There is probably room in the case for a few ounces of C4 explosive, and a detonator. You might have a hard time getting it through customs though..... and you had better never drop the thing so the detonator goes off!!
"Maybe some people can handle it. Maybe they can't."
It isn't terribly different from drinking and driving - both affect judgement. Drinking is outlawed for drivers, so cellphones should be too. Saying that "I can handle it" is one of the macho things men said 40 years ago, before they ran a kid over on the way home from the bar.
Anyone who claims that the cell phone doesn't impair their driving is being dishonest with himself, not to mention being dishonest with the rest of us.
Accountability, the man says? Where is the media? Are they ALL in bed with the politicos?
The fact is, politicians have not only enabled monitoring and censorship, they have mandated it. There is no reason in the world to think that only "good guys" will have those weapons. Monitoring and censorship are a little like guns and knives - good guys might have them, bad guys WILL have them.
The accountability for repressive technology begins in the UK's ministries, and in the US' congress and senate, and we can keep right on accounting through the rest of Europe, Australia, Canada - - -
Odd - repressive technology is only bad when it's the OTHER guys doing the repressing.
And, THAT is exactly why I want to see a city on the moon, more cities on Mars, and ships headed out, deeper into space, to plant more colonies yet.
How the hell we gonna have Star Wars, if everyone is killed off by a single comet? We must spread out to preserve our capability to wage war!!! Or, even peace, now and then.
OK - you explain why the earth has experienced extremely warm and extremely cold global climates in the past, even before mankind walked the earth. Then, you explain PRECISELY how today's global warming is different than any other climate changes from the past. I mean, PRECISELY, detailing differences between prior events, and today's events.
Problem is, you don't understand what happened eons ago, nor do you understand what is happening today. The current use of fossil fuels is a handy scape goat today - much as witchcraft was a handy scapegoat for events that people didn't understand hundreds of years ago.
My head isn't buried along with a huge flock of ostriches, my friend.
"If a tree falls in the forest and nobody is around to hear it hit the ground, does it make a sound?"
Scientifically speaking, a transmitter, a medium, and a receiver are necessary for sound to exist. If no human is around to hear the sound, does NOT mean that there is no sound. My cattle heard the tree fall, and they were all extremely jumpy at morning milking. So, of COURSE there was a sound!!
The question regarding EULA's and licenses regarding virtual machines is a question that will be answered sooner, or later. The answers may be different for home users and for enterprise, but the question is legitimate. And, no one even needs to guess what MS will want those answers to be - "WE WANT PAID!"
I've already said that I'm not going to pay them. Many people will. What's right?
"and colder waters (especially where they mix with warm water) are incredibly rich in nutrients (though I don't know enough offhand to say this is one of those areas, it.. prroooobbably is, or is close to one)."
While spending a year on Adak, I learned that the Bering Sea is supposed to be the coldest body of water on earth, and the Pacific Ocean is the warmest. Since then, I've questioned that assertion - but it's true enough to ensure very frequent severe storms in the Aleutians all the time. And, I mean, all the time. I don't think that we ever saw three days without a real storm marching across the island, and we certainly didn't see two days in a row without some sort of precipitation.
So, yes, you are right about the warm/cold water mixture.
"One of the prime symptoms of anthropogenic warming is"
FFS, dude, anthropogenic warming is a damned THEORY. And, here you have laws already written in stone. You might have got away with that shit had you said "global warming". The globe is warming, but the idea that man is responsible for that warming is about 30% theory, 35% speculation, and 35% political manipulation.
In a nutshell, the problem with GPL is that it hasn't been tested in court enough. MS knows that as well as, or perhaps better, than anyone. The GPL is just a legal tool, it isn't an authority, in and of itself. The judicial authority will ultimately test the GPL and it's derivatives in courtrooms.
The three E's? This could be the first of the E's. And, MS legal department may be gloating, because they have judges bought and paid for, just waiting for the day they walk into court for a GPL suit.
Those who fail to learn history's lessons are doomed to relive history. Or, something like that.
Microsoft has history, people. Embrace, extend, extinquish. I want to see a lot of new attitudes, actions, and history before I trust Microsoft. Even if Sam Ramji is the most honorable person in the world - Sam isn't Microsoft. He works FOR Microsoft, and he can be over ruled if/when Microsoft decides that it is to their advantage.
Forgive me, but I'll take a pass on sleeping with snakes.
Oh, wait. This is probably one time boot camp training will come in handy.
1. Sit down. 2. Place your head between your knees. 3. Kiss your ass "good-bye".
I don't know - that still sounds kinda disgusting - maybe I'll read and think a bit before I do that. Oh. That's right. ALL THE PLANETS have been hit repeatedly. There probably isn't a year that goes by without one being hit. This hit's maybe the biggest ever recorded, but nothing new. Lotsa hits happened before mankind was around to record them.
Phhht.
More non-news. Maybe I'll just catch the re-runs next year.
Downloaded, but all the "make" files were for 32 bit. While I figure out what to do about that, I installed on Windows. Kinda cool - I'll be playing with it for awhile.
Lemme try hard to unnerstand this concept. I'm tryin' real hard, so just bear with me. My feeble little mind.....
It has been demonstrable "possible" to do exactly this ever since the concept of electronic voting was first considered. To me, it was only a matter of time before some ballsy sumbitch decided to act on the possibility. Given time, and growing sophistication, manipulation of voting results should become more and more "undetectable".
Only fools and damn fools are willing to rely on the results of ephemeral electronic voting, without a PAPER TRAIL to back it up. There IS NO TRAIL of electrons - especially when the "winning" party has all the hardware, all the software, and they pass a law to make it illegal to have any part of the code, or to gain access to the hardware.
Ahhhh. The common misperception. Crimes aren't referred to civil court - they are addressed in CRIMINAL court. Notice the giveaway in the root word - CRIMe, CRIMinal?
A false accusation isn't a crime, it is a civil offense, as you almost seemed to comprehend. Civil offenses generally aren't "punished" as are criminal offenses. In most civil offenses, the complainant is attempting to have the court redress loss, of some sort, such as loss of reputation, loss of money, loss of life - the list goes on. For that reason, one can be tried for the same offense in criminal court, as well as in civil court. The state demands punishment for murder, so the defendant stands trial for the criminal offense of murder, then later goes to trial for a civil case of wrongful death. Wrongful death is not a criminal offense, though. There are any number of circumstances in which a defendant might have to pay damages for a wrongful death, but the state never charges that person with a crime.
"it's going to require a part of Windows that that's system/driver oriented"
I presume that you refer to that portion of Windows that acts as a DOS emulator. DRDOS was THE standard for flashing, only a few years ago. Manufacturers STILL recommend making a bootable DOS disk for flashing purposes. It is still dangerous to attempt flashing operations from within Windows, no matter the marketing aspect of doing so.
It seems that you may be a bit infatuated with Bill Gate's operating system. In fact, the only reasons we don't routinely flash from Linux involve proprietary mfrs refusing to code for Linux.
I recently bought a board for the purpose of flashing chips that had been bricked. It works fine, and I've rescued three "dead" boards so far. Unfortunately, I can only run the software on Windows. It won't run from a virtual machine (or, at least, I'm not smart enough to have figured out how to do so) and I genuinely fear the results of running it in Wine. There ARE NO DRIVERS OR SOFTWARE available for Linux.
Personally, I think that rescuing dead mainboards is serious shitzls. I just hate to do such a chore with a frivolous Windows gaming machine.
"Basically I have no chance of attaining any leadership skills"
I fear that you don't understand what "leadership" is. If you wish to learn about leadership, and you are not learning, that is your failure, not the failure of the military, the boy scouts, an employer, or even your parents. I would ask first, how many courses are you enrolled in? If you answer "none", then it is obvious that you DON'T wish to learn leadership, but instead, you only want to bellyache about the military. Which is fine with me - we earn the right to bitch by serving. But, for your own good, you do need to be honest with yourself.
As for attaining a "leadership position" - that is another subject entirely. The best leaders, of course, are good followers. Are you a good follower? Do you work hard to make your mates and superiors look good? Do you support your juniors? Are you always there, willing to do whatever it takes? Do you volunteer to "go the extra mile"?
If so - maybe you really are in the wrong MOS. Maybe even the wrong branch of military. The Navy does things considerably different than the Army - you might consider a tour with the fleet after your army service.
I have one son in the Army, one going into the Navy. If they switched places, I don't think either would be happy - it all depends on the individual's aptitude, personality, etc.
But, please, let's not blame the Army for a failure to learn a skill. You can learn if you wish to learn. Demonstrating that skill is the path to advancement, not bitching about the lack of a skill.
1-800-cry-baby and 1-888-asus-supp and www.asus.helpafuckingdummy.com
FFS, every hardware manufacturer I have ever heard of has a support line SOMEWHERE. Granted, some of the smaller fly-by-night mainboard people make it hard to find a support site, but they are there.
Personally, I'd be a bit embarrased to post on slashdot that I didn't know how to search for support.
I just don't give a damn about any stupid EULA. I have read them in the past, and disagree with half of what is printed in them. "Accepting" the EULA is a coercive exercise. Basically, it says "If you don't like ANYTHING we tell you, then you can't use our software." Bullshit. Complete and utter bullshit. I take almost all the same liberties with Microsoft and other proprietary software that I take with open source software - decompile, reverse engineer, change code, etc. The ONLY thing that I don't do with proprietary, is to redistribute. What I do INHOUSE is my business.
The day that Microsoft sits down with a panel of consumers who represent business, government, the nerd community, and average users, and hammer out a REASONABLE EULA, then I'll pay attention to the EULA again. The best "for instance" is the changing hardware deal. If I buy a Compaq, and the mainboard dies a week after the warranty dies, I insist that I have the right to replace the mainboard and any peripheral hardware, and to reinstall Windows - FOR FREE.
Corporate coercion of consumers may or may not be legal - but I will never respect it, or abide by it.
As I recall, a launch takes hours. There are hours on the launchpad before ignition, and there are at least 30 to 45 minutes after ignition before achieving orbit. There are only 60 critical seconds under discussion here. A launch failure occured 5 times in the last few days ie, the mission was scrubbed. The astronauts were "rescued" from all 5 of those launch failures.
As for those critical 60 seconds - well, they are STILL almost as safe as aviation. Takeoff and landing both have their critical moments, where a mistake is almost always fatal.
How much risk is acceptable? Is the Air Force suggesting that space exloration should be 0% risk, or less?
If so, then we should probably ground all aircraft, scrap all automobiles - you get the idea.
Let's face it. Sitting on top of tons of explosive, and lighting them off, is going to be risky. Minimize the risk, yeah, but there will always BE RISK. It doesn't matter what kind of engine you are using, or what kind of fuel it is using. A crash within the first minute of flight is often quite deadly in aviation simply because the pilot has so few options for ditching or bailing out. The same will always be true of spaceflight.
If we want 0% risk, we had better get started on that space elevator. Of course, there may be some hidden risk at some point in that ascent - but at least we won't be blowing it up to use it.
You're serious, right? Let's assume that I have one copy of WinXP - or, Win7, legally licensed. I install a *nix as my primary OS, create a VM using VirtualBox, and I'm legal, so far, right? Get the VM all updated, then clone it 99 times. Suddenly, I'm illegal, right? But, all 99 machines are being used INSIDE of ONE BOX!!! I use one machine to browse the darknet, another machine to do torrenting, another to do my banking, one for general browsing, and one just to test malware on. The rest I may or may not ever fire up for some reason that I haven't thought of yet.
So, how much should I mail to Microsoft for all of my VM's?
Whoa. Just whoa. Please. Allow me to figure this new math thing out here. We have an enterprise, with, oh, let's assume 1000 seats. The assertion is, each seat can cost $41k. 1000 x 41,000 = 41000000 Way back in the 1960's, when I learned math, 41,000,000 != 60,000. For 41 million dollars, I think most enterprise could hire an entire DEPARTMENT of support staff. In fact, they could hire 410 individuals @ $100,000 each, which would mean that each of the staff would only be responsible for about 2.5 machines. That's a lot of one-on-one support time, isn't it?
Hey, if some company decides that they want to switch over to open source, to save that much money, they can start ahead of time getting people certified on whichever system they have chosen. Investing only 2 million dollars a year in scholarships can get them a LOT of trained personnel in just a year of six. 2 million dollars worth of scholarships each year for twenty years is still less than one year's licensing for their current systems.
Let me remind you that the inter-net is inter-national. I am most certainly breaking SOMEONE's laws, somewhere. The fact that I will probably never enter the jurisdiction of most of those law making and law enforcement agencies saves me from a lot of hassle. But, I wouldn't respect the laws of N. Korea any more, or any less, if I had a trip planned to N. Korea tomorrow. I would continue to post on the internet that I think Kim il Jong has a flacid Dong - and worse.
As for any agency acquiring a block-for-block copy of my hard drives - cool. That doesn't get them into the files, nor does it help them to figure out where or how my "sensitive data" might be hidden.
Any tech worth his salt, who possesses some imagination, can hide data - often times, in plain sight. The forensics expert can dig deeper and deeper, while getting further and further from what he's after, sometimes. A "hidden encrypted drive" can be used as a distraction, even if it contains nothing.;-)
Slashdot Mirror
At my age, I have trouble with a duck walk.
There is probably room in the case for a few ounces of C4 explosive, and a detonator. You might have a hard time getting it through customs though..... and you had better never drop the thing so the detonator goes off!!
"Maybe some people can handle it. Maybe they can't."
It isn't terribly different from drinking and driving - both affect judgement. Drinking is outlawed for drivers, so cellphones should be too. Saying that "I can handle it" is one of the macho things men said 40 years ago, before they ran a kid over on the way home from the bar.
Anyone who claims that the cell phone doesn't impair their driving is being dishonest with himself, not to mention being dishonest with the rest of us.
Accountability, the man says? Where is the media? Are they ALL in bed with the politicos?
The fact is, politicians have not only enabled monitoring and censorship, they have mandated it. There is no reason in the world to think that only "good guys" will have those weapons. Monitoring and censorship are a little like guns and knives - good guys might have them, bad guys WILL have them.
The accountability for repressive technology begins in the UK's ministries, and in the US' congress and senate, and we can keep right on accounting through the rest of Europe, Australia, Canada - - -
Odd - repressive technology is only bad when it's the OTHER guys doing the repressing.
And, THAT is exactly why I want to see a city on the moon, more cities on Mars, and ships headed out, deeper into space, to plant more colonies yet.
How the hell we gonna have Star Wars, if everyone is killed off by a single comet? We must spread out to preserve our capability to wage war!!! Or, even peace, now and then.
OK - you explain why the earth has experienced extremely warm and extremely cold global climates in the past, even before mankind walked the earth. Then, you explain PRECISELY how today's global warming is different than any other climate changes from the past. I mean, PRECISELY, detailing differences between prior events, and today's events.
Problem is, you don't understand what happened eons ago, nor do you understand what is happening today. The current use of fossil fuels is a handy scape goat today - much as witchcraft was a handy scapegoat for events that people didn't understand hundreds of years ago.
My head isn't buried along with a huge flock of ostriches, my friend.
"If a tree falls in the forest and nobody is around to hear it hit the ground, does it make a sound?"
Scientifically speaking, a transmitter, a medium, and a receiver are necessary for sound to exist. If no human is around to hear the sound, does NOT mean that there is no sound. My cattle heard the tree fall, and they were all extremely jumpy at morning milking. So, of COURSE there was a sound!!
The question regarding EULA's and licenses regarding virtual machines is a question that will be answered sooner, or later. The answers may be different for home users and for enterprise, but the question is legitimate. And, no one even needs to guess what MS will want those answers to be - "WE WANT PAID!"
I've already said that I'm not going to pay them. Many people will. What's right?
"and colder waters (especially where they mix with warm water) are incredibly rich in nutrients (though I don't know enough offhand to say this is one of those areas, it.. prroooobbably is, or is close to one)."
While spending a year on Adak, I learned that the Bering Sea is supposed to be the coldest body of water on earth, and the Pacific Ocean is the warmest. Since then, I've questioned that assertion - but it's true enough to ensure very frequent severe storms in the Aleutians all the time. And, I mean, all the time. I don't think that we ever saw three days without a real storm marching across the island, and we certainly didn't see two days in a row without some sort of precipitation.
So, yes, you are right about the warm/cold water mixture.
"One of the prime symptoms of anthropogenic warming is"
FFS, dude, anthropogenic warming is a damned THEORY. And, here you have laws already written in stone. You might have got away with that shit had you said "global warming". The globe is warming, but the idea that man is responsible for that warming is about 30% theory, 35% speculation, and 35% political manipulation.
In a nutshell, the problem with GPL is that it hasn't been tested in court enough. MS knows that as well as, or perhaps better, than anyone. The GPL is just a legal tool, it isn't an authority, in and of itself. The judicial authority will ultimately test the GPL and it's derivatives in courtrooms.
The three E's? This could be the first of the E's. And, MS legal department may be gloating, because they have judges bought and paid for, just waiting for the day they walk into court for a GPL suit.
Be suspicious. I am.
Those who fail to learn history's lessons are doomed to relive history. Or, something like that.
Microsoft has history, people. Embrace, extend, extinquish. I want to see a lot of new attitudes, actions, and history before I trust Microsoft. Even if Sam Ramji is the most honorable person in the world - Sam isn't Microsoft. He works FOR Microsoft, and he can be over ruled if/when Microsoft decides that it is to their advantage.
Forgive me, but I'll take a pass on sleeping with snakes.
It could just be a huge zit. Your basic case of acne, brought on by global warming. Those damned humans, and their fossil fuels.
Where's the safest place to take cover?
Oh, wait. This is probably one time boot camp training will come in handy.
1. Sit down.
2. Place your head between your knees.
3. Kiss your ass "good-bye".
I don't know - that still sounds kinda disgusting - maybe I'll read and think a bit before I do that. Oh. That's right. ALL THE PLANETS have been hit repeatedly. There probably isn't a year that goes by without one being hit. This hit's maybe the biggest ever recorded, but nothing new. Lotsa hits happened before mankind was around to record them.
Phhht.
More non-news. Maybe I'll just catch the re-runs next year.
Downloaded, but all the "make" files were for 32 bit. While I figure out what to do about that, I installed on Windows. Kinda cool - I'll be playing with it for awhile.
Crossed the line from possible to - - -
Lemme try hard to unnerstand this concept. I'm tryin' real hard, so just bear with me. My feeble little mind .....
It has been demonstrable "possible" to do exactly this ever since the concept of electronic voting was first considered. To me, it was only a matter of time before some ballsy sumbitch decided to act on the possibility. Given time, and growing sophistication, manipulation of voting results should become more and more "undetectable".
Only fools and damn fools are willing to rely on the results of ephemeral electronic voting, without a PAPER TRAIL to back it up. There IS NO TRAIL of electrons - especially when the "winning" party has all the hardware, all the software, and they pass a law to make it illegal to have any part of the code, or to gain access to the hardware.
Fools, and damned fools.
Ahhhh. The common misperception. Crimes aren't referred to civil court - they are addressed in CRIMINAL court. Notice the giveaway in the root word - CRIMe, CRIMinal?
A false accusation isn't a crime, it is a civil offense, as you almost seemed to comprehend. Civil offenses generally aren't "punished" as are criminal offenses. In most civil offenses, the complainant is attempting to have the court redress loss, of some sort, such as loss of reputation, loss of money, loss of life - the list goes on. For that reason, one can be tried for the same offense in criminal court, as well as in civil court. The state demands punishment for murder, so the defendant stands trial for the criminal offense of murder, then later goes to trial for a civil case of wrongful death. Wrongful death is not a criminal offense, though. There are any number of circumstances in which a defendant might have to pay damages for a wrongful death, but the state never charges that person with a crime.
"it's going to require a part of Windows that that's system/driver oriented"
I presume that you refer to that portion of Windows that acts as a DOS emulator. DRDOS was THE standard for flashing, only a few years ago. Manufacturers STILL recommend making a bootable DOS disk for flashing purposes. It is still dangerous to attempt flashing operations from within Windows, no matter the marketing aspect of doing so.
It seems that you may be a bit infatuated with Bill Gate's operating system. In fact, the only reasons we don't routinely flash from Linux involve proprietary mfrs refusing to code for Linux.
I recently bought a board for the purpose of flashing chips that had been bricked. It works fine, and I've rescued three "dead" boards so far. Unfortunately, I can only run the software on Windows. It won't run from a virtual machine (or, at least, I'm not smart enough to have figured out how to do so) and I genuinely fear the results of running it in Wine. There ARE NO DRIVERS OR SOFTWARE available for Linux.
Personally, I think that rescuing dead mainboards is serious shitzls. I just hate to do such a chore with a frivolous Windows gaming machine.
"Basically I have no chance of attaining any leadership skills"
I fear that you don't understand what "leadership" is. If you wish to learn about leadership, and you are not learning, that is your failure, not the failure of the military, the boy scouts, an employer, or even your parents. I would ask first, how many courses are you enrolled in? If you answer "none", then it is obvious that you DON'T wish to learn leadership, but instead, you only want to bellyache about the military. Which is fine with me - we earn the right to bitch by serving. But, for your own good, you do need to be honest with yourself.
As for attaining a "leadership position" - that is another subject entirely. The best leaders, of course, are good followers. Are you a good follower? Do you work hard to make your mates and superiors look good? Do you support your juniors? Are you always there, willing to do whatever it takes? Do you volunteer to "go the extra mile"?
If so - maybe you really are in the wrong MOS. Maybe even the wrong branch of military. The Navy does things considerably different than the Army - you might consider a tour with the fleet after your army service.
I have one son in the Army, one going into the Navy. If they switched places, I don't think either would be happy - it all depends on the individual's aptitude, personality, etc.
But, please, let's not blame the Army for a failure to learn a skill. You can learn if you wish to learn. Demonstrating that skill is the path to advancement, not bitching about the lack of a skill.
1-800-cry-baby
and
1-888-asus-supp
and
www.asus.helpafuckingdummy.com
FFS, every hardware manufacturer I have ever heard of has a support line SOMEWHERE. Granted, some of the smaller fly-by-night mainboard people make it hard to find a support site, but they are there.
Personally, I'd be a bit embarrased to post on slashdot that I didn't know how to search for support.
I just don't give a damn about any stupid EULA. I have read them in the past, and disagree with half of what is printed in them. "Accepting" the EULA is a coercive exercise. Basically, it says "If you don't like ANYTHING we tell you, then you can't use our software." Bullshit. Complete and utter bullshit. I take almost all the same liberties with Microsoft and other proprietary software that I take with open source software - decompile, reverse engineer, change code, etc. The ONLY thing that I don't do with proprietary, is to redistribute. What I do INHOUSE is my business.
The day that Microsoft sits down with a panel of consumers who represent business, government, the nerd community, and average users, and hammer out a REASONABLE EULA, then I'll pay attention to the EULA again. The best "for instance" is the changing hardware deal. If I buy a Compaq, and the mainboard dies a week after the warranty dies, I insist that I have the right to replace the mainboard and any peripheral hardware, and to reinstall Windows - FOR FREE.
Corporate coercion of consumers may or may not be legal - but I will never respect it, or abide by it.
As I recall, a launch takes hours. There are hours on the launchpad before ignition, and there are at least 30 to 45 minutes after ignition before achieving orbit. There are only 60 critical seconds under discussion here. A launch failure occured 5 times in the last few days ie, the mission was scrubbed. The astronauts were "rescued" from all 5 of those launch failures.
As for those critical 60 seconds - well, they are STILL almost as safe as aviation. Takeoff and landing both have their critical moments, where a mistake is almost always fatal.
Ask a Navy or Marine aviator about carrier ops.
How much risk is acceptable? Is the Air Force suggesting that space exloration should be 0% risk, or less?
If so, then we should probably ground all aircraft, scrap all automobiles - you get the idea.
Let's face it. Sitting on top of tons of explosive, and lighting them off, is going to be risky. Minimize the risk, yeah, but there will always BE RISK. It doesn't matter what kind of engine you are using, or what kind of fuel it is using. A crash within the first minute of flight is often quite deadly in aviation simply because the pilot has so few options for ditching or bailing out. The same will always be true of spaceflight.
If we want 0% risk, we had better get started on that space elevator. Of course, there may be some hidden risk at some point in that ascent - but at least we won't be blowing it up to use it.
You're serious, right? Let's assume that I have one copy of WinXP - or, Win7, legally licensed. I install a *nix as my primary OS, create a VM using VirtualBox, and I'm legal, so far, right? Get the VM all updated, then clone it 99 times. Suddenly, I'm illegal, right? But, all 99 machines are being used INSIDE of ONE BOX!!! I use one machine to browse the darknet, another machine to do torrenting, another to do my banking, one for general browsing, and one just to test malware on. The rest I may or may not ever fire up for some reason that I haven't thought of yet.
So, how much should I mail to Microsoft for all of my VM's?
Say, can I bum a dollar?
Whoa. Just whoa. Please. Allow me to figure this new math thing out here. We have an enterprise, with, oh, let's assume 1000 seats. The assertion is, each seat can cost $41k. 1000 x 41,000 = 41000000 Way back in the 1960's, when I learned math, 41,000,000 != 60,000. For 41 million dollars, I think most enterprise could hire an entire DEPARTMENT of support staff. In fact, they could hire 410 individuals @ $100,000 each, which would mean that each of the staff would only be responsible for about 2.5 machines. That's a lot of one-on-one support time, isn't it?
Hey, if some company decides that they want to switch over to open source, to save that much money, they can start ahead of time getting people certified on whichever system they have chosen. Investing only 2 million dollars a year in scholarships can get them a LOT of trained personnel in just a year of six. 2 million dollars worth of scholarships each year for twenty years is still less than one year's licensing for their current systems.
Bigjeff addresses part of your post.
Let me remind you that the inter-net is inter-national. I am most certainly breaking SOMEONE's laws, somewhere. The fact that I will probably never enter the jurisdiction of most of those law making and law enforcement agencies saves me from a lot of hassle. But, I wouldn't respect the laws of N. Korea any more, or any less, if I had a trip planned to N. Korea tomorrow. I would continue to post on the internet that I think Kim il Jong has a flacid Dong - and worse.
As for any agency acquiring a block-for-block copy of my hard drives - cool. That doesn't get them into the files, nor does it help them to figure out where or how my "sensitive data" might be hidden.
Any tech worth his salt, who possesses some imagination, can hide data - often times, in plain sight. The forensics expert can dig deeper and deeper, while getting further and further from what he's after, sometimes. A "hidden encrypted drive" can be used as a distraction, even if it contains nothing. ;-)