Yes, I do, but it still takes up disk space on my ISP. Given that the ISP's userlist was recently discovered, and spam-nuked, this is not a trivial thing. Imagine every single user on the system getting50 different spam emails all at once. Yikes! It took three days for mail to return to normal after that.
So, for three days, my email was running over 24 hours behind. For three days, the ISP had to add manpower to track it down and eliminate it. For three days, email was virtually unuseable, thanks to spam. Did this cost money? You bet it did. It cost my ISP a good hunk of change, and that, in turn, means that the rates to me are likely to go up if this continues.
So yes, spam does cost money, as surely as do junk faxes. However, I doubt that it will be stopped soon - all the laws we can create won't stop a spammer from another country.
The theory was, years ago, that fax paper was expensive; by sending a junk fax, you wasted somebody's tangible property, hence it is illegal. Spam doesn't waste paper, it wastes bandwidth, disk space and time. Apparently, though, those don't matter enough to warrant making junk email illegal.
Re:challenge beyond Moonbounce, research opportuni
on
Amateur Mars Satellite
·
· Score: 1
I'm well aware of both satellite and moonbounce. I used to do satellite, and after finding out that moonbounce took major power and a huge aluminum farm, to do CW at a pre-established time and frequency with somebody you knew... well, to me it was mainly an exercise in futility. Why even try if you already know who you'll talk to, what you'll say and when you'll say it?
Somehow, talking via a satellite around Mars seems like that, cubed. Count me out. I was into this to learn electronics, and to meet new people, not to prove that I have the most disposable income.
It took me three times, reading the summary to realize that they actually *are* planning a mission to the *planet* Mars, and that they are not putting up a bird to help out the Military Affiliate Radio System, aka MARS. It still makes more sense that it's a MARS bird - who'll be *on* Mars to use it? But there is (admittedly slight) a chance that this could prove useful here around Earth, if all Hades breaks loose with terrorists.
It went well, I thought. Had close to 20 people show up. Somebody *did* bring a digital camera, and soon got to discussing its features, price, battery life and other geeky things:) Nobody brought a laptop, notebook or anything like that:(
Sit & Spin was rather noisy - it's a great funky place for three to five people, but with this many, it got obnoxious. I never even met half the people, because they were on the other side of the table and I couldn't even see several through the decor, let alone hear them.
Oh, and there were a total of *three* women there, which seems like a pretty high number, from what I read about the other meetings:)
We chatted about distros, bashed Micro$loth, wailed about karma, music, heck, Vikki even waxed eloquent on her political views (which are slightly to the right of Ghengis Khan:) ).
Somebody earlier had a great idea: Meetup should allow people who actually show up to have more voting power over the next venue. YES!!! There *was* parking, at $6, behind the building, but then you had to walk 2 blocks to get in the front (they weren't allowing people in from the back - that was for the bands that started at 9:00, throwing us all out). Two blocks may not sound like a problem, but I have multiple sclerosis - my total safe daily walking ability is about 4 blocks. After getting in the building, then standing and chatting for two hours, I was *seriously* beat:(
Maybe something up north a tad would be better? Near Northgate? There's good bus connectivity there, and enough space that free parking is the norm rather than the exception. Plus, maybe this time we could find a place more suited to gatherings of more than 4 people at a time?
Regardless, I still want to attend the next one. Vikki may opt out - she's not really a people person, preferring the feel of a keyboard under her fingers (or a soldering iron in her hands) to actually going someplace to chat.
My favorite, and one that's in the fridge now, starts off life as Seafood Mushroom Alfredo, then becomes Seafood Chowder.
3 jars mushroom alfredo sauce 1-2 pounds each scallops, shrimp, crab, mushrooms (imitation crab is fine, bay or sea scallops both work, and you can mix small cocktail shrimp with the larger ones, too. Use more seafood if you have more - the stuff in the fridge has a pound of lobster tails in it too, as well as 3 pounds of scallops and 2 each crab and shrimp.) 1/4 cup lemon juice pepper to taste
Cook the crab and shrimp in the microwave; remove shells and de-vein shrimp. Sautee 'shrooms in some butter. Pour in the sauce and lemon juice, add seafood and simmer till the seafood is all cooked. Serve over pasta.
Take the leftover sauce, and add: 1 pk frozen peas 1 pk frozen corn 1 large potato, cubed and microwaved to cook (about 8 minutes on High). 1 quart milk
Heat until it simmers, serve in soup bowls. Can be served with / over rice, too. It's also great cold:)
It sounds terribly expensive, but this makes a huge pot that feeds two adults for nearly a week, so the actual cost per meal is pretty low, especially if you catch sales (like I did here recently. Sea scallops, King crab clusters and gigantic shrimp, $6.99/lb, 4-ounce lobster tails $4 each.)
Hmm, with one motor per wheel, and impressive torque, these could be fun to race but I wonder about the "unsprung weight" of one motor per wheel. How would this perform on a less-than-smooth surface?
I'm sure they can make it look cool, and even be safe and economical, but there is a fair percentage of people who like racing, and will race anything - witness the Neon races by the SCCA. I hope the designers also look into lessons they could learn from racing - I mean, isn't racing supposed to help design better vehicles?
A great electronica dance group, PPK. They're two young Russian men, very creative. Do check out their video to "Resurrection", it reminds me a lot of Tron.
Or, failing that, try Live365.com. The link should bring up a slew of net.radio stations that play electronica. Browse them, and see what you like. They list the artist and title in another window, and have links to buy the music you're hearing - the links don't always find it, though - they run through Amazon.com, last time I checked.
Live365 also has a lot of channels playing anime music, much of which can be electronica, so check that as well.
There was one up on University Way (aka "The Ave"), and another down in Burien. Both seemed pretty well-stocked, but it's been over a year since I've been to either of them.
Oh really? Hmm, let's say that Ford found a nasty flaw in the brakes of every Explorer on the road. To get the brake system fixed, free because they sold a flawed product, you had to agree that they will be allowed to place a monitoring device in the car, thus insuring that nothing they deem "improper" will ever happen in the vehicle. Further, they will be allowed to add "features" to this moinitor when they feel like it, and you're not legally allowed to circumvent it.
Remember, the flaw was built-in, and it is dangerous to drive without fixing it. And, to get their designed-in "oopsie" fixed, you *must* agree to their terms, which they can, and will, change at any time, and you'll automatically agree to them, too.
The courts would have a field day the first time some un-fixed vehicle crashed and killed people. What makes Micro$oft any different? I mean, besides there being a choice not to buy a Ford, but instead a GM, Toyota, Chrysler, BMW, Volvo or Subaru. At least in vehicles, consumers have viable choices. M$, however, has already been ruled a monopoly.
Back when I worked for Sun Electric (before they got bought by Snap-On Tools), one of the hardest parts of making diagnostic disks for the newer cars was getting access to the codes. Information about what the codes mean, and how to get them, are "trade secrets" jealously guarded by the big automotive manufacturers, so they can provide *their* repair facilities with the stuff they need to do the work, thus effectively gauranteeing them a captive market.
We'd eventually get copies of the specs, by having some employee schmooze the people at the auto makers, and they'd conveniently leave the codes on their desks, and step out for a loooooong lunch... while these "confidential" documents were copied. We ran a few years behind - not that it mattered much to Sun, because nobody takes a new, still-under-warranty car to Joe's Auto Repair & Bait Shop. Our customers got the cars after they went out of warranty, and by then we always had the codes, and hardware to allow them to be read.
It'd be a whole lot less sleazy, though, if the car makers had to release the codes, and how to get them. I do see, however, that this could cause problems, as many of the datastreams are bi-directional, allowing you to change things while the engine is running, potentially causing a malfunction. I wonder if the lawmakers have considered that?
I've been waiting for the ability to put together new movies by stars long since dead, possibly stars who weren't even contemporaries. I'm sure it will soon be possible, and this looks like they're heading in the right direction.
The biggest hurdle I can see isn't technological, it'll be legal. Who really owns the rights to use the films made by famous people? It might be interesting to see just which ??AA lays claim to it first.
The article seemed rather light on details - just how will they decide which artist gets how much? By the info entered (manually) when somebody rips a CD? Hmm, then I guess we'll end up with a *lot* of money going to non-existant artists because people mis-typed their names. Hmm, maybe just a flat fee per "artist"? Then, by all means, I'm an artist, where do I sign up? And what of those net users who are hearing impaired, and cannot listed to music? What about the opera fans who will never in their lives listen to Eminem's latest "song", why should their dollar go to support that?
Until more details can be worked out, I'm afraid that, much as I dislike the RIAA, I cannot support this plan.
Geez! The Yahoo mailing list I'm on, for women who like beading, was all up in arms over this. They were even more ticked off when, a few days after changing everything, Yahoo reset it all again, and we all had to go back in and change it once more.
Hmm, I guess they don't count, and they're not a representative cross-section of the Yahoo users.
Likewise, NIN's "Closer" mixes very well with The Spice Girls' "Wannabe". The resulting mix (note, not exactly the same as the article, but similar) includes the immortal line, "I wanna, I wanna, I wanna, I WANT TO FSCK YOU LIKE AN ANIMAL!"
I nearly fell over, I was laughing so hard the first time I heard that. I am *quite* certain that neither group would have anticipated, nor wanted, that unholy marriage of disparate works... but I, at least, enjoyed it.
Actually, chocolate does help. Chocolate contains flavinoids that are anti-oxidants, and decrease the "stikiness" of blood cells, making stroke-causing blood clots less likely. See here for info.
Dark chocolate has more flavinoids than milk chocolate, so you may need to switch your preferrence.
Gee, I have multiple sclerosis, and one of the more promising treatments to re-myelinate neve sheaths is stem cell transplants. I'm also overweight - gee, it's hard to lose weight when you can't move fast enough to exercise:(
This would be a great way to kill two birds with one stone! This looks even better than bone marrow stem cells, or nasal stem cells. Now, how to come up with the money from my SSDI payments...
Seattle *has* voted on this, twice, recently. We'll keep voting for it, and the politicos will continue to ignore us, $pending ca$h on ground-based "light rail" that will snarl traffic even worse than it is now. Grrrr.
I really wish Vegas luck. Maybe once theirs is running, we can get the politicians who are willing to do what the people keep telling them - get it the h*ll off the streets!
Has Best Buy given any thought at all to the possibility that CD sales dropped because people lost their jobs after 9-11? I know here in Washington state, the economy has tanked rather thoroughly, and many people just don't have the free ca$h left to pay for overpriced CDs. When you spend all your time pounding pavement, looking for any job that'll let you make house payments, there's little time or energy left over to be swapping MP3s.
I'll vote for a mix of elements, formed as mokume gane . It's rather like Damascus steel, but made from different materials (commonly gold, silver and copper alloys, in varying proportions). They take several layers of different metals, diffusion-bond them together, hammer out thin, fold and repeat. The results are incredible.
It'd likely be rather too high priced for laptop cases (well, unless you have money to burn), but as wedding rings it rocks! Though some titanium wedding rings don't look half bad, either:)
No, you missed *my* point. GPL'd code means that the source code is available. The source code that implements calls to their APIs, which, if you went through them, you'd have to pay to learn. The source code is free. Hence, you'd be giving away stuff that they feel is their intellectual property.
Microsoft's standard business model is at risk here. Normally, if another company writes something that sells well, M$ buys the company, and either buries it or assimilates it into themselves. They can't do this with GPL'd software, there's nobody to buy.
Heck, they can't even realisticly threaten free software - their lawyers would have to intimidate every single author of free software on the planet, and that takes lots of time and money. They see free software as the biggest threat to their corporate life - they can't buy it, they can't intimidate it, and their only ways to stop it are by buying new laws to prevent it (they're trying this, too) and keeping people from writing it with licenses.
I fon't think it'll work. Thankfully, there are people out there who *enjoy* coding, and do it just for the fun of it. M$ doesn't understand that, thank goodness:)
Microsoft usually charges a fair sum of money for their documentation. If you buy it, and the code you write is GPL'd, then anybody can read how to make things work by just reading it. Even worse, to their eyes, they could *re-use* that stuff, without ever paying M$ one thin dime.
This *will* cost them. Aside from the lost revenues directly from the re-use, it could allow for free software to be developed faster, by re-using code, which would give it a competitive edge over the big companies who are writing everything from scratch, and must buy the documentation themselves.
Can't say that I agree with M$ doing this, but I can see a reason why.
Ditto. I was diagnosed about age 17, and I'm now 42. The hard contacts work for me - they slowed it waaaay down. I've had one cornea transplant, and that eye is now, with contacts, at 20:15. The other, with contacts, is about 20:100, and without, it's 20:400 - I can't really read the "E" on top of the chart.
I use a Hitachi SuperScan Pro 15" monitor, at 1280x1024, large fonts, and do rather well with it. A bigger monitor would be nice, but not necessary.
Hang in there. Keratoconus is not a death sentance. It's more an annoyance than anything else.
Slashdot Mirror
As for disk space, don't you delete your spam?
Yes, I do, but it still takes up disk space on my ISP. Given that the ISP's userlist was recently discovered, and spam-nuked, this is not a trivial thing. Imagine every single user on the system getting50 different spam emails all at once. Yikes! It took three days for mail to return to normal after that.
So, for three days, my email was running over 24 hours behind. For three days, the ISP had to add manpower to track it down and eliminate it. For three days, email was virtually unuseable, thanks to spam. Did this cost money? You bet it did. It cost my ISP a good hunk of change, and that, in turn, means that the rates to me are likely to go up if this continues.
So yes, spam does cost money, as surely as do junk faxes. However, I doubt that it will be stopped soon - all the laws we can create won't stop a spammer from another country.
The theory was, years ago, that fax paper was expensive; by sending a junk fax, you wasted somebody's tangible property, hence it is illegal. Spam doesn't waste paper, it wastes bandwidth, disk space and time. Apparently, though, those don't matter enough to warrant making junk email illegal.
I'm well aware of both satellite and moonbounce. I used to do satellite, and after finding out that moonbounce took major power and a huge aluminum farm, to do CW at a pre-established time and frequency with somebody you knew ... well, to me it was mainly an exercise in futility. Why even try if you already know who you'll talk to, what you'll say and when you'll say it?
Somehow, talking via a satellite around Mars seems like that, cubed. Count me out. I was into this to learn electronics, and to meet new people, not to prove that I have the most disposable income.
It took me three times, reading the summary to realize that they actually *are* planning a mission to the *planet* Mars, and that they are not putting up a bird to help out the Military Affiliate Radio System, aka MARS. It still makes more sense that it's a MARS bird - who'll be *on* Mars to use it? But there is (admittedly slight) a chance that this could prove useful here around Earth, if all Hades breaks loose with terrorists.
73 de NNN0WYZ
The crowd was around the round table near the counter. The one with a rather large HVAC pipe "sculpture" over it?
I was wearing a green blouse, standing, chatting with a few others. 'S a pity you didn't notice the people with the stick-on name tags.
It went well, I thought. Had close to 20 people show up. Somebody *did* bring a digital camera, and soon got to discussing its features, price, battery life and other geeky things :) Nobody brought a laptop, notebook or anything like that :(
:)
:) ).
:(
Sit & Spin was rather noisy - it's a great funky place for three to five people, but with this many, it got obnoxious. I never even met half the people, because they were on the other side of the table and I couldn't even see several through the decor, let alone hear them.
Oh, and there were a total of *three* women there, which seems like a pretty high number, from what I read about the other meetings
We chatted about distros, bashed Micro$loth, wailed about karma, music, heck, Vikki even waxed eloquent on her political views (which are slightly to the right of Ghengis Khan
Somebody earlier had a great idea: Meetup should allow people who actually show up to have more voting power over the next venue. YES!!! There *was* parking, at $6, behind the building, but then you had to walk 2 blocks to get in the front (they weren't allowing people in from the back - that was for the bands that started at 9:00, throwing us all out). Two blocks may not sound like a problem, but I have multiple sclerosis - my total safe daily walking ability is about 4 blocks. After getting in the building, then standing and chatting for two hours, I was *seriously* beat
Maybe something up north a tad would be better? Near Northgate? There's good bus connectivity there, and enough space that free parking is the norm rather than the exception. Plus, maybe this time we could find a place more suited to gatherings of more than 4 people at a time?
Regardless, I still want to attend the next one. Vikki may opt out - she's not really a people person, preferring the feel of a keyboard under her fingers (or a soldering iron in her hands) to actually going someplace to chat.
My favorite, and one that's in the fridge now, starts off life as Seafood Mushroom Alfredo, then becomes Seafood Chowder.
:)
3 jars mushroom alfredo sauce
1-2 pounds each scallops, shrimp, crab, mushrooms
(imitation crab is fine, bay or sea scallops both work, and you can mix small cocktail shrimp with the larger ones, too. Use more seafood if you have more - the stuff in the fridge has a pound of lobster tails in it too, as well as 3 pounds of scallops and 2 each crab and shrimp.)
1/4 cup lemon juice
pepper to taste
Cook the crab and shrimp in the microwave; remove shells and de-vein shrimp. Sautee 'shrooms in some butter. Pour in the sauce and lemon juice, add seafood and simmer till the seafood is all cooked. Serve over pasta.
Take the leftover sauce, and add:
1 pk frozen peas
1 pk frozen corn
1 large potato, cubed and microwaved to cook (about 8 minutes on High).
1 quart milk
Heat until it simmers, serve in soup bowls. Can be served with / over rice, too. It's also great cold
It sounds terribly expensive, but this makes a huge pot that feeds two adults for nearly a week, so the actual cost per meal is pretty low, especially if you catch sales (like I did here recently. Sea scallops, King crab clusters and gigantic shrimp, $6.99/lb, 4-ounce lobster tails $4 each.)
Hmm, with one motor per wheel, and impressive torque, these could be fun to race but I wonder about the "unsprung weight" of one motor per wheel. How would this perform on a less-than-smooth surface?
I'm sure they can make it look cool, and even be safe and economical, but there is a fair percentage of people who like racing, and will race anything - witness the Neon races by the SCCA. I hope the designers also look into lessons they could learn from racing - I mean, isn't racing supposed to help design better vehicles?
A great electronica dance group, PPK. They're two young Russian men, very creative. Do check out their video to "Resurrection", it reminds me a lot of Tron.
Or, failing that, try Live365.com. The link should bring up a slew of net.radio stations that play electronica. Browse them, and see what you like. They list the artist and title in another window, and have links to buy the music you're hearing - the links don't always find it, though - they run through Amazon.com, last time I checked.
Live365 also has a lot of channels playing anime music, much of which can be electronica, so check that as well.
There was one up on University Way (aka "The Ave"), and another down in Burien. Both seemed pretty well-stocked, but it's been over a year since I've been to either of them.
Oh really? Hmm, let's say that Ford found a nasty flaw in the brakes of every Explorer on the road. To get the brake system fixed, free because they sold a flawed product, you had to agree that they will be allowed to place a monitoring device in the car, thus insuring that nothing they deem "improper" will ever happen in the vehicle. Further, they will be allowed to add "features" to this moinitor when they feel like it, and you're not legally allowed to circumvent it.
Remember, the flaw was built-in, and it is dangerous to drive without fixing it. And, to get their designed-in "oopsie" fixed, you *must* agree to their terms, which they can, and will, change at any time, and you'll automatically agree to them, too.
The courts would have a field day the first time some un-fixed vehicle crashed and killed people. What makes Micro$oft any different? I mean, besides there being a choice not to buy a Ford, but instead a GM, Toyota, Chrysler, BMW, Volvo or Subaru. At least in vehicles, consumers have viable choices. M$, however, has already been ruled a monopoly.
Back when I worked for Sun Electric (before they got bought by Snap-On Tools), one of the hardest parts of making diagnostic disks for the newer cars was getting access to the codes. Information about what the codes mean, and how to get them, are "trade secrets" jealously guarded by the big automotive manufacturers, so they can provide *their* repair facilities with the stuff they need to do the work, thus effectively gauranteeing them a captive market.
... while these "confidential" documents were copied. We ran a few years behind - not that it mattered much to Sun, because nobody takes a new, still-under-warranty car to Joe's Auto Repair & Bait Shop. Our customers got the cars after they went out of warranty, and by then we always had the codes, and hardware to allow them to be read.
We'd eventually get copies of the specs, by having some employee schmooze the people at the auto makers, and they'd conveniently leave the codes on their desks, and step out for a loooooong lunch
It'd be a whole lot less sleazy, though, if the car makers had to release the codes, and how to get them. I do see, however, that this could cause problems, as many of the datastreams are bi-directional, allowing you to change things while the engine is running, potentially causing a malfunction. I wonder if the lawmakers have considered that?
Wouldn't it be great to have a Beowulf cluster of these? Oh, wait. Nevermind :)
I've been waiting for the ability to put together new movies by stars long since dead, possibly stars who weren't even contemporaries. I'm sure it will soon be possible, and this looks like they're heading in the right direction.
The biggest hurdle I can see isn't technological, it'll be legal. Who really owns the rights to use the films made by famous people? It might be interesting to see just which ??AA lays claim to it first.
The article seemed rather light on details - just how will they decide which artist gets how much? By the info entered (manually) when somebody rips a CD? Hmm, then I guess we'll end up with a *lot* of money going to non-existant artists because people mis-typed their names. Hmm, maybe just a flat fee per "artist"? Then, by all means, I'm an artist, where do I sign up? And what of those net users who are hearing impaired, and cannot listed to music? What about the opera fans who will never in their lives listen to Eminem's latest "song", why should their dollar go to support that?
Until more details can be worked out, I'm afraid that, much as I dislike the RIAA, I cannot support this plan.
Geez! The Yahoo mailing list I'm on, for women who like beading, was all up in arms over this. They were even more ticked off when, a few days after changing everything, Yahoo reset it all again, and we all had to go back in and change it once more.
Hmm, I guess they don't count, and they're not a representative cross-section of the Yahoo users.
Likewise, NIN's "Closer" mixes very well with The Spice Girls' "Wannabe". The resulting mix (note, not exactly the same as the article, but similar) includes the immortal line, "I wanna, I wanna, I wanna, I WANT TO FSCK YOU LIKE AN ANIMAL!"
... but I, at least, enjoyed it.
I nearly fell over, I was laughing so hard the first time I heard that. I am *quite* certain that neither group would have anticipated, nor wanted, that unholy marriage of disparate works
Actually, chocolate does help. Chocolate contains flavinoids that are anti-oxidants, and decrease the "stikiness" of blood cells, making stroke-causing blood clots less likely. See here for info.
Dark chocolate has more flavinoids than milk chocolate, so you may need to switch your preferrence.
Gee, I have multiple sclerosis, and one of the more promising treatments to re-myelinate neve sheaths is stem cell transplants. I'm also overweight - gee, it's hard to lose weight when you can't move fast enough to exercise :(
...
This would be a great way to kill two birds with one stone! This looks even better than bone marrow stem cells, or nasal stem cells. Now, how to come up with the money from my SSDI payments
Seattle *has* voted on this, twice, recently. We'll keep voting for it, and the politicos will continue to ignore us, $pending ca$h on ground-based "light rail" that will snarl traffic even worse than it is now. Grrrr.
I really wish Vegas luck. Maybe once theirs is running, we can get the politicians who are willing to do what the people keep telling them - get it the h*ll off the streets!
Has Best Buy given any thought at all to the possibility that CD sales dropped because people lost their jobs after 9-11? I know here in Washington state, the economy has tanked rather thoroughly, and many people just don't have the free ca$h left to pay for overpriced CDs. When you spend all your time pounding pavement, looking for any job that'll let you make house payments, there's little time or energy left over to be swapping MP3s.
I'll vote for a mix of elements, formed as mokume gane . It's rather like Damascus steel, but made from different materials (commonly gold, silver and copper alloys, in varying proportions). They take several layers of different metals, diffusion-bond them together, hammer out thin, fold and repeat. The results are incredible.
:)
It'd likely be rather too high priced for laptop cases (well, unless you have money to burn), but as wedding rings it rocks! Though some titanium wedding rings don't look half bad, either
No, you missed *my* point. GPL'd code means that the source code is available. The source code that implements calls to their APIs, which, if you went through them, you'd have to pay to learn. The source code is free. Hence, you'd be giving away stuff that they feel is their intellectual property.
:)
Microsoft's standard business model is at risk here. Normally, if another company writes something that sells well, M$ buys the company, and either buries it or assimilates it into themselves. They can't do this with GPL'd software, there's nobody to buy.
Heck, they can't even realisticly threaten free software - their lawyers would have to intimidate every single author of free software on the planet, and that takes lots of time and money. They see free software as the biggest threat to their corporate life - they can't buy it, they can't intimidate it, and their only ways to stop it are by buying new laws to prevent it (they're trying this, too) and keeping people from writing it with licenses.
I fon't think it'll work. Thankfully, there are people out there who *enjoy* coding, and do it just for the fun of it. M$ doesn't understand that, thank goodness
Microsoft usually charges a fair sum of money for their documentation. If you buy it, and the code you write is GPL'd, then anybody can read how to make things work by just reading it. Even worse, to their eyes, they could *re-use* that stuff, without ever paying M$ one thin dime.
This *will* cost them. Aside from the lost revenues directly from the re-use, it could allow for free software to be developed faster, by re-using code, which would give it a competitive edge over the big companies who are writing everything from scratch, and must buy the documentation themselves.
Can't say that I agree with M$ doing this, but I can see a reason why.
Ditto. I was diagnosed about age 17, and I'm now 42. The hard contacts work for me - they slowed it waaaay down. I've had one cornea transplant, and that eye is now, with contacts, at 20:15. The other, with contacts, is about 20:100, and without, it's 20:400 - I can't really read the "E" on top of the chart.
I use a Hitachi SuperScan Pro 15" monitor, at 1280x1024, large fonts, and do rather well with it. A bigger monitor would be nice, but not necessary.
Hang in there. Keratoconus is not a death sentance. It's more an annoyance than anything else.