From here, the gas mileage of a modern aircraft carrier is seventeen feet per gallon...so he's getting 40% less distance per unit of fuel.
Modern aircraft carriers are nuclear-powered. Every US aircraft carrier built after 1968 has been nuclear powered. Therefore there are no modern aircraft carriers operating on boilers/diesel, etc.
So the real question is this: How many grams of plutonium/uranium per mile?
1. Jack into kiddy pr0n finds it on the internet. 2. Jack trolls AOL chat rooms for minors. 3. Cop, posing as minor, learns about Jack. 4. Based on Jack's chat room antics, Cop gets a search warrants, locates Jack, and gets a search warrant for Jack's computer. 5. Cop seizes Jack's computer, and finds kiddy pr0n, catching Jack with his pants down. 6. Jack, pants down, claims his only viable excuse: "It was those other kids". 7. Jack gets fucked by the system, but he more or less deserves it.
Really. Most criminals have very creative excuses as to why evidence implicating them just happened to be found in their home/car/computer/etc. This is only the latest excuse in a long series of excuses.
He took "The Soft Weapon" and rewrote it with Trek characters. But he couldn't even be bothered to change the Kzinti to Klingons, which would've been the logical mapping from Known Space to Trek. Frankly, I think it's disgraceful that he took money for this hack job (and I say that as a big Niven fan).
I actually argued about this with someone online once. He brought up Kzinti in a Trek context, based on that episode. I said they had no place in the Trek universe. But he insisted that since it was in TAS, it was canon.
OK, call me a fanboy, but this isn't a troll. I'm glad to see somebody else remembers this, anyway.
What really ticked me off about this wasn't that the kzinti were thrown into the Star Trek universe, it was because they were pussies, drawn as small whiny kittens rather than the really large, really carnivious creatures they were written as. They were even drawn as hunching over and looking more like slaves than the kzinti we have grown to know and fear.
Real kzin wouldn't have even talked to the away team - Kirk and Spock and Co. would have been torn to bits right off the bat - at least Crewman Jones would have gotten his head bitten off. OK, that's a cartoon, and you can't do that. But at least the kzinti should have been drawn as being REALLY big in comparison with humans and vulcans.
Also, once again. Its a jedi (or potential jedi) who is torn between light and dark and can go either way. Good idea, but its becoming cliche.
Sure, it's cliche, but because of this, you actually get to play KOTOR, and presumably KOTOR II as an evil bastard, which is a refreshing option in games. Why play as the good guy all the time?
As an estate planning lawyer, I can tell you that this probably wouldn't work. First of all, the client gets a copy of his will, assuming the original will is kept in the attorney's safe. So the copy would have the passwords written on it and it wouldn't be safe.
Second, most states require that original wills be lodged with the court within a certain amount of time after your date of death. Your will would then be accessable to the public (for example, you can buy a certified copy of George Washington's will, if you want one).
Third if you're paranoid, telling the lawyer your passwords and have them kept for safekeeping by some other means would result in a situation where the lawyer's staff would probably have access to your passwords, even while you're still alive.
What I think we have here is a business opportunity. A company can maintain a completely off-line registry of passwords in envelopes that aren't even opened by the company that are turned over only after your executor delivers your death certificate to the company. I'm operating under the assumption that any on-line registry of passwords is simply insane and cannot be truly secure under any circumstances.
Of course, this company already exists: It's your bank. Just write down your passwords, put them in sealed envelopes, and put the envelopes in a bank safe deposit box. If the box is titled solely in your name, no one would have access to it except for your conservator (if you get put into a conservatorship), your agent under a power of attorney, or your executor/trustee after your death.
Re:Military Potential of D&D
on
D&D Is 30
·
· Score: 2, Funny
I agree. Under Motor Voter, non-citizens can register to vote at the DMV, and there's no actual check made to see whether or not the registrant is actually a citizen entitled to vote.
The fundamental problem with online voting is that if I have your pin number, I get to vote for you. Combine that with "motor voter" and you're creating an environment ideal for voter fraud, even if the system is "perfect".
Sorry, but you are not entirely correct, at least in California. I won't speak for other states. California, BTW, has its own state overtime laws that will probably remain uneffected by the new federal regulations. In California, you get overtime if you work more than 8 hours per day or 40 hours per week.
Just because you are a "salaried employee" does not mean you are exempt from overtime regulation. Salaried employees have an hourly rate - it's determined by dividing the "salary" by the number of hours worked each week.
Essentially, all employees are subject to overtime rules by default, unless they are categorically exempt. Exempt employees include "professionals" such as lawyers, doctors, etc., and employees whose principal duties are the management and supervision of other employees. There are a number of other exceptions (I seem to recall that truck drivers, for example, are exempt. In California, many employers try to screw employees out of overtime by giving them the title of "manager" or "assistant manager", even though they remain wage slaves.
I won't get in the whole "was the election stolen or not" debate, but Dan Rather did call Florida for Al Gore one hour before the polls closed in the western portion of the state (little known fact: Florida is in two time zones). How many people didn't go to the polls because of this? There's no way of knowing, and there's no way of knowing who they would have voted for.
I do agree that exit polling is a good thing - it's just that the exit pollers should keep their traps shut until the polls have closed and everyone has had their chance to vote.
It was neither. The news was announced by the cooperative exit-polling service all of the networks chipped in to fund. These morons called Florida for Al Gore even before the polls closed in the western panhandle of Florida. The networks picked up that info and each released it to the public as quickly as possible.
I remember Dan Rather talking about how accurate the exit polling was, and that we could "take it to the bank".
The debacle of the 2000 election was a complete failure of journalism in a close election.
Bad cases make bad law. Sure, it's overkill to send someone to jail for sharing an mp3. But this isn't the case here. This guy was videotaping a film, in the freakin' movie theater. This isn't fair use under any stretch of the imagination. It's illegal, plain and simple, and the guy ought to be prosecuted and sent up the river. But he's not going to be prosecuted for a felony. He's going to be prosecuted for a misdemeanor, which carries a one-year max sentence. And even if he gets sentenced to one year, he'll be out in six months if he stays out of trouble in the county lockup. This is not a cruel or unusual punishment. It is not a ten-year sentence, so please stop with your Parade of Horribles already.
It's also not a small crime - what this guy was probably going to do was to take his video tape and turn it into a DVD and sell it to others. When Elf came out last year, Actor/Director Jon Favreau was a guest co-host on Jimmy Kimmel live. During a street-interview segment, a woman talked about buying DVD's and displayed her copy of Elf, which had been in the theaters for less than a week. This happens all of the time. Just do a search for bit.torrents and you'll find movies that haven't been released yet up for grabs. If you think that what this guy was doing wasn't a crime, you've got to be kidding. The law was passed for the simple reason that prosecutors had no way of convicting criminals like this guy of anything unless they actually caught him selling his ill-gotten goods. And please don't compare him to Martin Luther King, Jr. This isn't a civil rights case. He ain't Rosa Parks standing up for herself refusing to obey a discriminatory and unconstitutional law. He's a jerk out trying to make a few bucks at the expense of others.
Also, you're completely wrong when you say that people who murder, steal, rape, molest, etc. are being penalized less than someone who uses a drug, shares a song, or bypasses DVD encryption. That's an exaggeration intended to buttress the fantasy that this guy isn't doing anything wrong, or if he is, there's no victim and it's "fair use" anyway.
In reality, most people who get caught for drug possession charges (unless it's with intent to distribute) get into diversion programs on a first offense. Hell, in California, the penalty for ordinary possession of marijuana is a $50 fine. And penalties for serious crimes are very severe. Ever hear of 3-strikes? Yes, the drug war is stupid and drug laws should be revised, but that has nothing to do with this man's crime.
The problem with this assessment is that, if evidence is taken in an illegal manner, it's not admissable in court. In some cases, all *sub* evidence gathered as a result from illegal evidence can also be ruled out. Fruit of a poisoned tree and all that.
Please keep in mind that the exclusionary rule that excludes illegally obtained evidence from being admitted into court applies only to evidence obtained by "state actors" (the cops).
In defense of "100 different swords", I have to say that the wide variety of swords, armor, etc. is much of what made Diablo II a success. I'm not saying that gameplay, fun, etc. isn't important - that's the heart of any good game. It's just that having a variety of weapons and other stuff to discover makes a game more interesting.
It actually has to do with the psychology of operant conditioning. Kill a monster or open a chest and get a weapon. If you get the same sword every time, you won't bother seeking out and killing the monster unless you happen to need the sword (which you won't need because you already have). But if there's a chance you may wind up getting a much better sword, then you're going to go out, time after time, killing and looting until you find the sword and start looking for the next one, or you give up, bored.
Operant conditioning is why gambling is so addictive. It's why people who can't afford it buy lottery tickets. And it's why having a variety of "neat" weapons in a fantasy RPG is part of what makes it fun. Even NetHack has more than one sword.
And it doesn't have to be complex. Diablo II is a very simple game to play, with a very large number of items that can be acquired by a player. None of the rare ones are needed to do well in the game - they're just neat, and a way to make your character different in its own way from the rest of the crowd.
...if this means I can sue Microsoft over their bulky X-Box controller if my surgeon screws up.
Or how about this: "Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury, sure, the defendant says he plays Counterstrike four hours per week to hone his surgicial skills and he claims that's enough. But I submit to you that a lying, cheating wallhack such as the defendant isn't going to gain ANY skills that help make him a better surgeon, or a better counter-terrorist.
Well, I would disagree with your statement that there was no "universal sufferage" in the novel. There is. You just have to pay for it. The right to vote was given to only veterans of government service - and the government HAD to accept your service if you wanted to volunteer, regardless of any particular disabilities you may have. Sure, you could wind up in a very hazardous job with a high mortality rate, but they have to let you serve if you want to.
I think the fatal flaw in Heinlein's vision is that veterans (and I'm one) act and think in as self-interested a manner as everyone else. If the system of "veteran-sufferage" was enacted here today, veterans would vote themselves bread and circuses.
I'll let Lawrence Lessig speak for me on this one (from his blog):
But as I watch Kerry (as opposed, e.g., to MoveOn) define the issues in this campaign, he still feels inside-the-beltway-tone-deaf. One by one we get "new initiatives," Christmas tree lists of things Kerry will do when president, much like Clinton would rattle off lists of gifts in his State of the Union Addresses (for hours and hours and hours). Each new initiative gets a flurry of attention, some praise, some criticism, and then disappears. The result is at best a slight good-idea victory, but more likely a draw. But people, the professional pols say, care about the economy, or their jobs, or taxes, or education. So a campaign must stick to addressing those issues.
It's the same shit in a different package. The art of politics isn't about making stands - it's about constructing positions to take on issues that will attract the most voters. That's why Kerry is attacking Bush over the war, despite having voted for it himself. That's why Bush is coming out in a strong way against gay marriage (because it's a position followed by many of his supporters) while Kerry is sort of, kind of, maybe in favor of it (because that's a position followed by many of his supporters).
I think this is one of the reasons why Governors are getting elected President more often than Senators. Kerry has to flip-flop on the issues frequently, because of the positions he has taken during his long Senate career. Bush, prior to 2000, didn't have to have positions on any national issues, so he could make up his mind as he went along, without fear of contradicting himself.
Of course, the Internet makes it worse, allowing rapid searches of everything anyone in the public light has ever said or done.
Nah. That's all going to be done away with, with the new DVD #$%!!!GODDAMMIT!$#&*@!!!+R format, which will undoubtedly be incompatable with all existing formats, including itself.
Seriously. I think I'd buy a new wireless phone in a heartbeat, if it was modeled after the classic trek communicator. I fail to understand why Paramount hasn't licensed this to Motorola yet.
Sorry pal, but you're completely wrong. From the article:
The advisory committee is expected to endorse a proposal requiring Microsoft to ship two versions of Windows to computer makers, which account for most sales of the operating system, for installation in computers sold in Europe, these people said.
One version would have Microsoft Windows Media Player tied in as it is now. The other would have it stripped out.
The aim is to free computer makers to sell Windows bundled with rival audiovisual software such as RealNetworks RealPlayer or Apple's Quicktime, the sources said.
This has nothing to do with DRM, which would probably be supported by the EU to protect the interests of the usual gang of media conglomerates. This exercise by the EU is simply more of the same: Protect companies such as RealNetworks by putting them on the same level as Microsoft on the desktop. If I had any sympathy with RealNetworks I'd think it was a good thing, but if I were to buy a Windows computer without Media Player I'd be annoyed, and would probably download it as soon as possible, right after I download iTunes.
You have a very good point, but in this case, I think it's more of a matter of economics than a matter of a gigantic Microsoft conspiracy. I sympathize with you, but the computer manufacturers have more or less decided that most of their customers want an OS installed, and most of them want XP, so they can sell their computers cheaper with XP on every machine because, it's costing them $45/copy rather than $99/copy (or what, $200/copy for the full install).
There are, however, manufacturers such as Dell that sell servers with Linux or without an OS at all. In the server market at least, the manufacturers have recognized that there's a market for computers without OS's, and many of them are meeting the needs of that market. This doesn't help you, the Linux notebook user, but presumably if the demand is great enough, they'll start selling desktops and notebooks without an OS, UNLESS there really is a Great Microsoft Conspiracy. So the solution is to make Linux on the desktop easy enough for anyone (ie, not me, but my computer illiterate coworkers) and build a demand for it. Until that happens, Linux is going to remain the province of the technically savvy.
I decided that I have to comment here. Sure, Linux is free, and XP has all sorts of problems that I read about on/. every day of the week. But I use XP. Why? Because it works. Sorry, folks, but XP isn't buggy, and it works well on any machine with enough RAM, and it's easy to use. Sure, there are worms, and the occasional security vulnerabilty that I hear about from Windows Update even before I read about it on/. But, dammit, I LIKE XP. It works well for me, and it's very reliable in everything I've used it for.
So enough with the Windows bashing already. Is it worth $45? Hell, yes. It is worth $99.
Maybe XP isn't good enough to pass the muster of/. groupthink, but it's good enough for me, and no, I haven't been ripped off, and I haven't had my computers at home and at work riddled with viruses.
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From here, the gas mileage of a modern aircraft carrier is seventeen feet per gallon...so he's getting 40% less distance per unit of fuel.
Modern aircraft carriers are nuclear-powered. Every US aircraft carrier built after 1968 has been nuclear powered. Therefore there are no modern aircraft carriers operating on boilers/diesel, etc.
So the real question is this: How many grams of plutonium/uranium per mile?
Nah, here's what really probably happened:
1. Jack into kiddy pr0n finds it on the internet.
2. Jack trolls AOL chat rooms for minors.
3. Cop, posing as minor, learns about Jack.
4. Based on Jack's chat room antics, Cop gets a search warrants, locates Jack, and gets a search warrant for Jack's computer.
5. Cop seizes Jack's computer, and finds kiddy pr0n, catching Jack with his pants down.
6. Jack, pants down, claims his only viable excuse: "It was those other kids".
7. Jack gets fucked by the system, but he more or less deserves it.
Really. Most criminals have very creative excuses as to why evidence implicating them just happened to be found in their home/car/computer/etc. This is only the latest excuse in a long series of excuses.
So, do you think they'd fall for the Goaste link? Or would they be more susceptible to Tubgirl?
I think that Goatse was implicated in the recent Iraqi prisoner mistreatment scandal.
He took "The Soft Weapon" and rewrote it with Trek characters. But he couldn't even be bothered to change the Kzinti to Klingons, which would've been the logical mapping from Known Space to Trek. Frankly, I think it's disgraceful that he took money for this hack job (and I say that as a big Niven fan).
I actually argued about this with someone online once. He brought up Kzinti in a Trek context, based on that episode. I said they had no place in the Trek universe. But he insisted that since it was in TAS, it was canon.
OK, call me a fanboy, but this isn't a troll. I'm glad to see somebody else remembers this, anyway.
What really ticked me off about this wasn't that the kzinti were thrown into the Star Trek universe, it was because they were pussies, drawn as small whiny kittens rather than the really large, really carnivious creatures they were written as. They were even drawn as hunching over and looking more like slaves than the kzinti we have grown to know and fear.
Real kzin wouldn't have even talked to the away team - Kirk and Spock and Co. would have been torn to bits right off the bat - at least Crewman Jones would have gotten his head bitten off. OK, that's a cartoon, and you can't do that. But at least the kzinti should have been drawn as being REALLY big in comparison with humans and vulcans.
Also, once again. Its a jedi (or potential jedi) who is torn between light and dark and can go either way. Good idea, but its becoming cliche.
Sure, it's cliche, but because of this, you actually get to play KOTOR, and presumably KOTOR II as an evil bastard, which is a refreshing option in games. Why play as the good guy all the time?
As an estate planning lawyer, I can tell you that this probably wouldn't work. First of all, the client gets a copy of his will, assuming the original will is kept in the attorney's safe. So the copy would have the passwords written on it and it wouldn't be safe.
Second, most states require that original wills be lodged with the court within a certain amount of time after your date of death. Your will would then be accessable to the public (for example, you can buy a certified copy of George Washington's will, if you want one).
Third if you're paranoid, telling the lawyer your passwords and have them kept for safekeeping by some other means would result in a situation where the lawyer's staff would probably have access to your passwords, even while you're still alive.
What I think we have here is a business opportunity. A company can maintain a completely off-line registry of passwords in envelopes that aren't even opened by the company that are turned over only after your executor delivers your death certificate to the company. I'm operating under the assumption that any on-line registry of passwords is simply insane and cannot be truly secure under any circumstances.
Of course, this company already exists: It's your bank. Just write down your passwords, put them in sealed envelopes, and put the envelopes in a bank safe deposit box. If the box is titled solely in your name, no one would have access to it except for your conservator (if you get put into a conservatorship), your agent under a power of attorney, or your executor/trustee after your death.
Nuclear submarines? D&D groups?
I wanna cast magic missile!
Oops...
I agree. Under Motor Voter, non-citizens can register to vote at the DMV, and there's no actual check made to see whether or not the registrant is actually a citizen entitled to vote.
The fundamental problem with online voting is that if I have your pin number, I get to vote for you. Combine that with "motor voter" and you're creating an environment ideal for voter fraud, even if the system is "perfect".
Sorry, but you are not entirely correct, at least in California. I won't speak for other states. California, BTW, has its own state overtime laws that will probably remain uneffected by the new federal regulations. In California, you get overtime if you work more than 8 hours per day or 40 hours per week.
Just because you are a "salaried employee" does not mean you are exempt from overtime regulation. Salaried employees have an hourly rate - it's determined by dividing the "salary" by the number of hours worked each week.
Essentially, all employees are subject to overtime rules by default, unless they are categorically exempt. Exempt employees include "professionals" such as lawyers, doctors, etc., and employees whose principal duties are the management and supervision of other employees. There are a number of other exceptions (I seem to recall that truck drivers, for example, are exempt. In California, many employers try to screw employees out of overtime by giving them the title of "manager" or "assistant manager", even though they remain wage slaves.
I won't get in the whole "was the election stolen or not" debate, but Dan Rather did call Florida for Al Gore one hour before the polls closed in the western portion of the state (little known fact: Florida is in two time zones). How many people didn't go to the polls because of this? There's no way of knowing, and there's no way of knowing who they would have voted for.
I do agree that exit polling is a good thing - it's just that the exit pollers should keep their traps shut until the polls have closed and everyone has had their chance to vote.
It was neither. The news was announced by the cooperative exit-polling service all of the networks chipped in to fund. These morons called Florida for Al Gore even before the polls closed in the western panhandle of Florida. The networks picked up that info and each released it to the public as quickly as possible.
I remember Dan Rather talking about how accurate the exit polling was, and that we could "take it to the bank".
The debacle of the 2000 election was a complete failure of journalism in a close election.
Bad cases make bad law. Sure, it's overkill to send someone to jail for sharing an mp3. But this isn't the case here. This guy was videotaping a film, in the freakin' movie theater. This isn't fair use under any stretch of the imagination. It's illegal, plain and simple, and the guy ought to be prosecuted and sent up the river. But he's not going to be prosecuted for a felony. He's going to be prosecuted for a misdemeanor, which carries a one-year max sentence. And even if he gets sentenced to one year, he'll be out in six months if he stays out of trouble in the county lockup. This is not a cruel or unusual punishment. It is not a ten-year sentence, so please stop with your Parade of Horribles already.
It's also not a small crime - what this guy was probably going to do was to take his video tape and turn it into a DVD and sell it to others. When Elf came out last year, Actor/Director Jon Favreau was a guest co-host on Jimmy Kimmel live. During a street-interview segment, a woman talked about buying DVD's and displayed her copy of Elf, which had been in the theaters for less than a week. This happens all of the time. Just do a search for bit.torrents and you'll find movies that haven't been released yet up for grabs. If you think that what this guy was doing wasn't a crime, you've got to be kidding. The law was passed for the simple reason that prosecutors had no way of convicting criminals like this guy of anything unless they actually caught him selling his ill-gotten goods. And please don't compare him to Martin Luther King, Jr. This isn't a civil rights case. He ain't Rosa Parks standing up for herself refusing to obey a discriminatory and unconstitutional law. He's a jerk out trying to make a few bucks at the expense of others.
Also, you're completely wrong when you say that people who murder, steal, rape, molest, etc. are being penalized less than someone who uses a drug, shares a song, or bypasses DVD encryption. That's an exaggeration intended to buttress the fantasy that this guy isn't doing anything wrong, or if he is, there's no victim and it's "fair use" anyway.
In reality, most people who get caught for drug possession charges (unless it's with intent to distribute) get into diversion programs on a first offense. Hell, in California, the penalty for ordinary possession of marijuana is a $50 fine. And penalties for serious crimes are very severe. Ever hear of 3-strikes? Yes, the drug war is stupid and drug laws should be revised, but that has nothing to do with this man's crime.
The problem with this assessment is that, if evidence is taken in an illegal manner, it's not admissable in court. In some cases, all *sub* evidence gathered as a result from illegal evidence can also be ruled out. Fruit of a poisoned tree and all that.
Please keep in mind that the exclusionary rule that excludes illegally obtained evidence from being admitted into court applies only to evidence obtained by "state actors" (the cops).
In defense of "100 different swords", I have to say that the wide variety of swords, armor, etc. is much of what made Diablo II a success. I'm not saying that gameplay, fun, etc. isn't important - that's the heart of any good game. It's just that having a variety of weapons and other stuff to discover makes a game more interesting.
It actually has to do with the psychology of operant conditioning. Kill a monster or open a chest and get a weapon. If you get the same sword every time, you won't bother seeking out and killing the monster unless you happen to need the sword (which you won't need because you already have). But if there's a chance you may wind up getting a much better sword, then you're going to go out, time after time, killing and looting until you find the sword and start looking for the next one, or you give up, bored.
Operant conditioning is why gambling is so addictive. It's why people who can't afford it buy lottery tickets. And it's why having a variety of "neat" weapons in a fantasy RPG is part of what makes it fun. Even NetHack has more than one sword.
And it doesn't have to be complex. Diablo II is a very simple game to play, with a very large number of items that can be acquired by a player. None of the rare ones are needed to do well in the game - they're just neat, and a way to make your character different in its own way from the rest of the crowd.
...if this means I can sue Microsoft over their bulky X-Box controller if my surgeon screws up.
Or how about this: "Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury, sure, the defendant says he plays Counterstrike four hours per week to hone his surgicial skills and he claims that's enough. But I submit to you that a lying, cheating wallhack such as the defendant isn't going to gain ANY skills that help make him a better surgeon, or a better counter-terrorist.
Well, I would disagree with your statement that there was no "universal sufferage" in the novel. There is. You just have to pay for it. The right to vote was given to only veterans of government service - and the government HAD to accept your service if you wanted to volunteer, regardless of any particular disabilities you may have. Sure, you could wind up in a very hazardous job with a high mortality rate, but they have to let you serve if you want to.
I think the fatal flaw in Heinlein's vision is that veterans (and I'm one) act and think in as self-interested a manner as everyone else. If the system of "veteran-sufferage" was enacted here today, veterans would vote themselves bread and circuses.
I'll let Lawrence Lessig speak for me on this one (from his blog):
But as I watch Kerry (as opposed, e.g., to MoveOn) define the issues in this campaign, he still feels inside-the-beltway-tone-deaf. One by one we get "new initiatives," Christmas tree lists of things Kerry will do when president, much like Clinton would rattle off lists of gifts in his State of the Union Addresses (for hours and hours and hours). Each new initiative gets a flurry of attention, some praise, some criticism, and then disappears. The result is at best a slight good-idea victory, but more likely a draw. But people, the professional pols say, care about the economy, or their jobs, or taxes, or education. So a campaign must stick to addressing those issues.
It's the same shit in a different package. The art of politics isn't about making stands - it's about constructing positions to take on issues that will attract the most voters. That's why Kerry is attacking Bush over the war, despite having voted for it himself. That's why Bush is coming out in a strong way against gay marriage (because it's a position followed by many of his supporters) while Kerry is sort of, kind of, maybe in favor of it (because that's a position followed by many of his supporters).
I think this is one of the reasons why Governors are getting elected President more often than Senators. Kerry has to flip-flop on the issues frequently, because of the positions he has taken during his long Senate career. Bush, prior to 2000, didn't have to have positions on any national issues, so he could make up his mind as he went along, without fear of contradicting himself.
Of course, the Internet makes it worse, allowing rapid searches of everything anyone in the public light has ever said or done.
8XDVD+/-R DL 8XDVD+/-R 4XDVD+/-RW 16XDVD-ROM 48XCD+/-R 8XCD+/-RW 48XCD-ROM"?
Nah. That's all going to be done away with, with the new DVD #$%!!!GODDAMMIT!$#&*@!!!+R format, which will undoubtedly be incompatable with all existing formats, including itself.
Seriously. I think I'd buy a new wireless phone in a heartbeat, if it was modeled after the classic trek communicator. I fail to understand why Paramount hasn't licensed this to Motorola yet.
Sorry pal, but you're completely wrong. From the article:
The advisory committee is expected to endorse a proposal requiring Microsoft to ship two versions of Windows to computer makers, which account for most sales of the operating system, for installation in computers sold in Europe, these people said.
One version would have Microsoft Windows Media Player tied in as it is now. The other would have it stripped out.
The aim is to free computer makers to sell Windows bundled with rival audiovisual software such as RealNetworks RealPlayer or Apple's Quicktime, the sources said.
This has nothing to do with DRM, which would probably be supported by the EU to protect the interests of the usual gang of media conglomerates. This exercise by the EU is simply more of the same: Protect companies such as RealNetworks by putting them on the same level as Microsoft on the desktop. If I had any sympathy with RealNetworks I'd think it was a good thing, but if I were to buy a Windows computer without Media Player I'd be annoyed, and would probably download it as soon as possible, right after I download iTunes.
Sort of. At least in their animated "Return of the King" the orcs were singing "Where there's a Whip, there's a Way".
It's actually a catchy tune, for dreck.
Just so you know, gambling losses CAN be deducted to offset gambling winnings on your income tax returns.
You have a very good point, but in this case, I think it's more of a matter of economics than a matter of a gigantic Microsoft conspiracy. I sympathize with you, but the computer manufacturers have more or less decided that most of their customers want an OS installed, and most of them want XP, so they can sell their computers cheaper with XP on every machine because, it's costing them $45/copy rather than $99/copy (or what, $200/copy for the full install).
There are, however, manufacturers such as Dell that sell servers with Linux or without an OS at all. In the server market at least, the manufacturers have recognized that there's a market for computers without OS's, and many of them are meeting the needs of that market. This doesn't help you, the Linux notebook user, but presumably if the demand is great enough, they'll start selling desktops and notebooks without an OS, UNLESS there really is a Great Microsoft Conspiracy. So the solution is to make Linux on the desktop easy enough for anyone (ie, not me, but my computer illiterate coworkers) and build a demand for it. Until that happens, Linux is going to remain the province of the technically savvy.
I decided that I have to comment here. Sure, Linux is free, and XP has all sorts of problems that I read about on /. every day of the week. But I use XP. Why? Because it works. Sorry, folks, but XP isn't buggy, and it works well on any machine with enough RAM, and it's easy to use. Sure, there are worms, and the occasional security vulnerabilty that I hear about from Windows Update even before I read about it on /. But, dammit, I LIKE XP. It works well for me, and it's very reliable in everything I've used it for.
/. groupthink, but it's good enough for me, and no, I haven't been ripped off, and I haven't had my computers at home and at work riddled with viruses.
So enough with the Windows bashing already. Is it worth $45? Hell, yes. It is worth $99.
Maybe XP isn't good enough to pass the muster of