Funny, you seem to be arguing with me but you also seem to be repeating everything I said.
Suppose a large meteor did take out he US. Our population is a little under 300 million. That only leaves about 6 billion other people to try an muddle through without us.
A sufficiently severe catastrophe, whether an asteroid hit or something else, could take out 99% of the human population and still leave some 63 million people.
Americans, Europeans and many others are certainly dependent on technology. Most of us wouldn't know which end of a seed to plant in the ground. But there are huge populations of the world who still live fairly primitively.
The question wasn't whether we'd just shrug it off and continue like nothing happened. The question was whether the human race would go extinct. You know, every last member of the species dead? That kind of extinct?
About the only thing which would kill us without completely destroying the world would be some sort of super flu or other bug which was universally fatal to us but not to other species. (Another possibility would be one which was not fatal but caused universal sterility.) The odds of that are extremely tiny - there seems to always be some fraction of the population that are somehow immune to any specific disease.
Saying that we won't be driven to extinction doesn't rule out the possibility of any of a plethora of catastrophes. It just says that, as a species, we'll almost certainly survive anything short of complete destruction of the planet. Our civilization may not, but we will.
Dinosaur's were huge and highly specialized for their environment. They were vulnerable to any serious alteration to their habitat. Humans are the ultimate in generalists. We can survive in anything from tropical jungles to frozen tundra. Starvation due to huge decreases in the amount of food available would sharply reduce our population, but if anything more advanced than insects and grasses survive, there's every reason to believe we will too. Philosophers are divided on whether or not this is a good thing.
How about this? You decide what you need and I'll decide what I need. Because none of us need browsers either. We don't need an internet connection. All you really need is food and shelter.
I can do without mouse gestures and lots of other things but I'm damned if I'm going back to a browswer that doesn't support tabs. That's a "need" for me.
Defeats the purpose, as the whole point is to say that you're NOT sending encrypted information.
Random garbage wouldn't compress well anyway, for the same reason that encrypted data doesn't compress well - a lack of repeated senquences. It would be trivial to write a program that produces pseudo- or near-random garbage that will not compress.
However, it isn't at all certain that this would be beneficial to GPs purpose. There are ways to measure the amount of entropy in a string, and I'm not at all certain that it would be similar in an encrypted message and a random string. (I'm not an expert in this field, so I'm talking at the peripherals of my knowledge.)
While not quite as good as a mini-fridge, I'd think a large chest type cooler would work well too. You can pick them up for $20-$40 (depending on size and type) at everywhere from Wal-Mart to your local camping store.
Anybody have any idea how modular this code is? In other words, is the graphics engine code cleanly separate from the game code? If so, why not look at using this graphics engine to implement your ideas?
Your first sentence is true but irrelevant. Just because you can't make a system completely foolproof doesn't mean you can't make it highly fool-resistant. The common security issues that are causing so much trouble have nothing to do with Goedel or complexity. The danger can be greatly reduced in the OS design phase if security is given any priority. Of course, security wasn't a priority in the design phase of the most popular OS, and now they're scrambling to attach it peice meal after the fact.
You linked to Google Groups Advanced Search. This is the old search, which is still operational but probably will not be in the future.
Have a look here. Notice the "beta" in that URL? THAT's the new search page which just went live. Take a look at it and you'll notice that there's NO DATE RANGE.
Because someone found a silly way to implement a concept doesn't mean the concept itself is valid. Do some research on journaling file systems. They're called "journaling" because they keep a journal of what happens to the disk. If you lose power, it pulls up the journal and replays it to repair any damage done to the file system. An application could do the same thing - keep a journal of every command done to a file until the file is succesfully saved. If you lose power, you restart the app, it opens the file at the point of last save and replays the journal on the file in memory, putting you right back where you were at the time of the loss of power.
Your comments might have some merit if movies and video games were in competition with each other. They're not. Sure, there's a peripheral competition in that they're both competing for a limited pool of "entertainment dollars." But for the most part, they're two different things.
So "Alexander" got panned by the critics? Exactly what does that have to do with anything? Do you think the investors who paid for the movie invested their dollars so that they could hear Ebert say how good the movie is? Movie making is a business. All that matters is whether or not "Alexander" makes money. Chances are, by the time it plays world wide and then gets released to DVD, it'll make a ton of money. And the investors won't even be thinking about Ebert when they deposit their profits at the bank.
Video games are growing, but their future growth is limited. Video games compete with each other much more than movies do. As has already been pointed out, a video game cost $50 -$60 bucks, and the cost will certainly rise in the future. I guarantee you there were people who were agonizong over spending their money on Halo 2 or waiting so they could get Half Life 2. How many people do you think would like to go see "Alexander" but are saving their money to go see "Blade: Trinity" when it comes out? And yes, I realize Halo's an Xbox title and HL2 is a PC title. That's part of the point. Not only do games have to compete with each other, they have to compete with different platforms.
Movies aren't going anywhere in the forseeable future. Certainly, movies have changed and will continue to change. For one thing, most movies make more money in the rest of the world than they do in the US. Foreign (that is, non-US) films get lots of critical praise and recognition. But when it comes to making money, films are one area where the US is still firmly in control. US movies dominate the popularity charts and make the money. However, because so much of a film's profits is made overseas, the overseas audiance is becoming more and more important to film makers. Films are made to appeal to world wide audiences rather than purely US audiences. That actually works to make them less palatable with US audiences and US critics. In another area, computers are becoming increasingly ubiquitous in film making. I don't know how long it will be before a complete CGI film is indistuinguishable from life action video. But eventually, it will happen. In other words, the art and science of film making is definitely evolving. But, while films themselves may change, they aren't going away. Not in my lifetime and not in yours. (Unless, of course, they come up with anti-aging serums in our lifetime.)
I spent awhile searching for answers there and in the forums. I saw the "Can I sue my Steam account on other computers" but that wasn't the question I was asking. I wanted to know if I could install HL2 on two different computers. It certainly isn't clear to me that installing Steam on two different computers is the same as installing HL2 on two different computers. I didn't find the other questions you reference.
I still say that they should have a FAQ page or an introdutory page that talks about what Steam is and how it works, including covering issues like the ones I brought up rather than making a prospective customer search through support to find out basic info about their service. I spent a while on their site yesterday trying to find info and was quite frustrated when I left. You're familiar with their site, and know right where to search. It seems obvious and intuitive to you. To someone not familiar with the setup, it's neither.
nd yes, the box DOES state that you have to have a working account on their Steam network.
I don't know about this. I do know that they don't seem particularly concerned with making information available. I went to Steam yesterday following the Slashdot story on the Half-Life review.
I don't know jack about Steam except that you have to have an account to play Half-Life and you can download the game via the service. I went to the site because I had some questions about how it worked:
If I download the game and my hard drive crashes, can I reinstall it via Steam to a different hard drive? Can I install it to more than one computer if I only play one at a time (ie my desktop machine and my laptop)? Does it cost anything to have a Steam account other than the initial cost of the game? etc, etc.
Pretty straitforward questions that are almost certainly Frequently Asked. You'd think that a company selling a product would have some information on their site about it. Not only isn't there any information on what Steam is or how it works, there's no information on how to contact the company to get answers. There is a set of forums, but there's no indication that anyone from the company reads the forums.
If they're not concerned about having me as a customer, then I'm not concerned about it either.
There's actually two separate issues being discussed here. One is control over the reference. One is control over the implementation. Sun maintains control over the Java language reference. That's why they sued MS - because they extended the language in such a way that it broke things. Sun doesn't maintain control over all of the implementations. That's why you can get a Sun run time and an IBM run time and a GNU run time and an MS run time...
Sun could turn the standard over to an independent committee. They don't want to do that. You can argue the merits (or lack thereof) of their position but that's a different conversation and isn't comparable to Linus' control of the kernel (which is arguably an implementation of the POSIX standard.)
Processors are cheap. Software is cheap to duplicate. I'd strongly suspect something like a triple processor set-up, comparing the output of each to the other. If there's a discrepancy, go with the two that are closest together. I'd also expect a completely redundant system which does nothing but take control of the vehicle and safely bring it to a stop. Not absolutely foolproof but probably more trustworthy than a human driver.
I suspect it'll be some time before the cars are completely automated. I expect that cruise control will be expanded to essentially become an autopilot. The driver will have to turn the system on and will be able to retake control at any time.
I'd imagine that the first fully automated cars will be airport shuttles and similar vehicles which make a repeated circuit of stops. City buses and taxi cabs will come next, other commercial vehicles such as delivery vans and trucks, then finally personal automobiles. How much would a long haul semi-truck operation save if they could run their trucks 24/7 and didn't have to pay for drivers? That's a lot of profit to be had and profit drives innovation.
While what you say is correct, it's either beside the point or exactly the whole point, depending on how you look at it.
I'd have no problem if Microsoft jumped on a company who had a dozen white box servers all running Windows Server 2003 with the same serial number and no record at all of every purchasing the software. Instead, they demand proof of licensing for every installed pice of software, even if it's a copy of Windows 3.1 on an old 386 running some piece of legacy software in the corner. If you can't provide proof, you're paying for it. If one of your employers has installed an illegal pice of software which has nothing to do with his job, they don't bother to ask who screwed up. You're paying. Microsoft deserves exactly the same sympathy and consideration that they give others in similar situations - absolutely none at all.
The point is that if Microsoft can't even keep track of what's being used to produce the files that are distributed with their OS, where the hell do they get off demanding that others be able to keep such meticulous records of their software?
From the article: In 2000, the Business Software Alliance conducted a raid and subsequent audit at the San Luis Obispo, Calif.-based company that turned up a few dozen unlicensed copies of programs. Ball settled for $65,000, plus $35,000 in legal fees.
A business with 72 desktops and a couple of servers ended up paying $100,000, and all indications are that there was NO intentional pirating going on, just a bit of carelessness and sloppy bookkeeping.
And how many times has Microsoft's lapdog BSA audited some one, found a piece of Microsoft warez that some employee had pirated and fined the hell out of the company for it? That's what makes this newsworthy.
You make two different claims. First, you say SF is whatever the "majority of the public" says it is, and that the defintion is fluid over time. Second, you say it's whatever the author says it is and that it's immutable over time. Those two are incompatible.
In general, a word or phrase which means whatever you say it means is effectively meaningless. If you describe a story (whether written or film, of whatever length) as SF, that should tell me something about the work. If there aren't at least some aspects or characteristics that are widely agreed on, then the phrase tells me nothing. If the only characteristic that a work of SF has is that the author says it's SF, then the phrase is useless because it communicates no information.
Of course, that doesn't prevent you from using the word any way you like. To quote Lewis Carol, "When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said in a rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean--neither more nor less.
But neither does it mean that there isn't a widely accepted meaning of the genre. Writers, editors and others who make their living working within the genre have invested a great deal of time and effort into defining it. They don't always agree on the details, but the aspects I pointed out aren't considered controversial. They're pretty widely accepted.
The distinctin between SF and fantasy has nothing to do with ray guns or space ships. There are lots of nuances and the question not only can be but acutally has been debated in volumes. There's no way that it can be given even reasonably fair or comprehensive treatment in a format like this.
That being said, one of the distinctions is that SF makes a good faith effort to comply with the known laws of physics (at the time of writing), to postulate new laws or modifications of the existing laws of physics which are inherently consistent or to establish a universe with an alternate but internally consistent set of laws of physics. Put another way, SF should be possible. Fantasy is generally impossible.
Many of the golden age SF classics would not be considered SF if published today. They're generally grandfathered in to the genre.
Well, anybody that refers to the X-Files as good non-space SF obviously has no clue anyway.
If you're an X-Files fan, wonderful. Love it to you heart's content. But, space aliens not withstanding, X-Files was not SF, good, bad or indifferent. It was fantasy.
Uh, did you see the post I was replying to? It asked what happens if there's a glitch and the electronics fires the gun when you don't want it to. I has nothing to do with someone else firing the gun, only the gun going off accidentally because the electronics screwed up. Since the electronics don't fire the gun, this can't happen.
You can make up all kinds of fucked up scenarios to try to prove anything. As with anything else, you evaluate the situation. But if someone breaks into my house, I'm going to assume that they're a deadly danger to me and my family and act accordingly.
Have you ever had someone break into your house while you were there? I have. I and my three kids were in bed asleep when someone came in and stole my computer, my camera (high dollar 35mm SLR with over a $1000 worth of accesories) and a host of other things. The stuff wasn't that big a deal. It's just money. The invasion of my home was something else. If it happens again, I'll do what I feel I have to do.
Slashdot Mirror
Funny, you seem to be arguing with me but you also seem to be repeating everything I said.
Suppose a large meteor did take out he US. Our population is a little under 300 million. That only leaves about 6 billion other people to try an muddle through without us.
A sufficiently severe catastrophe, whether an asteroid hit or something else, could take out 99% of the human population and still leave some 63 million people.
Americans, Europeans and many others are certainly dependent on technology. Most of us wouldn't know which end of a seed to plant in the ground. But there are huge populations of the world who still live fairly primitively.
The question wasn't whether we'd just shrug it off and continue like nothing happened. The question was whether the human race would go extinct. You know, every last member of the species dead? That kind of extinct?
About the only thing which would kill us without completely destroying the world would be some sort of super flu or other bug which was universally fatal to us but not to other species. (Another possibility would be one which was not fatal but caused universal sterility.) The odds of that are extremely tiny - there seems to always be some fraction of the population that are somehow immune to any specific disease.
Saying that we won't be driven to extinction doesn't rule out the possibility of any of a plethora of catastrophes. It just says that, as a species, we'll almost certainly survive anything short of complete destruction of the planet. Our civilization may not, but we will.
Dinosaur's were huge and highly specialized for their environment. They were vulnerable to any serious alteration to their habitat. Humans are the ultimate in generalists. We can survive in anything from tropical jungles to frozen tundra. Starvation due to huge decreases in the amount of food available would sharply reduce our population, but if anything more advanced than insects and grasses survive, there's every reason to believe we will too. Philosophers are divided on whether or not this is a good thing.
How about this? You decide what you need and I'll decide what I need. Because none of us need browsers either. We don't need an internet connection. All you really need is food and shelter.
I can do without mouse gestures and lots of other things but I'm damned if I'm going back to a browswer that doesn't support tabs. That's a "need" for me.
Defeats the purpose, as the whole point is to say that you're NOT sending encrypted information.
Random garbage wouldn't compress well anyway, for the same reason that encrypted data doesn't compress well - a lack of repeated senquences. It would be trivial to write a program that produces pseudo- or near-random garbage that will not compress.
However, it isn't at all certain that this would be beneficial to GPs purpose. There are ways to measure the amount of entropy in a string, and I'm not at all certain that it would be similar in an encrypted message and a random string. (I'm not an expert in this field, so I'm talking at the peripherals of my knowledge.)
While not quite as good as a mini-fridge, I'd think a large chest type cooler would work well too. You can pick them up for $20-$40 (depending on size and type) at everywhere from Wal-Mart to your local camping store.
Anybody have any idea how modular this code is? In other words, is the graphics engine code cleanly separate from the game code? If so, why not look at using this graphics engine to implement your ideas?
Your first sentence is true but irrelevant. Just because you can't make a system completely foolproof doesn't mean you can't make it highly fool-resistant. The common security issues that are causing so much trouble have nothing to do with Goedel or complexity. The danger can be greatly reduced in the OS design phase if security is given any priority. Of course, security wasn't a priority in the design phase of the most popular OS, and now they're scrambling to attach it peice meal after the fact.
NO YOU CAN NOT!!!
Perhaps you should take your own advice and RTFM.
You linked to Google Groups Advanced Search. This is the old search, which is still operational but probably will not be in the future.
Have a look here. Notice the "beta" in that URL? THAT's the new search page which just went live. Take a look at it and you'll notice that there's NO DATE RANGE.
Because someone found a silly way to implement a concept doesn't mean the concept itself is valid. Do some research on journaling file systems. They're called "journaling" because they keep a journal of what happens to the disk. If you lose power, it pulls up the journal and replays it to repair any damage done to the file system. An application could do the same thing - keep a journal of every command done to a file until the file is succesfully saved. If you lose power, you restart the app, it opens the file at the point of last save and replays the journal on the file in memory, putting you right back where you were at the time of the loss of power.
Uh, some of us sit around broswing Slashdot while we're watching football. I have the WVU/Pitt game on right now.
Your comments might have some merit if movies and video games were in competition with each other. They're not. Sure, there's a peripheral competition in that they're both competing for a limited pool of "entertainment dollars." But for the most part, they're two different things.
So "Alexander" got panned by the critics? Exactly what does that have to do with anything? Do you think the investors who paid for the movie invested their dollars so that they could hear Ebert say how good the movie is? Movie making is a business. All that matters is whether or not "Alexander" makes money. Chances are, by the time it plays world wide and then gets released to DVD, it'll make a ton of money. And the investors won't even be thinking about Ebert when they deposit their profits at the bank.
Video games are growing, but their future growth is limited. Video games compete with each other much more than movies do. As has already been pointed out, a video game cost $50 -$60 bucks, and the cost will certainly rise in the future. I guarantee you there were people who were agonizong over spending their money on Halo 2 or waiting so they could get Half Life 2. How many people do you think would like to go see "Alexander" but are saving their money to go see "Blade: Trinity" when it comes out? And yes, I realize Halo's an Xbox title and HL2 is a PC title. That's part of the point. Not only do games have to compete with each other, they have to compete with different platforms.
Movies aren't going anywhere in the forseeable future. Certainly, movies have changed and will continue to change. For one thing, most movies make more money in the rest of the world than they do in the US. Foreign (that is, non-US) films get lots of critical praise and recognition. But when it comes to making money, films are one area where the US is still firmly in control. US movies dominate the popularity charts and make the money. However, because so much of a film's profits is made overseas, the overseas audiance is becoming more and more important to film makers. Films are made to appeal to world wide audiences rather than purely US audiences. That actually works to make them less palatable with US audiences and US critics. In another area, computers are becoming increasingly ubiquitous in film making. I don't know how long it will be before a complete CGI film is indistuinguishable from life action video. But eventually, it will happen. In other words, the art and science of film making is definitely evolving. But, while films themselves may change, they aren't going away. Not in my lifetime and not in yours. (Unless, of course, they come up with anti-aging serums in our lifetime.)
I spent awhile searching for answers there and in the forums. I saw the "Can I sue my Steam account on other computers" but that wasn't the question I was asking. I wanted to know if I could install HL2 on two different computers. It certainly isn't clear to me that installing Steam on two different computers is the same as installing HL2 on two different computers. I didn't find the other questions you reference.
I still say that they should have a FAQ page or an introdutory page that talks about what Steam is and how it works, including covering issues like the ones I brought up rather than making a prospective customer search through support to find out basic info about their service. I spent a while on their site yesterday trying to find info and was quite frustrated when I left. You're familiar with their site, and know right where to search. It seems obvious and intuitive to you. To someone not familiar with the setup, it's neither.
nd yes, the box DOES state that you have to have a working account on their Steam network.
I don't know about this. I do know that they don't seem particularly concerned with making information available. I went to Steam yesterday following the Slashdot story on the Half-Life review.
I don't know jack about Steam except that you have to have an account to play Half-Life and you can download the game via the service. I went to the site because I had some questions about how it worked:
If I download the game and my hard drive crashes, can I reinstall it via Steam to a different hard drive? Can I install it to more than one computer if I only play one at a time (ie my desktop machine and my laptop)? Does it cost anything to have a Steam account other than the initial cost of the game? etc, etc.
Pretty straitforward questions that are almost certainly Frequently Asked. You'd think that a company selling a product would have some information on their site about it. Not only isn't there any information on what Steam is or how it works, there's no information on how to contact the company to get answers. There is a set of forums, but there's no indication that anyone from the company reads the forums.
If they're not concerned about having me as a customer, then I'm not concerned about it either.
There's actually two separate issues being discussed here. One is control over the reference. One is control over the implementation. Sun maintains control over the Java language reference. That's why they sued MS - because they extended the language in such a way that it broke things. Sun doesn't maintain control over all of the implementations. That's why you can get a Sun run time and an IBM run time and a GNU run time and an MS run time ...
Sun could turn the standard over to an independent committee. They don't want to do that. You can argue the merits (or lack thereof) of their position but that's a different conversation and isn't comparable to Linus' control of the kernel (which is arguably an implementation of the POSIX standard.)
Probably the same reason you buy a car with an air bag today.
Processors are cheap. Software is cheap to duplicate. I'd strongly suspect something like a triple processor set-up, comparing the output of each to the other. If there's a discrepancy, go with the two that are closest together. I'd also expect a completely redundant system which does nothing but take control of the vehicle and safely bring it to a stop. Not absolutely foolproof but probably more trustworthy than a human driver.
I suspect it'll be some time before the cars are completely automated. I expect that cruise control will be expanded to essentially become an autopilot. The driver will have to turn the system on and will be able to retake control at any time.
I'd imagine that the first fully automated cars will be airport shuttles and similar vehicles which make a repeated circuit of stops. City buses and taxi cabs will come next, other commercial vehicles such as delivery vans and trucks, then finally personal automobiles. How much would a long haul semi-truck operation save if they could run their trucks 24/7 and didn't have to pay for drivers? That's a lot of profit to be had and profit drives innovation.
While what you say is correct, it's either beside the point or exactly the whole point, depending on how you look at it.
I'd have no problem if Microsoft jumped on a company who had a dozen white box servers all running Windows Server 2003 with the same serial number and no record at all of every purchasing the software. Instead, they demand proof of licensing for every installed pice of software, even if it's a copy of Windows 3.1 on an old 386 running some piece of legacy software in the corner. If you can't provide proof, you're paying for it. If one of your employers has installed an illegal pice of software which has nothing to do with his job, they don't bother to ask who screwed up. You're paying. Microsoft deserves exactly the same sympathy and consideration that they give others in similar situations - absolutely none at all.
The point is that if Microsoft can't even keep track of what's being used to produce the files that are distributed with their OS, where the hell do they get off demanding that others be able to keep such meticulous records of their software?
Have a look here.
From the article: In 2000, the Business Software Alliance conducted a raid and subsequent audit at the San Luis Obispo, Calif.-based company that turned up a few dozen unlicensed copies of programs. Ball settled for $65,000, plus $35,000 in legal fees.
A business with 72 desktops and a couple of servers ended up paying $100,000, and all indications are that there was NO intentional pirating going on, just a bit of carelessness and sloppy bookkeeping.
And how many times has Microsoft's lapdog BSA audited some one, found a piece of Microsoft warez that some employee had pirated and fined the hell out of the company for it? That's what makes this newsworthy.
You make two different claims. First, you say SF is whatever the "majority of the public" says it is, and that the defintion is fluid over time. Second, you say it's whatever the author says it is and that it's immutable over time. Those two are incompatible.
In general, a word or phrase which means whatever you say it means is effectively meaningless. If you describe a story (whether written or film, of whatever length) as SF, that should tell me something about the work. If there aren't at least some aspects or characteristics that are widely agreed on, then the phrase tells me nothing. If the only characteristic that a work of SF has is that the author says it's SF, then the phrase is useless because it communicates no information.
Of course, that doesn't prevent you from using the word any way you like. To quote Lewis Carol, "When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said in a rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean--neither more nor less.
But neither does it mean that there isn't a widely accepted meaning of the genre. Writers, editors and others who make their living working within the genre have invested a great deal of time and effort into defining it. They don't always agree on the details, but the aspects I pointed out aren't considered controversial. They're pretty widely accepted.
The distinctin between SF and fantasy has nothing to do with ray guns or space ships. There are lots of nuances and the question not only can be but acutally has been debated in volumes. There's no way that it can be given even reasonably fair or comprehensive treatment in a format like this.
That being said, one of the distinctions is that SF makes a good faith effort to comply with the known laws of physics (at the time of writing), to postulate new laws or modifications of the existing laws of physics which are inherently consistent or to establish a universe with an alternate but internally consistent set of laws of physics. Put another way, SF should be possible. Fantasy is generally impossible.
Many of the golden age SF classics would not be considered SF if published today. They're generally grandfathered in to the genre.
Well, anybody that refers to the X-Files as good non-space SF obviously has no clue anyway.
If you're an X-Files fan, wonderful. Love it to you heart's content. But, space aliens not withstanding, X-Files was not SF, good, bad or indifferent. It was fantasy.
Uh, did you see the post I was replying to? It asked what happens if there's a glitch and the electronics fires the gun when you don't want it to. I has nothing to do with someone else firing the gun, only the gun going off accidentally because the electronics screwed up. Since the electronics don't fire the gun, this can't happen.
You can make up all kinds of fucked up scenarios to try to prove anything. As with anything else, you evaluate the situation. But if someone breaks into my house, I'm going to assume that they're a deadly danger to me and my family and act accordingly.
Have you ever had someone break into your house while you were there? I have. I and my three kids were in bed asleep when someone came in and stole my computer, my camera (high dollar 35mm SLR with over a $1000 worth of accesories) and a host of other things. The stuff wasn't that big a deal. It's just money. The invasion of my home was something else. If it happens again, I'll do what I feel I have to do.