting three nights to complete everything.

You spend that time preparing everything, just to come down to the observatory, and you're in the fog for three nights! Tough luck, you've spent all that time preparing, and you're now one year behind schedule...

I did three observation runs during my thesis work , two as Observing Astronomer (who is kind of the guy deciding what to look at when and for how long when at the telescope, the PI is the guy who decides what the project is about). My own thesis was purely theoretical, and I was happy about that, because we experienced having a total of ten nights (it is rare to get so many nights, it was a world-wide collaboration), and we got one full night + 3 hours on two other nights worth of observation. It's extremely frustrating to sit there getting nothing because of humidity, I can tell you, and if that had been a part of my thesis, I'd be in deep trouble.

Having been a fan of ambient-guru Geir Jenssen aka Biosphere's music for a decade, listening to this actually reminds me of some of his works. I attended an amazing live-gig with him in September, where he created a similar mood, although a bit more exceptional with images and settings.

Also knowing that he is a member/employe at Notam (Norwegian Network for Acoustics, Technology and Music) I can't help feeling he got to be involved or an inspiration for this work of art.

Billy and the Boingers
Download Here!

here

Won't keep it there for long.

There are some wrappers for GPG, which is solely a command line utility. The Windows Privacy Tray is quite good.

Recently, I built an installer for WinPT 0.7.91 and GnuPG 1.2.0. Hopefully it is a much better approach to GnuPG than GnuPG alone, and almost as good as PGP itself for the newbies.

It can be found here (sig here). These links are a courtesy of Stephan Frye who apparently has a lot more bandwidth than me.

The original site for the installer contains some information about it, the apps packaged and is here, and the primary mirror, here.
The original site IS extremelly slow from 08am to 22pm (GMT+3).

Windows Privacy Tray home site is here.

There are some wrappers for GPG, which is solely a command line utility. The Windows Privacy Tray is quite good.

Recently, I built an installer for WinPT 0.7.91 and GnuPG 1.2.0. Hopefully it is a much better approach to GnuPG than GnuPG alone, and almost as good as PGP itself for the newbies.

It can be found here (sig here). These links are a courtesy of Stephan Frye who apparently has a lot more bandwidth than me.

The original site for the installer contains some information about it, the apps packaged and is here, and the primary mirror, here.
The original site IS extremelly slow from 08am to 22pm (GMT+3).

Windows Privacy Tray home site is here.

I hope that some one comes up with a smalll enough package that it can be designed to fit into the variouse packaging design that diffrent Laptop makers have for there batteries.

Just use palladium hydrogen storage for the fuel cells. Palladium has an interesting property of being able to absorb about 800 times it's volume of hydrogen. It is experimentally being used for fuel cell cars.

Palladium is quite expensive, however I don't think you would need very much for a laptop fuel cell.

"Secondly, a main contribution to reducing the effects of conflicts is to dissociate your prestige from silly factors like seniority, rank, faultlessness, etc. And as you grow older, show in practice that you listen to criticism, all criticism, and also from younger people, and adapt to it visibly when you think it is right

If AP wasn't writing for the masses, they might have said, "the co-inventor of object-oriented programming".

I'll let the late genius speak for himself, though: Kristen Nygaard's home page.

Kristen was a man who always had a lot of interesting and well thought through things to say. His academic contributions will be commented on by computer professionals, and his political contributions will be commented on by politicians. Those who knew him know that he always regarded his work with politics and science as parts of an integrated whole. A fairly recent article where he sums up his work can be found here. Quite interesting (as always).

My point is, is that society has created a backlash against this natural tendency - a backlash called "the feminist movement..."

It's one thing to say live and let live. I can agree with that. It's another to say that feminism is anti-natural or anti-biological. For many people, feminism is simply about making sure that women don't get beaten, raped, harrassed, have their rights taken away, etc. It's really that simple.

It's biology. You can fight it. But in the end, biology pumps your blood, regulates your hormones, and fires your neurons. You have free will, but there are certain things that are biologically engineered by nature to make you happy and content. It's often wise to listen to them.

Does biology dictate, like the Taliban, that we can beat and rape women? Please choose your words more carefully, and do some reading on feminism.

It has nothing to do with "diminishing the surprise of steves keynote".

I ALWAYS tell my friends to "Wait till macworld" to buy macs. (if its close to macworld). However this attitude CLEARLY hurts apple. Apple is trying to stop the osborne effect.

It's not even been announced yet, so please don't take down kde.org by slashdotting it. Use a mirror, list here. I got it from the Norwegian mirror which was very fast for me (I'm in Norway, YMMV, look out your window and check). It's a cool 100 megs though.

You make it sound like TeX is something rarely used...? In the physical sciences, you're not going anywhere without... That is, most use the LaTeX macros. I used it in my thesis, and my uncle, who is a professional typographer, said that very few professional typographers of today would produce something of the same typographical quality.

The reason why I learned OOP is pretty much that I had to. I'm at the University of Oslo in Norway, and OOP was invented here and implemented in SIMULA. So they really forced us to use SIMULA and program OO, but in just a couple of basic courses, so I didn't a prolonged forced exposure.

Examples where OO concepts are clear include SIMULA and the S system (my favorite implementation R). SIMULA is a full-blown OOP system (but there are various reasons why it failed), while S has just a few OO features, but the features that have been implemented are easy to understand, they incorporate some essential concepts, and they are very powerful.

Then, you have C++ which is also a full featured language, but where the concepts are not that clear and easy to grasp.

When OO gets muddy is usually when it is built on the top of existing languages. Perl OO is a bit muddy, but not too bad, but if you look at e.g. IDL it gets rather bad IMHO.

I don't buy the argument that Linux has come a very long way in a short amount of time. Well, I am impressed by development speed, but frankly I am a bit distressed by the apparent lack of originality in the Open Source community.

KDE and Gnome are based on the same ideas as Windows and MacOS. Ideas that took a long time to develop - coding them is, apparently, much easier. The same metaphors, the same look-and-feel. User interface design has come a very long way since 1984, but there is an overwhelming paucity of applications.

The arguments for Gnome and KDE are that people want to use metaphors that are familiar, and that's true, but this argument is misunderstood. The metaphors don't need to be familiar from other desktop user interfaces, they can be familiar from any aspect of the user's life!

As an example, in The Humane Interface, Jef Raskin describes a topological user interface where documents and applications are arranged topologically as "cities" and "villages" on a desktop. The user can surf the desktop looking for the right "pile" or "town", zoom in to view details, zoom out to get an overview. This desktop uses recent insights from the behavioral sciences (to be honest to both Raskin and myself, Raskin uses cognitive metaphors, but I am not a cognitive psychologist). This is just one example.

I have earlier defended Alan Cooper's right to his patent on one-click shopping, arguing that even if it is easy to implement, it must have been incredibly difficult to invent or even have somebody code. The same thing shows up, I believe, in Linux - good, new ideas are hard to come by! I was very disappointed by Eazel and Nautilus, for one thing - it was hailed as something new and exciting, but in reality this was just the same old story - twenty year old ideas, just a bit better-looking than the competition.

In order for MacOS X to "win", it's got to beat the Intel platform, which it won't. So Linux still has the chance to win on the most popular platform. But frankly, when I buy my next computer, I'd rather have Mac with OS X than a PC with Linux, unless Linux can be made to come with something that's obviously better than the current metaphor. I can't see how Linux can win the desktops unless the Linux GUI designers make some truly radical moves.

I see a lot of competence on coding there, but it seems that the Open Source community does not appreciate how difficult and competence-demanding it is to innovate in human interface design. Those who have the competence too often are in no position to contribute for free, spending all their time raising families and working. As sort of a piece of advice to Open Source GUI designers, I suggest you drop your coding for a while and read

• Donald Norman's The Design of Everyday Things
• Ben Shneiderman's Designing the User Interface
• Alan Cooper's The Inmates are Running the Asylum
• Jef Raskin's The Humane Interface

If you are familiar with these books and can recommend others in a similar vein, please do tell me!

the story that spawned the Terminator movies ("I have no mouth and I must scream!")

Right author, wrong story. It was mainly Harlan Ellison's "Soldier" and his Outer Limits episode "Demon With a Glass Hand" that inspired The Terminator. The connection between The Terminator and Ellison's "IHNM&IMS" is weaker -- see The Terminator FAQ or a bazillion other links.

Just wanted to set the record straight.

How can we forget:

The New Economy was powered by the Heart of Gold's Infinate Improbability Drive.

How else do you explain poop by mail.

SD