This is sort of offtopic, but I have a different perspective on any of these reports of Sol-like systems.
Given our current detection technology, how far away could an alien observer be and still be able to
1) Detect Sol
2) Detect rocky planets within Sol's habitable zone, specifically at least one of Earth's dimensions.
3) Determine the composition of one of those planets to be composed of organic chemistry requisite for life as we know it?
My layman's guess is that that alien observer would have to be absurdly close to us in order to measure these 3 things, even the first two for that matter.
I've wondered about this for quite some time, but don't know enough about the limits of our current detection methods to determine how far away an outside observer could theoretically be and still detect earth at all, much less its chemical composition. Anyone care to enlighten me. I am really curious about this.
My point being, that my layman's guess suggests that by a large margin, there are more points within our galaxy that earth is completely invisible, in respect to our current observation technology. If that is truly the case, then would it be foolish to suggest that the Sol system isn't particularly rare at all? If not, then why is it so special that we've found something that "sort-of" resembles Sol? Big whoop. Get back to me when they've found a place we can actually emigrate to;-)
Hahaha, mod parent up informative. I don't know what the AC's point actually is, but that actually is the entomology. FWIW, experience has taught me that Twinks are expensive only exclusively to WoW. Otherwise you are getting ripped off.;-)
Well that, and n00bs have a tendency to label anyone who can handily beat them (no pun intended) as "
fags". Go figure.
If they utilize this to equalize server load, I posit it is by far the worst solution to a technical problem. I don't buy it. They have plenty of server muscle, so this to me is a red herring. Location means something on its own in-game, and needn't be defined solely based on "how long it takes to get there".
I don't have a problem walking to the portal the FIRST time. I just see no point in doing it EVERY time. Its a fucking stupid waste of time, and that there are portals from Shatt to each faction's capital cities is a tacit acknowledgment of the same.
And finally, don't be a tool. If you are so obtuse as to be serious in your second paragraph, I tend towards believing you don't have anything of substance to add to the thread. I would be delighted to learn otherwise.
One of my main points in my OP is that the flight time is ridiculous. I stand behind my assertion that it is a stupid waste of time for it to take nearly 15 minutes to go from the northern end of either kalimdor or eastern kingdoms to the southern end of the same. WTF, I have precious few hours a week to spend of WoW, I don't want to spend a large precentage of it en-route to someplace where I will spend 30 minutes, only to be sent to the other end of the continent (if I am lucky). Its stupid, and this post is the first and only one to convince me of its benefit. I challenge you to give an equally logical reason for it.
Good point, I hadn't thought of that. Though it is really only applicable to PvP servers. What the hell is the point of such long travel time on PvE servers, then?
I think the reason that WoW STILL has 10 million subscribers is simply because it takes a LONG time to do things right. Levelling goes very fast(faster than ever since patch 2.3), but grinding for reputation, items, gold, and professions is a huge time-sink, in terms of hours. If you are the kind of person who ISN'T allowed to play for 12 hours a day, it can take many many months to move toward end-game content.
And that is to say nothing about PvP and Battlegrounds. The only other online games I've ever bothered to get into are Quake2 and Quake3. There is something irresistible about CTF and the other battlegrounds games. But to kick ass, you need a twink, which obviates the need for your main to spend all kinds of time grinding to fund your twink.
Then there is arena, where you attempt to twink your main, basically.
To have it all, it takes a huge time investment, which is reflected in the number of subscriptions Blizzard maintains over the long-term.
Now, I am not saying it is wrong for Blizz to extend the gameplay time by making it take forever to get anywhere on foot, or low drop rates, or the price of an epic mount versus the amount one can reasonably grind in say, 50 hours of play.
Well, the travel time actually is nothing short of ridiculous. Travel-time between "flight points" should be instantaneous. Just replace flight points with portals. PLEASE! Travel time between kalimdor and anywhere in outland is just crap. C'mon now.
OTOH, Blizz has been pretty good about regularly adding new content (even outside expansion releases), adjusting item and talent specs, and generally making the game more accessible to people with less time on their hands.
They've struck a good balance between making their product more open to new subscribers, as well as maintaining their long-term customer.
They've executed a well-crafted plan to widen their subscriber base while retaining a solid number of existing customers. That is the hallmark of any successful business.
</verbose>
You could try a Line 6 UX1 or UX2. That may be what you are looking for. Reasonably priced for what they are, really. I;ve been thinking of picking one up myself;-)
Hmm, yeah, it has worked fine with all games I have played. I can't see why it wouldn't. Though I can see why crappy ports of console games might have a little more trouble with those sorts of things. That would be a software issue, not a hardware issue.
Its not a clear example at all. Its actually a very myopic and incorrect statement all around. While not exactly a gaming rig, the onboard audio in my Gateway GM5424 delivers 7.1 HD Audio via optical cable to my surround sound console just fine. I don't know how you get more high-end than that. If you are talking about expansion cards specifically, then I would suggest that you consider getting yourself a bona-fide gaming rig with decent onboard audio instead. Other posters have mentioned that there are other companies that provide less-costly, high quality expansion cards if that is more your bag.;-)
Well, that is the problem, the existing companies still have a leg up because they own the current infrastructure. Even though I am no fan of these rotten, huge companies, I have even bigger qualms with the government (if you are in the U.S.) having complete control over our telco infrastructure. That would be an utter disaster. The government already conducts illegal monitoring as it is, with the telcos being complicit to varying degrees. The White House has wiped its ass with the Constitution quite enough in the last seven years for my taste, thanks. I don't care for the government to axiomatically be privy to my daily surfing habits, regardless of whether or not I have anything to hide. Look at all the bullshit, extraneous regulations, monitoring, and filtering that the Chinese government foists upon its people. I am an American and I will be goddamned if I will let that happen to me.
The final sentence of your post sums up the problem quite well, but your solution fails miserably, and would only put us in more dire straits. I'd trade my DSL for dialup if I only had reasonable assurance that the government would be required to keep its nose out of my business, barring a good-old-fashioned, legally obtained warrant.
Just, curious, because its not clear from your post -- What version of KDE are you running in which Konq crashes on you? I run Kunbuntu 7.10 and have never had any official KDE apps die on me. Are you running KDE 4.0 or the prereleases or something?
This stupid dickering over population density and whatall manages to totally miss the point. In the U.S. there IS NO FREE MARKET for telco. Not even close. In which case, inertia is the biggest culprit, which explains why a very significant minority of the populous STILL can't get anything better (bandwidth/latency-wise) than freakin' dialup. The 'last-mile' problem exists for the same reason. When there is one telephone company and one cable company in town (in some cases they are one and the same), there is absolutely NO reason why that company would roll out last-mile fiber. The CEOs of those companies would be flogged by the shareholders for even suggesting what would be perceived as an unnecessary and costly venture. It is a chicken-and-egg scenario for a lot of companies. For the majority of internet users, anything beyond bare-bones 1024/256 DSL is really not necessary. People would likely find a use for it if it existed, but don't demand the upgrade in infrastructure because it is a white elephant ATM.
For example, I live 18 miles from the nearest town, and get 1024/256 DSL by pure accident because I live on a well-traveled highway. Us lucky folks get to watch streaming video without hiccups. Our modem-bound neighbors a mile to the north have no such luxury.:-/
I don't know if it is administered at the federal or state level, but here in Wisconsin if you own a bar or restaurant and want to play music, you have to acquire a license in order to pay royalties. The dollar amount of royalty to be paid depends on various factors. Rather than fool around with trying to calculate royalties, some business-owners simply subscribe to a satellite service which figures royalties into the service fee and the service provider takes care of the rest. I believe in some localities, purchasing a license from the county or state precludes the need to pay additional royalty. However, in either case there is no additional charge if the 'guys in back' are playing the radio loud enough for guests to overhear it.;-)
I had to snicker when the first five comments (including parts of the first thread) all contained typos, spelling errors, or incorrect capitalization and/or punctuation. I'm no English major and don't mean to be a pedant (there are likely errors in this post), but maybe writing quality book reports yields high marks because the submitter avoids presenting himself as an uneducated buffoon with only simple mastery of the English language? My apologies if English isn't your mother-tongue, you are exempt from the following:
In my short professional career (I am 27), I have oddly met and had close professional relationships with several Engineers. One that worked for 3M, one for IBM, and a contract integrated-circuits whiz. They are all in their mid-to-late 50's. They are well respected and accomplished in their work -- and at first blush they all seem to be dullards and/or social misfits. Upon further inspection they have all turned out to be quite brilliant and well-spoken. Unfortunately, perception is reality. It sounds like TFA author is jealous because others picked a field in which it is easier for them to excel. If it is so easy, I challenge the author to switch to an English major instead. He will either succeed in that field or eat crow. It is a moral victory in any case.
Or, to put in simpler terms TFA author may better understand: STFU and GTFO. RTFM FTW. Less QQ more PEW PEW!
Quite right. And at least with Vista, the same is true. You can't write to system directories unless you are Administrator, so again its a moot point. But that doesn't change the fact that its not an OS issue, shitty application development is to blame. I can't even hold microsoft accountable for it, considering that Visual Studio makes it trivially easy to store global variables within the application directory and user-specific configs in C:/Documents and Settings/~user (or C:/Users/~user if Vista is your bag). Again, it is a problem of the application developers themselves, not the platform. I've seen linux applications do things just as retarded as windows apps. About the only edge linux apps have in this context is that they usually have compile-time flags that can put config directories more to your liking. With windows apps, you pretty much have to put up with whatever behavior the developer saw fit to include with the binary blob.
And some programs in linux insist on scattering files over/home/~username,/usr/share,/usr/local/share,/etc and/var. Not to mention/usr/lib and/usr/share/lib for system and shared libraries.
How is that really any different? If you want to keep all your files, environment settings, and programs on a jumpdrive, then you need to use applications that are developed with that in mind. Portable Firefox is a notable example. World of Warcraft pretty much is portable by default (except for its annoying habit of storing my screenshots in some pseudo system folder). The problem seems to be more crappy application development than flaws in the OS design. Unfortunately, some applications do not lead themselves well to becoming "portable".
But I expect some of that 60% were too stupid to vote.
I don't disagree, but were they stupid to vote, or wise enough to realize they had no meaningful choice to make? For a good while now, the presidential election has been the choice between a Douche and Turd.
Totally true. The invasiveness certainly gives people the impression the somebody is "doing something", and some people need that. However, I for one don't really care for it the strong caress of the nanny state. Its unpleasant. It feels more like getting groped by a dirty old man.
Too little, too late. Seven years ago would have been an opportune time to put the administration in its place. We've already allowed them to alienate our inalienable rights, and we've paid them nearly a half a trillion dollars for the privilege. I'm sorry, but 2 blown up buildings, three lost airliners, and ~4000 dead civilians aren't worth the price of my essential liberty or yours. If our loss was tenfold it still would not and could not justify disregard for our civil liberties. And that is to say nothing about the skyrocketing oil prices and the fact that nearly the whole rest of the world hates us. For what? Safety? Security? Its an illusion, and always has been. Remember that, the next time they make you take off your shoes at the airport. Its nothing cabin door locks and a few air marshalls couldn't fix. There is no safety guarantee in life. We all run the risk of something bad happening to us every time we leave our homes for the day. Any day could be the day you don't come home. More Americans die every year of self-induced injuries (alcohol abuse, drug use, smoking, and obesity to name a few), but I don't see a half a trillion dollar initiative to solve THOSE problems. Its a sorry state of affairs when the land of the free is fleeced due to a glorified snipe hunt, and sorrier yet that the whole scheme has been perpetrated by those sworn to faithfully uphold the ideals and best interests of the American people. And sorriest of all is that you and I have done it to ourselves by allowing these criminals to frighten us and rob is of our rights, dignity, and tax dollars in the name of protection against a bogeyman that simply doesn't exist. I am certain that our founding fathers would have some stern worlds on the subject -- oh, well they did, its called the Constitution, but fuck it, we threw that out the window seven years ago. We will get exactly what we deserve. But hey, as long as we have Blu-Ray, American Idol, and Ipods, its all good right?
In the timeless words of Charlie Brown: Good grief!
Oh, well, that just makes it all better now, doesn't it? Miguel says he's sorry, guys. Will you forgive him?
<Engage flame retardant vestments of the pious>
No. I swear this idiot thinks he is the next Linus or something.
He has made one stupid decision after another in regards to Microsoft and pseudo-MS technology, and now its biting him in the ass. His stupid mistakes are the reason I can no longer run SuSE in good conscience. I hope MS ends up shoving it up his ass and Novell takes a hit for their trouble. Thats what they get for screwing up my fave Linux Distro.
OTOH, if it wasn't for their collective ignorance, I'd have never discovered Kubuntu, which totally rocks. So, thanks Miguel for being a sellout. You have been assimilated and I have been freed. Have a nice day.
Hmm, I think I'm missing something:
$8.6 million in cost
/ 7 million bills =
~$1.23 per bill on average.
Sooooo, unless I'm mistaken, these guys are bellyaching about a $1.23 annual charge to get an extra hour of sunlight in the evening?
Ooh, those capitalist bastards!
But seriously, $1.23?
BFD.
In the northern latitudes, it is dark when I drive to work and dark when I get out of work for a good 4 months out of the year. Heck, I'd pay an additional $1.23 per year to have DST extended year-round;-)
Slashdot Mirror
You are breathing through your mouth.
Stop that.
This is sort of offtopic, but I have a different perspective on any of these reports of Sol-like systems.
;-)
Given our current detection technology, how far away could an alien observer be and still be able to
1) Detect Sol
2) Detect rocky planets within Sol's habitable zone, specifically at least one of Earth's dimensions.
3) Determine the composition of one of those planets to be composed of organic chemistry requisite for life as we know it?
My layman's guess is that that alien observer would have to be absurdly close to us in order to measure these 3 things, even the first two for that matter.
I've wondered about this for quite some time, but don't know enough about the limits of our current detection methods to determine how far away an outside observer could theoretically be and still detect earth at all, much less its chemical composition. Anyone care to enlighten me. I am really curious about this.
My point being, that my layman's guess suggests that by a large margin, there are more points within our galaxy that earth is completely invisible, in respect to our current observation technology. If that is truly the case, then would it be foolish to suggest that the Sol system isn't particularly rare at all? If not, then why is it so special that we've found something that "sort-of" resembles Sol? Big whoop. Get back to me when they've found a place we can actually emigrate to
Hahaha, mod parent up informative. I don't know what the AC's point actually is, but that actually is the entomology. FWIW, experience has taught me that Twinks are expensive only exclusively to WoW. Otherwise you are getting ripped off. ;-)
Well that, and n00bs have a tendency to label anyone who can handily beat them (no pun intended) as " fags". Go figure.
If they utilize this to equalize server load, I posit it is by far the worst solution to a technical problem. I don't buy it. They have plenty of server muscle, so this to me is a red herring. Location means something on its own in-game, and needn't be defined solely based on "how long it takes to get there".
I don't have a problem walking to the portal the FIRST time. I just see no point in doing it EVERY time. Its a fucking stupid waste of time, and that there are portals from Shatt to each faction's capital cities is a tacit acknowledgment of the same.
And finally, don't be a tool. If you are so obtuse as to be serious in your second paragraph, I tend towards believing you don't have anything of substance to add to the thread. I would be delighted to learn otherwise.
One of my main points in my OP is that the flight time is ridiculous. I stand behind my assertion that it is a stupid waste of time for it to take nearly 15 minutes to go from the northern end of either kalimdor or eastern kingdoms to the southern end of the same. WTF, I have precious few hours a week to spend of WoW, I don't want to spend a large precentage of it en-route to someplace where I will spend 30 minutes, only to be sent to the other end of the continent (if I am lucky). Its stupid, and this post is the first and only one to convince me of its benefit. I challenge you to give an equally logical reason for it.
Good point, I hadn't thought of that. Though it is really only applicable to PvP servers. What the hell is the point of such long travel time on PvE servers, then?
I think the reason that WoW STILL has 10 million subscribers is simply because it takes a LONG time to do things right. Levelling goes very fast(faster than ever since patch 2.3), but grinding for reputation, items, gold, and professions is a huge time-sink, in terms of hours. If you are the kind of person who ISN'T allowed to play for 12 hours a day, it can take many many months to move toward end-game content.
And that is to say nothing about PvP and Battlegrounds. The only other online games I've ever bothered to get into are Quake2 and Quake3. There is something irresistible about CTF and the other battlegrounds games. But to kick ass, you need a twink, which obviates the need for your main to spend all kinds of time grinding to fund your twink.
Then there is arena, where you attempt to twink your main, basically.
To have it all, it takes a huge time investment, which is reflected in the number of subscriptions Blizzard maintains over the long-term.
Now, I am not saying it is wrong for Blizz to extend the gameplay time by making it take forever to get anywhere on foot, or low drop rates, or the price of an epic mount versus the amount one can reasonably grind in say, 50 hours of play.
Well, the travel time actually is nothing short of ridiculous. Travel-time between "flight points" should be instantaneous. Just replace flight points with portals. PLEASE! Travel time between kalimdor and anywhere in outland is just crap. C'mon now.
OTOH, Blizz has been pretty good about regularly adding new content (even outside expansion releases), adjusting item and talent specs, and generally making the game more accessible to people with less time on their hands.
They've struck a good balance between making their product more open to new subscribers, as well as maintaining their long-term customer.
They've executed a well-crafted plan to widen their subscriber base while retaining a solid number of existing customers. That is the hallmark of any successful business. </verbose>
I am surprised to say, that I agree. But by the same token, none of it suggests intelligence, either.
You could try a Line 6 UX1 or UX2. That may be what you are looking for. Reasonably priced for what they are, really. I;ve been thinking of picking one up myself ;-)
Hmm, yeah, it has worked fine with all games I have played. I can't see why it wouldn't. Though I can see why crappy ports of console games might have a little more trouble with those sorts of things. That would be a software issue, not a hardware issue.
Its not a clear example at all. Its actually a very myopic and incorrect statement all around. While not exactly a gaming rig, the onboard audio in my Gateway GM5424 delivers 7.1 HD Audio via optical cable to my surround sound console just fine. I don't know how you get more high-end than that. If you are talking about expansion cards specifically, then I would suggest that you consider getting yourself a bona-fide gaming rig with decent onboard audio instead. Other posters have mentioned that there are other companies that provide less-costly, high quality expansion cards if that is more your bag. ;-)
Yep, that will teach them. Hey, do me a favor and stop buying Microsoft products while you are at it ;-)
Well, that is the problem, the existing companies still have a leg up because they own the current infrastructure. Even though I am no fan of these rotten, huge companies, I have even bigger qualms with the government (if you are in the U.S.) having complete control over our telco infrastructure. That would be an utter disaster. The government already conducts illegal monitoring as it is, with the telcos being complicit to varying degrees. The White House has wiped its ass with the Constitution quite enough in the last seven years for my taste, thanks. I don't care for the government to axiomatically be privy to my daily surfing habits, regardless of whether or not I have anything to hide. Look at all the bullshit, extraneous regulations, monitoring, and filtering that the Chinese government foists upon its people. I am an American and I will be goddamned if I will let that happen to me.
The final sentence of your post sums up the problem quite well, but your solution fails miserably, and would only put us in more dire straits. I'd trade my DSL for dialup if I only had reasonable assurance that the government would be required to keep its nose out of my business, barring a good-old-fashioned, legally obtained warrant.
Just, curious, because its not clear from your post -- What version of KDE are you running in which Konq crashes on you? I run Kunbuntu 7.10 and have never had any official KDE apps die on me. Are you running KDE 4.0 or the prereleases or something?
MOD PARENT UP!
:-/
This stupid dickering over population density and whatall manages to totally miss the point. In the U.S. there IS NO FREE MARKET for telco. Not even close. In which case, inertia is the biggest culprit, which explains why a very significant minority of the populous STILL can't get anything better (bandwidth/latency-wise) than freakin' dialup. The 'last-mile' problem exists for the same reason. When there is one telephone company and one cable company in town (in some cases they are one and the same), there is absolutely NO reason why that company would roll out last-mile fiber. The CEOs of those companies would be flogged by the shareholders for even suggesting what would be perceived as an unnecessary and costly venture. It is a chicken-and-egg scenario for a lot of companies. For the majority of internet users, anything beyond bare-bones 1024/256 DSL is really not necessary. People would likely find a use for it if it existed, but don't demand the upgrade in infrastructure because it is a white elephant ATM.
For example, I live 18 miles from the nearest town, and get 1024/256 DSL by pure accident because I live on a well-traveled highway. Us lucky folks get to watch streaming video without hiccups. Our modem-bound neighbors a mile to the north have no such luxury.
I don't know if it is administered at the federal or state level, but here in Wisconsin if you own a bar or restaurant and want to play music, you have to acquire a license in order to pay royalties. The dollar amount of royalty to be paid depends on various factors. Rather than fool around with trying to calculate royalties, some business-owners simply subscribe to a satellite service which figures royalties into the service fee and the service provider takes care of the rest. I believe in some localities, purchasing a license from the county or state precludes the need to pay additional royalty. However, in either case there is no additional charge if the 'guys in back' are playing the radio loud enough for guests to overhear it. ;-)
I had to snicker when the first five comments (including parts of the first thread) all contained typos, spelling errors, or incorrect capitalization and/or punctuation. I'm no English major and don't mean to be a pedant (there are likely errors in this post), but maybe writing quality book reports yields high marks because the submitter avoids presenting himself as an uneducated buffoon with only simple mastery of the English language? My apologies if English isn't your mother-tongue, you are exempt from the following:
In my short professional career (I am 27), I have oddly met and had close professional relationships with several Engineers. One that worked for 3M, one for IBM, and a contract integrated-circuits whiz. They are all in their mid-to-late 50's. They are well respected and accomplished in their work -- and at first blush they all seem to be dullards and/or social misfits. Upon further inspection they have all turned out to be quite brilliant and well-spoken. Unfortunately, perception is reality. It sounds like TFA author is jealous because others picked a field in which it is easier for them to excel. If it is so easy, I challenge the author to switch to an English major instead. He will either succeed in that field or eat crow. It is a moral victory in any case.
Or, to put in simpler terms TFA author may better understand: STFU and GTFO. RTFM FTW. Less QQ more PEW PEW!
Love,
-DP
Quite right. And at least with Vista, the same is true. You can't write to system directories unless you are Administrator, so again its a moot point. But that doesn't change the fact that its not an OS issue, shitty application development is to blame. I can't even hold microsoft accountable for it, considering that Visual Studio makes it trivially easy to store global variables within the application directory and user-specific configs in C:/Documents and Settings/~user (or C:/Users/~user if Vista is your bag). Again, it is a problem of the application developers themselves, not the platform. I've seen linux applications do things just as retarded as windows apps. About the only edge linux apps have in this context is that they usually have compile-time flags that can put config directories more to your liking. With windows apps, you pretty much have to put up with whatever behavior the developer saw fit to include with the binary blob.
And some programs in linux insist on scattering files over /home/~username, /usr/share, /usr/local/share, /etc and /var. Not to mention /usr/lib and /usr/share/lib for system and shared libraries.
How is that really any different? If you want to keep all your files, environment settings, and programs on a jumpdrive, then you need to use applications that are developed with that in mind. Portable Firefox is a notable example. World of Warcraft pretty much is portable by default (except for its annoying habit of storing my screenshots in some pseudo system folder). The problem seems to be more crappy application development than flaws in the OS design. Unfortunately, some applications do not lead themselves well to becoming "portable".
Holy shit, an honest to god appropriate car analogy.
;-)
Mod parent up!
But I expect some of that 60% were too stupid to vote.
I don't disagree, but were they stupid to vote, or wise enough to realize they had no meaningful choice to make? For a good while now, the presidential election has been the choice between a Douche and Turd.
Totally true. The invasiveness certainly gives people the impression the somebody is "doing something", and some people need that. However, I for one don't really care for it the strong caress of the nanny state. Its unpleasant. It feels more like getting groped by a dirty old man.
Too little, too late. Seven years ago would have been an opportune time to put the administration in its place. We've already allowed them to alienate our inalienable rights, and we've paid them nearly a half a trillion dollars for the privilege. I'm sorry, but 2 blown up buildings, three lost airliners, and ~4000 dead civilians aren't worth the price of my essential liberty or yours. If our loss was tenfold it still would not and could not justify disregard for our civil liberties. And that is to say nothing about the skyrocketing oil prices and the fact that nearly the whole rest of the world hates us. For what? Safety? Security? Its an illusion, and always has been. Remember that, the next time they make you take off your shoes at the airport. Its nothing cabin door locks and a few air marshalls couldn't fix. There is no safety guarantee in life. We all run the risk of something bad happening to us every time we leave our homes for the day. Any day could be the day you don't come home. More Americans die every year of self-induced injuries (alcohol abuse, drug use, smoking, and obesity to name a few), but I don't see a half a trillion dollar initiative to solve THOSE problems. Its a sorry state of affairs when the land of the free is fleeced due to a glorified snipe hunt, and sorrier yet that the whole scheme has been perpetrated by those sworn to faithfully uphold the ideals and best interests of the American people. And sorriest of all is that you and I have done it to ourselves by allowing these criminals to frighten us and rob is of our rights, dignity, and tax dollars in the name of protection against a bogeyman that simply doesn't exist. I am certain that our founding fathers would have some stern worlds on the subject -- oh, well they did, its called the Constitution, but fuck it, we threw that out the window seven years ago. We will get exactly what we deserve. But hey, as long as we have Blu-Ray, American Idol, and Ipods, its all good right?
In the timeless words of Charlie Brown: Good grief!
Oh, well, that just makes it all better now, doesn't it? Miguel says he's sorry, guys. Will you forgive him?
<Engage flame retardant vestments of the pious>
No. I swear this idiot thinks he is the next Linus or something. He has made one stupid decision after another in regards to Microsoft and pseudo-MS technology, and now its biting him in the ass. His stupid mistakes are the reason I can no longer run SuSE in good conscience. I hope MS ends up shoving it up his ass and Novell takes a hit for their trouble. Thats what they get for screwing up my fave Linux Distro.
OTOH, if it wasn't for their collective ignorance, I'd have never discovered Kubuntu, which totally rocks. So, thanks Miguel for being a sellout. You have been assimilated and I have been freed. Have a nice day.
Hmm, I think I'm missing something: $8.6 million in cost / 7 million bills = ~$1.23 per bill on average. Sooooo, unless I'm mistaken, these guys are bellyaching about a $1.23 annual charge to get an extra hour of sunlight in the evening? Ooh, those capitalist bastards! But seriously, $1.23? BFD. In the northern latitudes, it is dark when I drive to work and dark when I get out of work for a good 4 months out of the year. Heck, I'd pay an additional $1.23 per year to have DST extended year-round ;-)
Maybe you should try using EMACS to post on slashdot instead. *ducks*