You probably have bad hardware or bad hardware drivers.
I have had only ONE BSOD this year and it was from a _Vista_ machine (and after only a few minutes - login, logout, login, blam!). Probably not MS's fault - bad drivers.
Anyway, I suggest you run memtest86 for a few hours, and if that passes, boot up Knoppix and run openssl speed for a few hours too.
Nowadays memory problems are more and more likely because you've got gigabytes of it and that means a lot more transistors.
So many people seem to be assuming a planet as a _final_ destination.
The way I see it: the odds of finding a "nice" planet and getting there without FTL travel are low. The odds of finding a "nearby" planet more comfortable than spacecraft/fleets designed and built to carry humans for centuries are even lower.
I suggest that once our planet/star starts to become less hospitable, there'll be a high incentive to move to space stations further out in the solar system.
Life in space will definitely not be the same as life on present day Earth, but I'm assuming by that time the Earth wouldn't be such a nice place to live in, so there's not much choice: "adapt or die".
Once you've fleets and systems that can be built, maintained and sustained in space from materials that you can get in space (asteroids, comets) then a fleet may decide to go nomadic and roam slowly towards some star (perhaps they could send some supplies (asteroids with stuff in them?) ahead of them for supplies - sending the supplies earlier allows you to send them slower and thus save energy - but finding and catching the supplies/fuel later on is going to be "interesting"). They might not succeed in actually reaching the star system, but as it has been argued, the chances of doing it the current "conventional way" are also pretty low (energy requirements are too high etc).
If this roaming nomadic fleet thing is actually feasible (I haven't done any calculations), who knows, they might one day find a very nice planet, but perhaps by that time, most would rather just continue on with their "home fleet" after perhaps a short tour/visit of the planet, rather than be "trapped permanently there";).
But meanwhile all this "send humans to mars" stuff seems to be a big waste of time and money. Seems better to figure a safe, reliable, cheap and effective way to get off this planet.
Now if they were talking about sending politicians to The Moon/Mars/orbit, then perhaps it could be worth it. As I've suggested to someone you could have a TV show called "Vote off the planet". Even if you didn't actually send them off, it could be worth watching the interviews of the "winners" (return or one-way).:)
I'm not sure the point of this exercise. They should test the entire pool of _trained_ astronauts and then pick the final bunch from those who pass. Not waste time testing volunteers.
After all if they didn't limit it to EU people and Russians there'll be tons of people from poorer countries who'd be willing to get 120 EURs x 30 days x 17 months PLUS get free food and lodging in a fairly safe environment ( no earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanos, floods, hurricanes etc).
There are maids from Indonesia and Philippines who leave their family and friends to go to some foreign country (where they may not know the language and risk nasty employers and bad working conditions) to earn about 90-180 EUR (120-240 USD) a _month_. They work for 2 years and don't get a chance to see their husbands/wives or children. Go google for indonesian maid usd salary.
17 months and they'll get what they'd normally take 28-56 years to earn!
And for many desperate people, if they are 100% sure you would pay their family say USD1 million, they would be fine with a one way trip to _nowhere_, Mars would be fantastic, even a one way trip to the edge of space would be wonderful.
Might as well study prisoners in maximum security prisons.
How about you sacrifice YOUR life for a better future? Please.
What you're saying is crap we don't need more of. Leaders like Hitler, Saddam, Bush are all good getting OTHER people to sacrifice their lives or kill others for a "better future".
All these leaders aren't going to sacrifice their own lives.
In fact if all humans aren't willing to kill humans it makes the world a far better place.
The only reason why Gandhi succeeded in India was because there were enough _decent_ British people in power who decided that it was wrong to kill masses of Indians.
Whereas the Chinese Government appears to have no qualms with killing lots of Chinese citizens. There are and have been so many governments/countries where genocide or mass killing is not a big problem.
People like Gandhi just got lucky. Just look at those psychology experiments and you'll see that most people would be willing to kill or torture someone else if someone in authority kept telling them to do it.
I don't notice very much draw lag in win2k with the effects off, and menushowdelay=1ms.
"Hit my keyboard's start button, start typing the name of an application and hit enter to launch the app."
Uh how many apps do you commonly use anyway?
I use win2k and on winxp at work I've got all my start menus in "classic mode".
I then set up shortcuts to folders and apps that I use often.
For example in the "Start menu" I have folders called: 1 Explore 2 Tools And in the "1 Explore" folder I have: 1 Explore Desktop 2 Explore Home directory 3 Explore My Documents 4 Explore Shared Documents A Explore A C Explore C D Explore D E Explore E X Explore X Y Explore Y
In the "2 Tools" folder I have Calculator Notepad Wordpad etc
So if I press winkey, 1, 1, I end up with a explorer view of my desktop which I can sort by last modified or alpha.
winkey, 2, C = calculator. winkey, 3 = email program. winkey 4 = command prompt. winkey 7, 1 = ssh to my home freebsd server. winkey 8 = Admin command prompt.
You can use "%HOMEDRIVE%%HOMEPATH%" and put such stuff in All Users\Start Menu so that other accounts also have the same thing.
It doesn't seem as easy to do this on KDE - takes too much effort. Whereas on Win2K/XP you just create shortcuts, name them accordingly and copy them to the places you want in the Start Menu.
Similarly for the "Send To" folder, I've notepad, wordpad, wordviewer, excelviewer and hiew (look it up) in my send to folder.
So far the only thing I might like would be- "Per-application volume controls", some apps are just too loud compared to others.
But I'm not going to get Vista just for that - the minuses outweigh the pluses by far.
How about getting the laptop with Windows XP anyway? Just make sure you get enough RAM - 1GB or even 2GB.
Then wipe it and install Ubuntu and keep the license key handy. This way if you ever need windows you can run Windows XP on vmware on the laptop if you need it.
It's convenient to have a spare Windows XP machine around esp for most businesses.
At work I run windows XP on vmware server, on suse. And I set up a file share directory for the XP "machine" to write more "permanent" stuff to.
So if something really strange happens to the windows machine I just click "revert to snapshot", and I end up with a working XP. That said so far in my usage, XP hasn't really been a problem.
In fact, IE on XP on vmware sometimes takes up less memory than firefox on suse.
I've had a blue screen of death after just a few minutes of using vista, bad drivers or whatever who cares - that's been my only BSOD this _YEAR_ so far. So I strongly recommend against spending money to _downgrade_ to Vista, endure all the bugs AND help Microsoft extend its monopoly.
Q: How many free market economists does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: Free market economists don't change lightbulbs, they prefer to write their papers in the darkness while waiting for Adam Smith's invisible hand to do it for them.;)
There is mercy and there is justice. And there is ridiculous.
The next time I order stuff from IBM it's fine for me to lose the stuff and then get 15 years to pay back, and in the end not have to pay at all?
Wow that's nice.
OK who signed receipt of the hardware? If there's official documentation proving that a valid person from the school took receipt of the goods, then the school should get the pain.
If it's just some school-kid's signature, then too bad IBM;).
What next? Camera people are going to put a reflective coating behind the sensors so light that goes through them will bounce and have a second chance to trigger the sensors?
See cat eyes - been there done that.
Now if they layered lots of semitransparent sensors, so that photons that aren't picked up by the first layer get a chance at the second, third etc, then MAYBE that's something different.
The way I understand it, for CMOS sensors, there is a significant non-light sensitive circuit area between sensor elements, so if photons hit that area they are usually lost. But I believe there are ways of making transparent transistors, so if the circuit area between the sensor elements is made transparent and you put another layer of sensors UNDERNEATH then you can capture _some_ photons that would have previously been lost.
But even so, how nonobvious is that? I'm not in the camera line and even I can think of crap like that:)
Isn't it possible to have a non "conventional" sensor configurations to capture more light? Then you use lots of cpu and software to glue the pic together;).
Is it possible to make sensors that don't block photons that they don't capture? Then you could layer them. Sure the raw focus would be off, but that's where the software comes in.
Sure there's a limit to what a compact camera can do, but I think we are still far from it.
Actually it does address the problem, but in a different way from what people seem to think.
Healthy skin doesn't let much bacteria and other keyboard nasties in.
So just wash your hands before you eat, or touch your eyes etc with your fingers, or touch other more permeable bits of your bodies (mucous membranes).
Also, you are likely to have an immune system that can cope with the crud YOU put on your keyboard. Or you're already suffering from whatever disease that's on it (you caught a cold from somewhere else, and put the viruses on your keyboard_.
Now if you used someone else's keyboard, then sure you could catch something.
Remember: even if they recently cleaned their keyboard in a dishwasher, and it WAS super clean, it doesn't matter - if they have a cold and they touched it, you should wash your hands after you use their keyboards (if you want to reduce the odds of you catching the cold).
Wash your hands. If you're paranoid wash with soap and water, followed by alcohol to kill stuff. But I don't really think it's such a big deal, unless you're staff in a hospital dealing with sick and/or weakened people. Or there's some really bad stuff going about (in which case try to work from home).
But I guess getting a pair (so you can use one while the other dries) and washing one every now and then would still be cheaper than replacing keyboards just to get a clean one.
Other companies do. And I bet a fair number operate in China. So guess who can make 1mm holograms?
Most pirates won't bother because their target markets don't care. But how hard is it for a factory to have "production overruns" or "test runs"?
In fact, I've seen a 100% original MS CD that was a _low_quality_ stamp (and was not easily readable by some drives) - you could see the "shiny side" was "disfigured" - I've seen low quality pirate CDs that looked like that, but wasn't expecting MS to use the same el-cheapo manufacturers.
I bet if MS sues one of those Chinese factory after a few too many "overruns", it'll just close down, and reopen under a new name and "new management", and start making the same stuff.
If you want some stuff to ponder on, go look up the meaning of the name Israel. It means: "Struggles with God".
You think any normal country would give itself that name AND keep it?
I believe Israel is God's chosen nation, but if you look at the rest of the Bible, its history and the meaning of its name, "chosen" does not imply that it is a nation that always does what God wants it to. But it sure is playing a significant role, past, current and future.
Whether you want to believe it's evolution or creation or even both[1], I claim there's "Something There".
[1] When Jesus created fish to feed the thousands (poor little fishies[2]), did the fish also have a created consistent history? If you analyzed one of those created fishes at a molecular or cellular level, would it appear like it was created seconds ago, or would it appear as if it had the usual lifespan?
My answer: I don't know, and while it might be very interesting I don't think it's that important, so the same answer goes for the creation vs noncreation debate. What's important is that there were lots of hungry people, Jesus worked a miracle, his followers helped feed the people. Notice that Jesus allowed his followers (and the boy who donated his meal in the case of the 5000s) to participate in feeding the hungry people and thus share in the glory, Jesus didn't miraculously remove the hunger, nor was there a universe without hunger (spiritual & physical) in the first place. So all the debate about how stuff was actually created seems to be missing far more important points.
[2] Unfair? Who knows. It may well be we have been given a choice - to be props/antagonists that are still going to be used to glorify God (go ahead take the bad guy role - not recommended), or participants allowing God to do his work through us, and thus achieving lasting glory in him and with him.
Think that's petty and selfish of God? Well go study the actual requirements - problem: everyone has sinned (imperfect[3]), solution: follow Jesus (the one who said: believe and follow me, love one another as I [Jesus] have loved you, help the poor etc). Would you prefer to have the glory of someone who became a multi-billionaire using dubious methods, or someone who does what Jesus commanded? Counting my billions for eternity while remaining imperfect is not my idea of heaven.
[3] How long do you think imperfect entities can _enjoy_ eternity, whether alone or with others. Eternity is an extremely long time. So if there is no cure for imperfection, it'll be better if there is no eternal life, and that everything ends after death.
I'm a Christian, and what annoys me about Christian creationists is according to "true Christianity" belief in creationism isn't necessary to be a Christian. All you need to do is follow Jesus.
Someone could say the creation part of the bible was figurative/symbolic, whether that someone is wrong or right on that, he/she could still be a Christian.
So why the big fuss over something that IMO shouldn't be that important? Why not focus on what Jesus said, did and commanded (e.g. Jesus said: love one another as I have loved you - by this shall all men know that you are my disciples - that you have love for one another).
The way I see it, most christians are even ignorant about their own religion. It's not just ignorance of science.
You don't need proof of evolution to give those creationists trouble. All you need to prove is how far certain stars are, and how fast the speed of light is, and the behaviour of stuff like Cepheids. There have been creationists that try to explain all that by saying the speed of light has decayed through the ages, but when you examine their "evidence" it starts to fall apart.
OK so _maybe_ the "creation 6000 years ago" is one of those miracles - just like Jesus turning water into wine (at that wedding in Cana)- the wine was excellent wine - and so I suggest the wine had the necessary "history" (fermentation, aging etc).
But then even if the "billions of years history" is created, I argue the "created history" is very likely to be consistent and perfect enough for everyone to learn a lot from and appreciate.
It's a small problem, considering the main problem (disaster?) of no longer having "good people" in the Gov.
Don't forget: I'm not talking about giving them "super powers" over everyone else (so the Dune scenario does not apply). If you need a committee or some other diffusion/sharing of power so be it. BUT you WILL still need to have people making important decisions.
If all the good people refuse to go into the Gov because it's bad/evil/corrupt etc, then guess how things will be fixed.
Whatever it is, you will need government, because:
1) Some entity has to be in charge of maintaining the monopoly over violence ( only the Gov can legally exert violence/force over an individual), and that includes the rules that govern when that violence/force can or should be used. 2) The same goes for Law and Order. You need "impartial" and mutually recognized 3rd parties to handle disputes and contracts amongst citizens 3) You need an entity to handle the Govs of other countries.
How much of it you want, that's best left to the citizens, but it is better if the citizens make educated[1] decisions about it.
[1] And that's why education is important. It's important to "brainwash"/"domesticate" kids correctly and early, because everyone else (McD, RIAA, MPAA, Murdoch & Friends) will want to do their own brainwashing on the kids first.
Actually, the main issue shouldn't be whether there are many taxes or high taxes.
The main issue is whether the money is well spent - used responsibly, not wasted, AND in line with what the citizens want. In some countries citizens don't mind high taxes because they think they get good value for their money. But in other countries citizens prefer low taxes (this is a lot easier in city states, because you don't have the costs of serving a large number of rural and poorer areas).
Sometimes people say things should be privatized because the gov is inefficient, but there are tons of private companies that are inefficient as well - and you often end up with those taking over stuff from the Gov and making things worse.
There's just no getting away from the importance of having good people in the right places.
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You probably have bad hardware or bad hardware drivers.
I have had only ONE BSOD this year and it was from a _Vista_ machine (and after only a few minutes - login, logout, login, blam!). Probably not MS's fault - bad drivers.
Anyway, I suggest you run memtest86 for a few hours, and if that passes, boot up Knoppix and run openssl speed for a few hours too.
Nowadays memory problems are more and more likely because you've got gigabytes of it and that means a lot more transistors.
What if first born = daughter and next born is son?
Are we being too planet-centric?
;).
:)
So many people seem to be assuming a planet as a _final_ destination.
The way I see it: the odds of finding a "nice" planet and getting there without FTL travel are low. The odds of finding a "nearby" planet more comfortable than spacecraft/fleets designed and built to carry humans for centuries are even lower.
I suggest that once our planet/star starts to become less hospitable, there'll be a high incentive to move to space stations further out in the solar system.
Life in space will definitely not be the same as life on present day Earth, but I'm assuming by that time the Earth wouldn't be such a nice place to live in, so there's not much choice: "adapt or die".
Once you've fleets and systems that can be built, maintained and sustained in space from materials that you can get in space (asteroids, comets) then a fleet may decide to go nomadic and roam slowly towards some star (perhaps they could send some supplies (asteroids with stuff in them?) ahead of them for supplies - sending the supplies earlier allows you to send them slower and thus save energy - but finding and catching the supplies/fuel later on is going to be "interesting"). They might not succeed in actually reaching the star system, but as it has been argued, the chances of doing it the current "conventional way" are also pretty low (energy requirements are too high etc).
If this roaming nomadic fleet thing is actually feasible (I haven't done any calculations), who knows, they might one day find a very nice planet, but perhaps by that time, most would rather just continue on with their "home fleet" after perhaps a short tour/visit of the planet, rather than be "trapped permanently there"
But meanwhile all this "send humans to mars" stuff seems to be a big waste of time and money. Seems better to figure a safe, reliable, cheap and effective way to get off this planet.
Now if they were talking about sending politicians to The Moon/Mars/orbit, then perhaps it could be worth it. As I've suggested to someone you could have a TV show called "Vote off the planet". Even if you didn't actually send them off, it could be worth watching the interviews of the "winners" (return or one-way).
If it's an XP key, was that key used to register before? If it was, then that could prevent it working.
Also the key could be tied to the XP installation CD/media that came with the laptop.
Anyway, all I can say is "worked for us" (wasn't just me who did it).
I'm not sure the point of this exercise. They should test the entire pool of _trained_ astronauts and then pick the final bunch from those who pass. Not waste time testing volunteers.
After all if they didn't limit it to EU people and Russians there'll be tons of people from poorer countries who'd be willing to get 120 EURs x 30 days x 17 months PLUS get free food and lodging in a fairly safe environment ( no earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanos, floods, hurricanes etc).
There are maids from Indonesia and Philippines who leave their family and friends to go to some foreign country (where they may not know the language and risk nasty employers and bad working conditions) to earn about 90-180 EUR (120-240 USD) a _month_. They work for 2 years and don't get a chance to see their husbands/wives or children. Go google for indonesian maid usd salary.
17 months and they'll get what they'd normally take 28-56 years to earn!
And for many desperate people, if they are 100% sure you would pay their family say USD1 million, they would be fine with a one way trip to _nowhere_, Mars would be fantastic, even a one way trip to the edge of space would be wonderful.
Might as well study prisoners in maximum security prisons.
I agree UAC is crap. But SELinux seems to create more problems than it prevents, given a reasonably administrated system.
Have you tried AppArmor? I think it's not quite "there" yet, but it seems a promising start.
Sane and practical security template/profiles are what's needed for better software security.
Here's my suggestion:
;).
;).
If you are friends of uncles/aunts/parents of chinese gov officials in power, you can send them your vacation/wedding photos in flickr
Then let their nieces/nephews/children explain why they can't see your vacation photos.
If they want info on stuff you could send them informative links on wikipedia or other similar sites.
Just do lots of harmless stuff like that and sit back
How about you sacrifice YOUR life for a better future? Please.
What you're saying is crap we don't need more of. Leaders like Hitler, Saddam, Bush are all good getting OTHER people to sacrifice their lives or kill others for a "better future".
All these leaders aren't going to sacrifice their own lives.
In fact if all humans aren't willing to kill humans it makes the world a far better place.
The only reason why Gandhi succeeded in India was because there were enough _decent_ British people in power who decided that it was wrong to kill masses of Indians.
Whereas the Chinese Government appears to have no qualms with killing lots of Chinese citizens. There are and have been so many governments/countries where genocide or mass killing is not a big problem.
People like Gandhi just got lucky. Just look at those psychology experiments and you'll see that most people would be willing to kill or torture someone else if someone in authority kept telling them to do it.
I wouldn't even buy it if it were USD100.
Now if MS BOUGHT me nice hardware to run Vista on, then I'd consider running it (maybe I'd run it in a virtual machine or dual boot).
Otherwise, forget it.
I don't notice very much draw lag in win2k with the effects off, and menushowdelay=1ms.
"Hit my keyboard's start button, start typing the name of an application and hit enter to launch the app."
Uh how many apps do you commonly use anyway?
I use win2k and on winxp at work I've got all my start menus in "classic mode".
I then set up shortcuts to folders and apps that I use often.
For example in the "Start menu" I have folders called:
1 Explore
2 Tools
And in the "1 Explore" folder I have:
1 Explore Desktop
2 Explore Home directory
3 Explore My Documents
4 Explore Shared Documents
A Explore A
C Explore C
D Explore D
E Explore E
X Explore X
Y Explore Y
In the "2 Tools" folder I have
Calculator
Notepad
Wordpad
etc
So if I press winkey, 1, 1, I end up with a explorer view of my desktop which I can sort by last modified or alpha.
winkey, 2, C = calculator.
winkey, 3 = email program.
winkey 4 = command prompt.
winkey 7, 1 = ssh to my home freebsd server.
winkey 8 = Admin command prompt.
You can use "%HOMEDRIVE%%HOMEPATH%" and put such stuff in All Users\Start Menu so that other accounts also have the same thing.
It doesn't seem as easy to do this on KDE - takes too much effort. Whereas on Win2K/XP you just create shortcuts, name them accordingly and copy them to the places you want in the Start Menu.
Similarly for the "Send To" folder, I've notepad, wordpad, wordviewer, excelviewer and hiew (look it up) in my send to folder.
So far the only thing I might like would be- "Per-application volume controls", some apps are just too loud compared to others.
But I'm not going to get Vista just for that - the minuses outweigh the pluses by far.
How about getting the laptop with Windows XP anyway? Just make sure you get enough RAM - 1GB or even 2GB.
Then wipe it and install Ubuntu and keep the license key handy. This way if you ever need windows you can run Windows XP on vmware on the laptop if you need it.
It's convenient to have a spare Windows XP machine around esp for most businesses.
At work I run windows XP on vmware server, on suse. And I set up a file share directory for the XP "machine" to write more "permanent" stuff to.
So if something really strange happens to the windows machine I just click "revert to snapshot", and I end up with a working XP. That said so far in my usage, XP hasn't really been a problem.
In fact, IE on XP on vmware sometimes takes up less memory than firefox on suse.
I've had a blue screen of death after just a few minutes of using vista, bad drivers or whatever who cares - that's been my only BSOD this _YEAR_ so far. So I strongly recommend against spending money to _downgrade_ to Vista, endure all the bugs AND help Microsoft extend its monopoly.
Of course. ZFS on FUSE is stable enough for most Linux users.
But ZFS on FreeBSD is not for most _FreeBSD_ users.
Q: How many free market economists does it take to change a lightbulb?
;)
A: Free market economists don't change lightbulbs, they prefer to write their papers in the darkness while waiting for Adam Smith's invisible hand to do it for them.
There is mercy and there is justice. And there is ridiculous.
;).
The next time I order stuff from IBM it's fine for me to lose the stuff and then get 15 years to pay back, and in the end not have to pay at all?
Wow that's nice.
OK who signed receipt of the hardware? If there's official documentation proving that a valid person from the school took receipt of the goods, then the school should get the pain.
If it's just some school-kid's signature, then too bad IBM
It's not very different from people spending real money on other nonessential items.
Not like the real world money is useful elsewhere.
After all hoarding lots of money till you die is even stupider. You might as well spend it on something you or other people find fun/useful.
Because it's obvious to anybody who is vaguely in the field.
:)
There's "prior art" - human eye: cones = colour, rods = black/white.
What next? Camera people are going to put a reflective coating behind the sensors so light that goes through them will bounce and have a second chance to trigger the sensors?
See cat eyes - been there done that.
Now if they layered lots of semitransparent sensors, so that photons that aren't picked up by the first layer get a chance at the second, third etc, then MAYBE that's something different.
The way I understand it, for CMOS sensors, there is a significant non-light sensitive circuit area between sensor elements, so if photons hit that area they are usually lost. But I believe there are ways of making transparent transistors, so if the circuit area between the sensor elements is made transparent and you put another layer of sensors UNDERNEATH then you can capture _some_ photons that would have previously been lost.
But even so, how nonobvious is that? I'm not in the camera line and even I can think of crap like that
Isn't it possible to have a non "conventional" sensor configurations to capture more light? Then you use lots of cpu and software to glue the pic together ;).
Is it possible to make sensors that don't block photons that they don't capture? Then you could layer them. Sure the raw focus would be off, but that's where the software comes in.
Sure there's a limit to what a compact camera can do, but I think we are still far from it.
Uh, given the premise that "we are the surrounding ecosystem" for domesticated farm animals": bacon just won't taste the same without pigs.
And some people quite like roast turkey.
Actually it does address the problem, but in a different way from what people seem to think.
Healthy skin doesn't let much bacteria and other keyboard nasties in.
So just wash your hands before you eat, or touch your eyes etc with your fingers, or touch other more permeable bits of your bodies (mucous membranes).
Also, you are likely to have an immune system that can cope with the crud YOU put on your keyboard. Or you're already suffering from whatever disease that's on it (you caught a cold from somewhere else, and put the viruses on your keyboard_.
Now if you used someone else's keyboard, then sure you could catch something.
Remember: even if they recently cleaned their keyboard in a dishwasher, and it WAS super clean, it doesn't matter - if they have a cold and they touched it, you should wash your hands after you use their keyboards (if you want to reduce the odds of you catching the cold).
Wash your hands. If you're paranoid wash with soap and water, followed by alcohol to kill stuff. But I don't really think it's such a big deal, unless you're staff in a hospital dealing with sick and/or weakened people. Or there's some really bad stuff going about (in which case try to work from home).
The cheap ones are about USD2.60 here retail.
I D=20&DepartmentIndex=13&CategoryID=43&CategoryInde x=0
f f&q=9+malaysian+currency+in+us+dollars&meta=
http://computerwar.com.my/default.aspx?Department
Google says:
http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&safe=o
But I guess getting a pair (so you can use one while the other dries) and washing one every now and then would still be cheaper than replacing keyboards just to get a clean one.
Microsoft don't make the Vista CDs themselves.
Other companies do. And I bet a fair number operate in China. So guess who can make 1mm holograms?
Most pirates won't bother because their target markets don't care. But how hard is it for a factory to have "production overruns" or "test runs"?
In fact, I've seen a 100% original MS CD that was a _low_quality_ stamp (and was not easily readable by some drives) - you could see the "shiny side" was "disfigured" - I've seen low quality pirate CDs that looked like that, but wasn't expecting MS to use the same el-cheapo manufacturers.
I bet if MS sues one of those Chinese factory after a few too many "overruns", it'll just close down, and reopen under a new name and "new management", and start making the same stuff.
(I am a Christian).
If you want some stuff to ponder on, go look up the meaning of the name Israel. It means: "Struggles with God".
You think any normal country would give itself that name AND keep it?
I believe Israel is God's chosen nation, but if you look at the rest of the Bible, its history and the meaning of its name, "chosen" does not imply that it is a nation that always does what God wants it to. But it sure is playing a significant role, past, current and future.
Whether you want to believe it's evolution or creation or even both[1], I claim there's "Something There".
[1] When Jesus created fish to feed the thousands (poor little fishies[2]), did the fish also have a created consistent history? If you analyzed one of those created fishes at a molecular or cellular level, would it appear like it was created seconds ago, or would it appear as if it had the usual lifespan?
My answer: I don't know, and while it might be very interesting I don't think it's that important, so the same answer goes for the creation vs noncreation debate. What's important is that there were lots of hungry people, Jesus worked a miracle, his followers helped feed the people. Notice that Jesus allowed his followers (and the boy who donated his meal in the case of the 5000s) to participate in feeding the hungry people and thus share in the glory, Jesus didn't miraculously remove the hunger, nor was there a universe without hunger (spiritual & physical) in the first place. So all the debate about how stuff was actually created seems to be missing far more important points.
[2] Unfair? Who knows. It may well be we have been given a choice - to be props/antagonists that are still going to be used to glorify God (go ahead take the bad guy role - not recommended), or participants allowing God to do his work through us, and thus achieving lasting glory in him and with him.
Think that's petty and selfish of God? Well go study the actual requirements - problem: everyone has sinned (imperfect[3]), solution: follow Jesus (the one who said: believe and follow me, love one another as I [Jesus] have loved you, help the poor etc). Would you prefer to have the glory of someone who became a multi-billionaire using dubious methods, or someone who does what Jesus commanded? Counting my billions for eternity while remaining imperfect is not my idea of heaven.
[3] How long do you think imperfect entities can _enjoy_ eternity, whether alone or with others. Eternity is an extremely long time. So if there is no cure for imperfection, it'll be better if there is no eternal life, and that everything ends after death.
I'm a Christian, and what annoys me about Christian creationists is according to "true Christianity" belief in creationism isn't necessary to be a Christian. All you need to do is follow Jesus.
Someone could say the creation part of the bible was figurative/symbolic, whether that someone is wrong or right on that, he/she could still be a Christian.
So why the big fuss over something that IMO shouldn't be that important? Why not focus on what Jesus said, did and commanded (e.g. Jesus said: love one another as I have loved you - by this shall all men know that you are my disciples - that you have love for one another).
The way I see it, most christians are even ignorant about their own religion. It's not just ignorance of science.
You don't need proof of evolution to give those creationists trouble. All you need to prove is how far certain stars are, and how fast the speed of light is, and the behaviour of stuff like Cepheids. There have been creationists that try to explain all that by saying the speed of light has decayed through the ages, but when you examine their "evidence" it starts to fall apart.
OK so _maybe_ the "creation 6000 years ago" is one of those miracles - just like Jesus turning water into wine (at that wedding in Cana)- the wine was excellent wine - and so I suggest the wine had the necessary "history" (fermentation, aging etc).
But then even if the "billions of years history" is created, I argue the "created history" is very likely to be consistent and perfect enough for everyone to learn a lot from and appreciate.
It's a small problem, considering the main problem (disaster?) of no longer having "good people" in the Gov.
Don't forget: I'm not talking about giving them "super powers" over everyone else (so the Dune scenario does not apply). If you need a committee or some other diffusion/sharing of power so be it. BUT you WILL still need to have people making important decisions.
If all the good people refuse to go into the Gov because it's bad/evil/corrupt etc, then guess how things will be fixed.
Whatever it is, you will need government, because:
1) Some entity has to be in charge of maintaining the monopoly over violence ( only the Gov can legally exert violence/force over an individual), and that includes the rules that govern when that violence/force can or should be used.
2) The same goes for Law and Order. You need "impartial" and mutually recognized 3rd parties to handle disputes and contracts amongst citizens
3) You need an entity to handle the Govs of other countries.
How much of it you want, that's best left to the citizens, but it is better if the citizens make educated[1] decisions about it.
[1] And that's why education is important. It's important to "brainwash"/"domesticate" kids correctly and early, because everyone else (McD, RIAA, MPAA, Murdoch & Friends) will want to do their own brainwashing on the kids first.
Actually, the main issue shouldn't be whether there are many taxes or high taxes.
The main issue is whether the money is well spent - used responsibly, not wasted, AND in line with what the citizens want. In some countries citizens don't mind high taxes because they think they get good value for their money. But in other countries citizens prefer low taxes (this is a lot easier in city states, because you don't have the costs of serving a large number of rural and poorer areas).
Sometimes people say things should be privatized because the gov is inefficient, but there are tons of private companies that are inefficient as well - and you often end up with those taking over stuff from the Gov and making things worse.
There's just no getting away from the importance of having good people in the right places.