The large metro areas in the US have been required to use oxygenated gasoline for years. This is commonly done in two ways: adding ethanol or MTBE(I think that's the acronym for the chemical). The petrol companies prefer the latter because it's petroleum based, makes them more money, and they don't have to deal with the ethanol producers. However, it has been shown that MTBE finds it's way very quickly to ground water (you know..the stuff you drink).
Because of this the EPA has required some areas to use only ethanol. While this makes farm states happy because it creates more demand for corn, it pissed off the oil companies and some environmentalists who claim that while it does reduce some components of smog, it productes more CO2.
It also has been shown that there isn't a shortage of gasoline in the midwest. The oil companies are in a snit and are jacking up the prices to generate consumer backlash against the ethanol requirement so they can go back to the more profitable but more harmful MTBE. It is interesting that while the oil companies in the Chicago and Milwalkee markets are blaming ethanol, in several areas gasoline with ethanol has been cheaper than regular gasoline for decades. Saying that this raises costs is ridiculous. They have been producing it for years! They also generate several different grades of fuel depending on the time of the year (the gas you buy in the summer is different than what you get in the winter), so saying that switching costs them more is total bullshit.
Like the Microsoft case, some conservatives have taken a technical issue and have politicized it. I wish they would stick to realm of politics. Making non-political issues political just because one doesn't like the current administration is stupid. I hate Clinton & Gore as much as anyone, but the reason for the price increase is due to oil company temper tantrums.
That's just because they're paying a lot more in taxes on it. In Europe, the actual cost of the fuel is not that much different than it is here. It's all the added taxes that make it cost so much.
Maybe people are already flooding the email boxes on the site. I just got this back:
The WorldSecure Server SMTP Relay is returning your message because:
The message could not be delivered because the remote server returned the following error: 554 Error writing message to safe storage; message could not be stored to disk
Looks like whoever set this up didn't plan on setting up enough diskspace or any sort of filtering system to weed out SPAM. Our tax dollars at work...yay.
I looked at that too. On the site, there is a mailto link concerning technical questions. I emailed the guy why they are implementing a system using unstable software that requires expensive software licenses from a criminal organization when perfectly free and robust solutions exist (apache/freebsd/linux) that are being used by very busy internet sites (yahoo, google, hotmail, etc.). As a taxpayer, I don't want my money being wasted. Especially if it ends up going to a dispicable corporation like Microsoft.
If they get enough negative feedback on running the site on NT, maybe they will change. Go to the site and email the guy what you think. No flames, just good reasons why they should not be using NT and why they should be using free software.
When my wife used to live in Nashville, she had heard that the people who were making consistently good money were the songwriters not the performers. Most of them weren't associated with a particular label, owned the copyrights to the songs, and received royalties from the labels whenever any artist recorded their music. I'll have to ask a friend of mine at BMG if that's still the case.
The Mach3 is great! It's the first non-electric razor that I've ever used that doesn't plug up. With most twin blade razors, I'd spend most of my time unplugging the space between the two blades so I could get a decent shave.
Tom is that you? Sure sounds like it. I think the only one who liked VMS more than you was Ken Oleson(sp?). =)
What percentage of the server market does VMS have? Unfortunately for it, I think it's being lumped into the 'Other' category. Not trying to start a flamefest, but every place that I know of that ran VMS was also in the process of migrating their VMS servers to Unix. I also absolutely hated the user interface. I was very glad to move over to Unix which , IMHO, is more user friendly. Proprietary software on a proprietary hardware. No thank you.
According to the original story, existing Helios users will be able to upgrade the OS on their PDA to linux once it's available. They will be able to use their existing programs and data, so I'm guessing that means they may still be able to use their current Windows tools that interface with the Helio. It also said the GUI will be based on Wwindows or Microwindows. The current OS for it uses Jot for the handwriting recognition (Isn't that what WinCE uses?).
I don't know about you, but it didn't take me long to get used to Graffiti when I was playing around with my friend's Palm V. There was something on slashdot a long time ago about an alternate handwriting method for the Palm that was supposedly faster.
In previous cases he's been considered quite pro-business. Here's an interesting quote from a recent article about him:
Why did the judge so thoroughly reject Microsoft's defense? And why is he ordering what the company calls its "death sentence," the breakup of one of history's most profitable and successful enterprises? The judge himself explains: "Falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus," he says, citing a Latin aphorism meaning, "Untrue in one thing, untrue in everything." "I don't subscribe to that as absolutely true," the judge says. "But it does lead one to suspicion. It's a universal human experience. If someone lies to you once, how much else can you credit as the truth?"
So are you saying that he's biased because he didn't like being lied to in a court of law or having faked evidence being presented as the truth? INAL, what I've read from legal scholars is that the finding of fact and the ruling were all structured to stand up during the expected appeals process. If you know so many ways that it can be overturned, start listing them.
I interviewed once with Microsoft. The two people conducting the interviews were the most repulsive, egotistical bastards I had ever met in my life. Later on in the day, one of them got in a big argument with a friend of mine over the fscking word processor he used to create the resume! It was the first time the placement office at school received complaints about the conduct of business reps conducting interviews on campus (they got lots of them too).
I'm sorry, you couldn't pay me enough to work there.
I don't think software has become so expensive, but that less comes with it anymore. It used to be that when you bought software, you would get a semi-useful manual that you could learn from, and you would get some support in case you had trouble.
That's the only reason that I've ever bought software, even if it was shareware or legally free software. Case in point: I had the download version of WordPerfect 8 for Linux for quite a few months before I finally bought a boxed version from Sam's Club. I certainly could have not paid for it, but I wouldn't have a backup copy of it on cd(no CDR yet), the 700+ page manual is actually useful, and the price wasn't outrageous.
Why don't they just realize that it is the corporation's greed that is turning people into pirates? If they actually produced a quality product at a good price, only the hardcore 'I don't pay for software no matter the price' types would still be pirating it. Unfortunately, many people just see the internet as an amplifier for this greed, and that just sickens me.
Re:It's the License, stupid
on
Copyrant
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· Score: 1
Driver's License = You don't own the vehicle.
Bullshit!! I still own the car. A driver's license is just another excuse to tax and identify you under the guise that it would promote driver safety. The car's title is just legal proof that you own the car or nowdays who lent you the money and therefore can reposses the car if you don't pay.
Re:You've only got yourselves to blame
on
Copyrant
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· Score: 1
Believe it or not, there are people using computers in areas where broadband or even normal local dialup is simply not available. Re-read the post. He says he lives in such an area (I used to and much of my family still does), so that is a valid point. What else is he supposed to do? Sneak his home computer into work? With some companies that can be a big no-no. In this case, he works at a place with high speed access and but can't get it at home since it's in the middle of nowhere. Hmm...sounds just like a government installation to me (then again he would probably get in trouble too just for doing the download).
Re:You've only got yourselves to blame
on
Copyrant
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· Score: 1
Only if they would buy it otherwise. If someone hands me a cd of something I would never buy, how much has the company lost?
Then ask yourself, why wouldn't you buy it? If it's crappy software not worth buying, then it's not worth using either. If you have an issue with the company because of their business practices/pricing, then use something else. Then send the company a letter saying "I bought (if it's not free software) competitor XYZ's product because of your prices/business practices/whatever." By pirating you may be actually helping the company you so dislike.
I guess it all boils down to what one's values/morals are. I personally don't mind paying for quality goods & services. Those that I don't think are worth it, I don't pay for them and I don't use them. I would consider it unethical to knowingly use a pirated product, especially one from a company that I dislike. Unless you are selling the pirated software as the genuine article, the whole issue is pretty murky.
Re:They've only got themselves to blame
on
Copyrant
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· Score: 1
I'm sorry, but I can't understand the 'I think it's crap, but I _need_ it anyway' mentality. If I think something's a shoddy product, I don't use it. I guess the non-MS companies/developers/advocates need to step up to the plate and state the case that people don't _need_ MS and that other solutions exist. It's being done, but more of it is still needed.
I agree with a software boycott, but why not support the developers of competing products? Sure, Gates isn't getting any money from you, but you are helping make Windows/Office/etc even more widespread. This helps reinforce the idea that people _need_ the software and require the proprietary documents that they produce.
It's easy to see the reason for their actions: they believe there will be no consequences. They've severely restricted competition in their marketplace and now's the time to put the thumbscrews on the occasional pirate. People will bitch and moan, but if they perceive that an alternative doesn't exist, they end up going along with it. Fortunately, there are free alternatives so hopefully this will backfire on them.
Re:You've only got yourselves to blame
on
Copyrant
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· Score: 1
I'm sure you are still paying for it. You just aren't buying it from a retailer. Most colleges and universities love to tack on additional fees for just about everything. Usage fees usually were about 1/4 to 1/3 of my college bill. I'm sure the site license fee is being included.
Now for someone like me that's got a few boxes of parts from previous machines, that wouldn't be bad. _IF_ they still worked, it would be a matter of remembering what were all the original pieces. The people that I consider to be an average consumer doesn't perform the upgrade themselves. They go to a computer store and have them do it. The store then keeps the old parts or charges more if the customer wants them back. In this case, the consumer gets really screwed. Not only have they lost time & data, they get to go back to the shop and fork out even more cash.
I have no qualms about anyone earning a decent living, but that's getting to pretty damn greedy.
Re:This it intended to stop dual booting Linux/BSD
on
Copyrant
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· Score: 1
This will make installing to the windows partition via a loopback file a must have feature for all Linux/BSD distributions. That or being able to completely run off a CD (there are some that can, I just can't remember the URL right now). Booting from a floppy/CD and running like a diskless client would work for those in office requirements. There is also the possibility of installing to a second hard drive, or with some laptops, just pop out the MS drive and pop in a Linux/BSD drive. Who knows...because of this, swap-able drives on desktops may become popular? Another fine example of Microsoft driving innovation in the computer industry. (Nobody said they had to be the ones doing it =)
Re:You've only got yourselves to blame
on
Copyrant
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· Score: 5
Stallman and the FSF have sold their software to raise funds. Heck If you want to buy some GNU software go to http://www.fsf.org/order/order.html and splurge away.
Now, I'm sure that a lot of software that's used on college campuses has been pirated. Most of it was when I was in college a decade ago, so I doubt it's only gotten worse. At the time, the reasoning was "The software companies are cultivating future users who will pay for the software once they become employed. The students don't have the money to pay for it anyway, so it's not like they are losing a sale". A employed computer professional burning copies of Office 2K for his friends and family is another story. They certainly can pay for it and are robbing the company from a sale. There is no excuse for that.
Not everyone is a thief, so why should the majority be penalized because of the actions of a few? I've actually paid for shareware titles that I didn't have to. I occasionally buy boxed versions of software that I have legally downloaded for free just for the additional documentation (WordPerfect for example). The software publishers went through this phase in the 80s too and discovered that they lost customers because their anti-piracy efforts didn't stop the pirates, but did stop legitimate users from practicing prudent data recovery procedures. I can only see this hurting the OEMs and the software publishers. IMHO, it's pure greed.
I may certainly have as much disdain for M$ as the average slashdotter, so I don't buy from them. The rare occasions where I have, the software moves from machine to machine, where the old machine is stripped and the parts used for something else. If I can't move the software like that in the future, I won't buy it. Especially with the consumer audio/video equipment. I don't know how many CD players or VCRs that I've gone though over the years. Having to buy a different copy of a song/video because the existing player broke (or is at the house instead of the office) would be insane. BS tactics like this only drive me and people I talk to towards the Free Software community (and good old fashioned redistributable paper books).
At the college I attended, the ratio of men to women was about 3:1 and most of the women were butt ugly. There were more attractive women in my high school class than my college freshman class (which had 10x the number of people). Of course many of the guys had the preconceived notion that college was the place to meet women and were quite pissed when confronted with reality.
During my time at college I got a BS in CompSci, a BS in ElectricalEng, and watched a lot of old TV (MASH, Star Trek, etc.). But NEVER, ever did I have anything resembling even a date in those 5 years. The only thing I regret is that I spent too much time watching TV and not enough time hacking on GNU software.
I wonder what hotmail does if you check the "remember my password" option..
It probably just sends you the same cookie but with an expires field, so the browser will store the cookie on the hard drive. If the cookie doesn't have an expires field, then it's kept only memory. If you need to login as a new user, restart the browser.
Of course, if one is going to do something like this over the Internet, it should be encrypted. BTW, slashdot isn't the only one. Linuxtoday.com uses plaintext cookies for authentication also.
The only diesel passenger cars that I've dealt with were General Motors products. The biggest problem with the dual battery setup was that if one battery started to go bad, both had to be replaced. If it wasn't, the alternator would slowly die.
I'd like to get a TDI Jetta, but I can't afford it. Oh well....Unfortunately, unless one is an area that experiences a very cold winter (I don't think Seattle counts...coastal cities often stay much warmer than inland cities at the same latitude), the stations only have diesel #2 instead of diesel #1. But that's when you get used to having a big bottle of anti-gel additive in the trunk. =).
So is the Lupo the engine that has a bigger than normal flywheel? I read that VW was testing a motor that used a big flywheel that would disengage from the crankshaft when the vehicle was at a stoplight or similar situation and then use the angular momentum to restart the motor when necessary. I didn't know they were in production yet. Cool! If I had the money, I would certainly buy one. Nothing irritates me more than seeing one person driving a huge SUV for commuting to work. Talk about a waste of money! Not only did they spend a ton of cash on a vehicle that they probably never fully utilize, they pay more in insurance and fuel costs.
I think the problem with some of the US made diesels for cars was that they basically tried to convert existing gasoline engines to diesels instead of designing one from the ground up. In the US, you more likely to see a diesel in a pickup than you are to see one in a car. Especially if one uses the pickup for actual work (in contrast to the people who buy trucks as a mode of transportation that could actually carry furniture one in a blue moon). My Dad and one of my uncles have basically the same truck: a 4wd Dodge Ram. They use them for pulling livestock trailers, campers, etc. The only difference is my Dad's truck has a Cummins V8 diesel and my uncle's has a gasoline V10. During a trip where both were pulling similar trailers, the diesel consumed about half the amount of fuel the gasoline truck did.
My brother (who coincidently used to be a diesel mechanic) knows guys that will buy Ford 3/4 to 1 ton pickups without the engines and then drop Cummins or Caterpillar diesel engines in them. This allows them to pull heavier loads, get better mileage, and have a more reliable truck than by using the stock Ford gasoline engine. Joe Suburbanite might not like them because they can't accelerate as fast onto the freeways, but Farmer Brown loves them.
Slashdot Mirror
That is garbage.
The large metro areas in the US have been required to use oxygenated gasoline for years. This is commonly done in two ways: adding ethanol or MTBE(I think that's the acronym for the chemical). The petrol companies prefer the latter because it's petroleum based, makes them more money, and they don't have to deal with the ethanol producers. However, it has been shown that MTBE finds it's way very quickly to ground water (you know..the stuff you drink).
Because of this the EPA has required some areas to use only ethanol. While this makes farm states happy because it creates more demand for corn, it pissed off the oil companies and some environmentalists who claim that while it does reduce some components of smog, it productes more CO2.
It also has been shown that there isn't a shortage of gasoline in the midwest. The oil companies are in a snit and are jacking up the prices to generate consumer backlash against the ethanol requirement so they can go back to the more profitable but more harmful MTBE. It is interesting that while the oil companies in the Chicago and Milwalkee markets are blaming ethanol, in several areas gasoline with ethanol has been cheaper than regular gasoline for decades. Saying that this raises costs is ridiculous. They have been producing it for years! They also generate several different grades of fuel depending on the time of the year (the gas you buy in the summer is different than what you get in the winter), so saying that switching costs them more is total bullshit.
Like the Microsoft case, some conservatives have taken a technical issue and have politicized it. I wish they would stick to realm of politics. Making non-political issues political just because one doesn't like the current administration is stupid. I hate Clinton & Gore as much as anyone, but the reason for the price increase is due to oil company temper tantrums.
That's just because they're paying a lot more in taxes on it. In Europe, the actual cost of the fuel is not that much different than it is here. It's all the added taxes that make it cost so much.
Maybe people are already flooding the email boxes on the site. I just got this back:
Looks like whoever set this up didn't plan on setting up enough diskspace or any sort of filtering system to weed out SPAM. Our tax dollars at work...yay.
I looked at that too. On the site, there is a mailto link concerning technical questions. I emailed the guy why they are implementing a system using unstable software that requires expensive software licenses from a criminal organization when perfectly free and robust solutions exist (apache/freebsd/linux) that are being used by very busy internet sites (yahoo, google, hotmail, etc.). As a taxpayer, I don't want my money being wasted. Especially if it ends up going to a dispicable corporation like Microsoft.
If they get enough negative feedback on running the site on NT, maybe they will change. Go to the site and email the guy what you think. No flames, just good reasons why they should not be using NT and why they should be using free software.
When my wife used to live in Nashville, she had heard that the people who were making consistently good money were the songwriters not the performers. Most of them weren't associated with a particular label, owned the copyrights to the songs, and received royalties from the labels whenever any artist recorded their music. I'll have to ask a friend of mine at BMG if that's still the case.
The Mach3 is great! It's the first non-electric razor that I've ever used that doesn't plug up. With most twin blade razors, I'd spend most of my time unplugging the space between the two blades so I could get a decent shave.
everybody switches to VMS.
Tom is that you? Sure sounds like it. I think the only one who liked VMS more than you was Ken Oleson(sp?). =)
What percentage of the server market does VMS have? Unfortunately for it, I think it's being lumped into the 'Other' category. Not trying to start a flamefest, but every place that I know of that ran VMS was also in the process of migrating their VMS servers to Unix. I also absolutely hated the user interface. I was very glad to move over to Unix which , IMHO, is more user friendly. Proprietary software on a proprietary hardware. No thank you.
The correct URL for Microwindows should be http://microwindows.censoft.com/. I hit the submit button by mistake.
According to the original story, existing Helios users will be able to upgrade the OS on their PDA to linux once it's available. They will be able to use their existing programs and data, so I'm guessing that means they may still be able to use their current Windows tools that interface with the Helio. It also said the GUI will be based on Wwindows or Microwindows. The current OS for it uses Jot for the handwriting recognition (Isn't that what WinCE uses?).
I don't know about you, but it didn't take me long to get used to Graffiti when I was playing around with my friend's Palm V. There was something on slashdot a long time ago about an alternate handwriting method for the Palm that was supposedly faster.
It's interesting that you say that he's biased.
In previous cases he's been considered quite pro-business. Here's an interesting quote from a recent article about him:
Why did the judge so thoroughly reject Microsoft's defense? And why is he ordering what the company calls its "death sentence," the breakup of one of history's most profitable and successful enterprises? The judge himself explains: "Falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus," he says, citing a Latin aphorism meaning, "Untrue in one thing, untrue in everything." "I don't subscribe to that as absolutely true," the judge says. "But it does lead one to suspicion. It's a universal human experience. If someone lies to you once, how much else can you credit as the truth?"
So are you saying that he's biased because he didn't like being lied to in a court of law or having faked evidence being presented as the truth? INAL, what I've read from legal scholars is that the finding of fact and the ruling were all structured to stand up during the expected appeals process. If you know so many ways that it can be overturned, start listing them.
I interviewed once with Microsoft. The two people conducting the interviews were the most repulsive, egotistical bastards I had ever met in my life. Later on in the day, one of them got in a big argument with a friend of mine over the fscking word processor he used to create the resume! It was the first time the placement office at school received complaints about the conduct of business reps conducting interviews on campus (they got lots of them too).
I'm sorry, you couldn't pay me enough to work there.
I don't think software has become so expensive, but that less comes with it anymore. It used to be that when you bought software, you would get a semi-useful manual that you could learn from, and you would get some support in case you had trouble.
That's the only reason that I've ever bought software, even if it was shareware or legally free software. Case in point: I had the download version of WordPerfect 8 for Linux for quite a few months before I finally bought a boxed version from Sam's Club. I certainly could have not paid for it, but I wouldn't have a backup copy of it on cd(no CDR yet), the 700+ page manual is actually useful, and the price wasn't outrageous.
Why don't they just realize that it is the corporation's greed that is turning people into pirates? If they actually produced a quality product at a good price, only the hardcore 'I don't pay for software no matter the price' types would still be pirating it. Unfortunately, many people just see the internet as an amplifier for this greed, and that just sickens me.
Driver's License = You don't own the vehicle.
Bullshit!! I still own the car. A driver's license is just another excuse to tax and identify you under the guise that it would promote driver safety. The car's title is just legal proof that you own the car or nowdays who lent you the money and therefore can reposses the car if you don't pay.
Believe it or not, there are people using computers in areas where broadband or even normal local dialup is simply not available. Re-read the post. He says he lives in such an area (I used to and much of my family still does), so that is a valid point. What else is he supposed to do? Sneak his home computer into work? With some companies that can be a big no-no. In this case, he works at a place with high speed access and but can't get it at home since it's in the middle of nowhere. Hmm...sounds just like a government installation to me (then again he would probably get in trouble too just for doing the download).
Only if they would buy it otherwise. If someone hands me a cd of something I would never buy, how much has the company lost?
Then ask yourself, why wouldn't you buy it? If it's crappy software not worth buying, then it's not worth using either. If you have an issue with the company because of their business practices/pricing, then use something else. Then send the company a letter saying "I bought (if it's not free software) competitor XYZ's product because of your prices/business practices/whatever." By pirating you may be actually helping the company you so dislike.
I guess it all boils down to what one's values/morals are. I personally don't mind paying for quality goods & services. Those that I don't think are worth it, I don't pay for them and I don't use them. I would consider it unethical to knowingly use a pirated product, especially one from a company that I dislike. Unless you are selling the pirated software as the genuine article, the whole issue is pretty murky.
I'm sorry, but I can't understand the 'I think it's crap, but I _need_ it anyway' mentality. If I think something's a shoddy product, I don't use it. I guess the non-MS companies/developers/advocates need to step up to the plate and state the case that people don't _need_ MS and that other solutions exist. It's being done, but more of it is still needed.
I agree with a software boycott, but why not support the developers of competing products? Sure, Gates isn't getting any money from you, but you are helping make Windows/Office/etc even more widespread. This helps reinforce the idea that people _need_ the software and require the proprietary documents that they produce.
It's easy to see the reason for their actions: they believe there will be no consequences. They've severely restricted competition in their marketplace and now's the time to put the thumbscrews on the occasional pirate. People will bitch and moan, but if they perceive that an alternative doesn't exist, they end up going along with it. Fortunately, there are free alternatives so hopefully this will backfire on them.
I'm sure you are still paying for it. You just aren't buying it from a retailer. Most colleges and universities love to tack on additional fees for just about everything. Usage fees usually were about 1/4 to 1/3 of my college bill. I'm sure the site license fee is being included.
There are no ugly women, only dudes with burly right arms.
I'm sorry. Our college had ugly women, some of which could be mistaken for ugly guys.
Now for someone like me that's got a few boxes of parts from previous machines, that wouldn't be bad. _IF_ they still worked, it would be a matter of remembering what were all the original pieces. The people that I consider to be an average consumer doesn't perform the upgrade themselves. They go to a computer store and have them do it. The store then keeps the old parts or charges more if the customer wants them back. In this case, the consumer gets really screwed. Not only have they lost time & data, they get to go back to the shop and fork out even more cash.
I have no qualms about anyone earning a decent living, but that's getting to pretty damn greedy.
This will make installing to the windows partition via a loopback file a must have feature for all Linux/BSD distributions. That or being able to completely run off a CD (there are some that can, I just can't remember the URL right now). Booting from a floppy/CD and running like a diskless client would work for those in office requirements. There is also the possibility of installing to a second hard drive, or with some laptops, just pop out the MS drive and pop in a Linux/BSD drive. Who knows...because of this, swap-able drives on desktops may become popular? Another fine example of Microsoft driving innovation in the computer industry. (Nobody said they had to be the ones doing it =)
Stallman and the FSF have sold their software to raise funds. Heck If you want to buy some GNU software go to http://www.fsf.org/order/order.html and splurge away.
Now, I'm sure that a lot of software that's used on college campuses has been pirated. Most of it was when I was in college a decade ago, so I doubt it's only gotten worse. At the time, the reasoning was "The software companies are cultivating future users who will pay for the software once they become employed. The students don't have the money to pay for it anyway, so it's not like they are losing a sale". A employed computer professional burning copies of Office 2K for his friends and family is another story. They certainly can pay for it and are robbing the company from a sale. There is no excuse for that.
Not everyone is a thief, so why should the majority be penalized because of the actions of a few? I've actually paid for shareware titles that I didn't have to. I occasionally buy boxed versions of software that I have legally downloaded for free just for the additional documentation (WordPerfect for example). The software publishers went through this phase in the 80s too and discovered that they lost customers because their anti-piracy efforts didn't stop the pirates, but did stop legitimate users from practicing prudent data recovery procedures. I can only see this hurting the OEMs and the software publishers. IMHO, it's pure greed.
I may certainly have as much disdain for M$ as the average slashdotter, so I don't buy from them. The rare occasions where I have, the software moves from machine to machine, where the old machine is stripped and the parts used for something else. If I can't move the software like that in the future, I won't buy it. Especially with the consumer audio/video equipment. I don't know how many CD players or VCRs that I've gone though over the years. Having to buy a different copy of a song/video because the existing player broke (or is at the house instead of the office) would be insane. BS tactics like this only drive me and people I talk to towards the Free Software community (and good old fashioned redistributable paper books).
That certainly depends on the school.
At the college I attended, the ratio of men to women was about 3:1 and most of the women were butt ugly. There were more attractive women in my high school class than my college freshman class (which had 10x the number of people). Of course many of the guys had the preconceived notion that college was the place to meet women and were quite pissed when confronted with reality.
During my time at college I got a BS in CompSci, a BS in ElectricalEng, and watched a lot of old TV (MASH, Star Trek, etc.). But NEVER, ever did I have anything resembling even a date in those 5 years. The only thing I regret is that I spent too much time watching TV and not enough time hacking on GNU software .
I wonder what hotmail does if you check the "remember my password" option..
It probably just sends you the same cookie but with an expires field, so the browser will store the cookie on the hard drive. If the cookie doesn't have an expires field, then it's kept only memory. If you need to login as a new user, restart the browser.
Of course, if one is going to do something like this over the Internet, it should be encrypted. BTW, slashdot isn't the only one. Linuxtoday.com uses plaintext cookies for authentication also.
The only diesel passenger cars that I've dealt with were General Motors products. The biggest problem with the dual battery setup was that if one battery started to go bad, both had to be replaced. If it wasn't, the alternator would slowly die.
I'd like to get a TDI Jetta, but I can't afford it. Oh well....Unfortunately, unless one is an area that experiences a very cold winter (I don't think Seattle counts...coastal cities often stay much warmer than inland cities at the same latitude), the stations only have diesel #2 instead of diesel #1. But that's when you get used to having a big bottle of anti-gel additive in the trunk. =).
So is the Lupo the engine that has a bigger than normal flywheel? I read that VW was testing a motor that used a big flywheel that would disengage from the crankshaft when the vehicle was at a stoplight or similar situation and then use the angular momentum to restart the motor when necessary. I didn't know they were in production yet. Cool! If I had the money, I would certainly buy one. Nothing irritates me more than seeing one person driving a huge SUV for commuting to work. Talk about a waste of money! Not only did they spend a ton of cash on a vehicle that they probably never fully utilize, they pay more in insurance and fuel costs.
I think the problem with some of the US made diesels for cars was that they basically tried to convert existing gasoline engines to diesels instead of designing one from the ground up. In the US, you more likely to see a diesel in a pickup than you are to see one in a car. Especially if one uses the pickup for actual work (in contrast to the people who buy trucks as a mode of transportation that could actually carry furniture one in a blue moon). My Dad and one of my uncles have basically the same truck: a 4wd Dodge Ram. They use them for pulling livestock trailers, campers, etc. The only difference is my Dad's truck has a Cummins V8 diesel and my uncle's has a gasoline V10. During a trip where both were pulling similar trailers, the diesel consumed about half the amount of fuel the gasoline truck did.
My brother (who coincidently used to be a diesel mechanic) knows guys that will buy Ford 3/4 to 1 ton pickups without the engines and then drop Cummins or Caterpillar diesel engines in them. This allows them to pull heavier loads, get better mileage, and have a more reliable truck than by using the stock Ford gasoline engine. Joe Suburbanite might not like them because they can't accelerate as fast onto the freeways, but Farmer Brown loves them.