"It is claimed that said invention par takes in the action of said monotonous variations of the post-haste mentioned...".
I mean if you can't explain the jist of your invention without lawyer speak... you clearly don't have a command on said invention and should be left in the cold anyways...
If the patents were written so engineers could read them [in a timely fashion] you'd see more filtering of patents and less junk.
But nobody ever thinks that the very action of "CYA-lawyerspeak" is WHAT GETS YOU IN THIS MESS!
...have anything todo with the fact that most radio stations are canned and pre-programmed from a master list of the "latest hits".
{fineprint}
Notice: Latest hit has been defined as the latest album or single that the master controlling agency (see RIAA) demands be played over and over and over and over.
{/fineprint}
Three things annoy me about radio stations
1. Lame on-air "personalities" that are never critical of anything [specially sponsor related].
2. Same music over and over
3. Lame advertisements and endorsements that are for things you just don't need that much advertisement for. e.g. I don't care how often you mention it, I'm not buying a $200,000 yacht!
And seriously an mp3 player with a shuffle mode can replace the "selection" of music played on air.
You'd have to ask a Rockstar developer. Chances are there is memory for the texture it's just zeroed [e.g. zero alpha == transparent] maybe ?
All I know is with radio off the cd will seek/read/etc when you drive super fast [more than if you just sit still] and it's the best explanation my feeble mind could come up with./me not feeling particularly good today... arrg.
No, I think well thoroughly documented [no less than 900 pages] of gibberish on every-step-of-the-way-from-start-to-end-encryption -and authentication... is much better..
simple people. Challenge response + salts + cipher + MAC == much simpler and likely more secure.
If you wanna have fun look at 802.16e it's like 950 pages and specifies dozens of encode methods for the data [e.g. FSK, BFSK, QAM]...
So it has 16 modes to transmit it... let's see what the hardware will do... oh right THE BARE ASS MINIMUM!
So why don't these smart and overly intelligent folks on standards committees just specify ONLY the minimum and let people have their own extensions? E.g.
Broadcom 802.16 + Broadcom-super-plus
and
Linksys 802.16 + Linksys-max!
[or whatever]...
AT the very least they have 802.16 at the base so the two products can talk... and if their admendmends are good you turn it into a new standard [not one huge god forsaken hard to read and remember 950 page behemoth].
um, stop using Windows? Why is that such a hard concept? Wanna game? Pester the developers or get a console.
The fact that games run on Windows is no reason todo **WORK** in it as well. And if all you're buying a $400 copy of windows for is gaming you might as well get an Xbox and save yourself a couple 100 dollars...
Tom
Re:Introducing a joke you will get sick of quickly
on
The Xbox 360 Unveiled
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
What? ok... we obviously play games for different reasons.
BTW the exact reason for the "not yet rendered" [it is actually rendering btw] is CD load time. The model for the city is in memory but not the textures [they're rotated out LRU style]. So if you drive super fast you're going faster than the CD can access/load the data [seems odd]. Thus the game engine just renders transparent surfaces.
If you drive fast enough you can occasionally see the green backing of the interstate signs blank and just have the white wireframe text up... it's funny.
Anyways, I find the game a sufficiently pleasant waste of time even with that shortcomming.
When I look at games like the old Splinter cells [chaos theory is good imo] they're nice looking games that are way too hard to play. I don't play for work... I play to waste time.
In GTA I can hop on a quadbike and go on a murder spree. That's not only fun but it's educational in case I have todo it in real life.
Tom
Re:Introducing a joke you will get sick of quickly
on
The Xbox 360 Unveiled
·
· Score: 1
I'm holding out for the Xbox 540 or 720... why would I want only one circle when I can have two!... seriously though... As a moderate gamer [serious GTA:SA addict] I'd have to say "bleh who cares". Content of games is the shits. Shinier shit is just shiny shit.
PS2/XBOX are at the point of decent graphics that don't tear away from the gameplay [like the PS1 would] and really the only "better" thing they could have is more ram [for lower load times].
Anyways, I'll hold my breath for anything good to come out of this.
At least then the file is either there or not there.
My gentoo box has been through a few brownouts/powerouts [I have a UPS now...] and hasn't skipped a beat. It even comes back up on it's own [go Asus bios;-)] when I'm say on another continent;-)
That worked for my laptop when I spilled water on it. [small room + lots of things == mess waiting to happen].
I took the battery out and opened the laptop up and let it sit for a few hours. It works just fine.
I did a stupid thing and tried to turn it on right away... but it wouldn't turn on until it dried out.
If I had to guess the mobo has some short circuit detector and just wouldn't start. I know PSUs in desktops have a similar functionality [really crappy motherboards back in the day].
They would be to be able to run existing programs. And since none of their programs run with open standards nobody has OSS replacements.
So that means say they make a new OS... say OS2 [hehehe] they would have to port office, outlook, etc... to it.
Had they used open formats the OSS community would be able to get there much quicker thus making the OS much more attractive [but also cutting into their bottom dollar].
Essentially MSFT is making themself largely obsolete as more and more people move to OSS tools. You still have people using the MSFT tools but they tend to be older.
So really the question is, will there be a MSFT in 20 years? My hunch is if they are around they will be a very different company in terms of culture. Likely they will have to embrace open standards.
It wouldn't blow my mind in 5 years to see [for example] Word being able to open OpenOffice documents and saving in a format that is well documented.
I signed up for the course because I found computers fascinating. You're either much older than I or were in a worse off school district. We had a lab of twenty PCs and a half dozen Apples [G3/G4]. Anyone could sign up for the class and in fact many of the students had never made a page before [let alone used a computer a whole hour a day].
Point is you have to take something away from that. I bugged my parents when I was 11 or so to get a PC. I had to bug them for nearly a year before they got a family PC. Given that kids are spoiled horrible nowadays anyways you can likely expect kids to get PCs easily.
The point of the classes was not to say "now you're a web developer go make money" the point was to get you the initial learning curve settled so that if you wanted to pursue it on your own it wouldn't be so hard.
Just like high school algebra doesn't cover all subjects of algebra...
That's off topic. My point is if you want to excel at [say] web page development you're likely going to have to take a serious interest in it. If you do the bare minimum to pass the class you're not going to become professional at it.
If you're into mechanics then take that serious, if you're into algebra, etc...
My point is the schools are to give you a head start and guide you. It's up to the students [specially at the high school level] to learn to branch out and pursue knowledge/skill on their own time.
That is, afterall, what high school prepares you for. To leave the confines of a totally controlled atmosphere and goto college or the work force.
If at 17/18 you're only motivated "to not piss off the parents by failing"... you're not going to be a very useful person in life.
As for entertaining students... there is a difference between being enthuiastic and being their chummy buddy pal ol' friend. I mean seriously how fun is Calculus anyways?
In advanced subjects like math or bio or chem, etc... you really have to be "into it". Otherwise you're not going to take much away from it.
As for "not knowing what you want todo"... right now I develop cryptosystems and implement them. That's not exactly what I wanted todo in life. I like crypto and find it fascinating but I'm a comp.sci nerd at heart.
If you can't tell by age 14/15 that you have an aptitude for math or english or journalism or biology, etc... then you're really not taking anything to heart.
And no, I wasn't a A+ student in all subjects. I did take bio/chem/maths/etc but I really excelled at comp.sci and math which is why I'm where I am.
My parents bought said computer. Though I don't buy this "we can't afford a computer" bullshit. If you can afford a TV, stereo, gas for your SUV, etc... you can afford a computer.
And actually, at age 12 I was writing a BBS in Pascal. Age 13 I started teaching myself how to "code" in C [neither of which I'd say I was professional at but at least I was learning it].
As for "not every kid does"... too fucking bad. I'm so tired of that "we gotta entertain the children" bullshit. If the kid is that arrogant to think they have nothing to learn as a child then they're probably not going to make for very intelligent adults. I wanted to learn things when I was in school. I came to class early and left late [by like 10 mins here and there] to ask questions about the lesson or things I read on my own.
I printed off hundreds of papers and read them on my own time. I experimented with software I wrote, etc...
I'm sorry if you [or your kids] are brats that think school is a punishment. But that just reflects about the parents. If "being cool" and having a good time is all that counts...
And frankly, I was the "odd kid out" in school. Had next to no friends [a few but not many] and didn't really socialize that much. Now I'm 23, work at software firm and those "cool" kids serve me lunch at Subway and run my things through the scanner at Walmart.
Oh the shame. I took the time to learn things and got a job solely on merit [didn't apply for it and I was actually in France when they made first contact with me].
two hours? We did a couple weeks on web pages [then a couple weeks on flash, couple weeks on video processing, etc...].
Why can't you expect the student to learn on their own time as well? If the kid really wants to learn how to make a website they don't need a teacher to guide them every step of the way. All they need is a $500 PC, browser and a text editor.
Of course that's just me... cuz my "back in the day" was a whole five years ago [when I was in high school]. I guess us "old timers" just were expected to "not be total f'ing morons".
I'd rather they spent the 24% on updating antiquainted "big business" oriented lesson plans then on "this years Office license."
Kids should learn computers not in the context of "what I have todo to make Windows do work" but in the context of "what is a panel, menu, dialog box, what does "save" mean, what's a directory, etc..."
This would be like having "McDonalds brand algebra text books" where all the examples are like
"If McBurgerlar has two delicious all beef patties on a whole wheat seasemeseed bun and he adds a delicious McFrosty to the order, what is the total percentage of his monthly McWage spent today on a wholesome quality meal?"
How's that any different then
"In Microsoft (tm) Windows (tm) you always click options and then click preferences to get to the page layout [or somesuch]. This is how "it works"".
Or
"In Microsoft Windows XP you always click "start" then "explore" to see your home folder."
etc...
So even if they did spend the 24% on new lesson plans... that's not a bad thing.
... I work in the "real world" and my PC runs Fedora and I use OpenOffice.
It's a myth that you "need Word" skills to get a job. And I wonder who puts that myth out... oh say MSFT.
Ignoring OSS will do your kid more harm then just teaching them one specific tool. If your kid can master OpenOffice they can figure out and work with Word with relative ease.
But if your kid is totally ignorant of things like Linux, userland tools and the other things in the OSS world (Gnome/KDE/X, Firefox, etc..) and learns things in context of MSFT only
e.g.
"In msft I click the "start" button"
Instead of "In the desktop I click taskbar/panel menu button"....
Your kid is not going to be able to adopt for the many companies that have mixed or non-windows workshops.
On the other front this could [probably won't] save on school budget which saves on taxes. At the very least they could put the budget to better use [e.g. replace worn out textbooks/equipment, pay the teachers a competitive wage, etc..]
If you want to learn web development you ought to know HTML. My tech class had us making pages first in notepad then in Frontpage [though I just stuck to notepad because it's simpler].
If you hire some cocaine addict off the street [e.g. my college] who doesn't know HTML or anything about W3C to teach a tech class about web pages... well you get what you deserve.
Of course my high school went the other way at first. Buying all Apple bullshit. Of course we were doing video processing on them back when PCs could hardy capture video let alone process it in any meaningful way...
People will buy what gets the job done. If they think "Office" is what gets the job done because their little exposure to computers has told them so... then they buy Office.
The actually real "need" for Office over say TeX or OpenOffice [or Abiword or...] is not really there.
If the schools used OpenOffice on Linux you'd still be able to open your crippled Word documents from home. And in the case they don't look pretty you can just pick up your own copy of OpenOffice... for free...
But as the OP said there are a lot of families that can't afford the 700 dollars or so that an Office suite costs. So they either pirate or do without [either with nothing or with something free].
That and the school would be promoting diversity/openness as the OpenOffice formats are all public knowledge. You'd be promoting a proper practice [open file format] and not supporting an inproper practice [basically what MSFT does].
Because it's not productive. Good hunters will eat/use what they kill. If you're killing something 1000 miles away chances are you're not going to have it shipped to your home to eat.
It's just killing for the sake of killing and any proper hunter will agree with that.
While I don't agree with the typical hunter [e.g. weekend deer terrorist] I don't think the practice is bad. I eat meat and I fully realize it comes from the Meatrix so I'm not a hypocrite.
If you have similar boxes in the house (e.g. x86 athlon or p4) you can just install your base system, tarball up the filesystem to a DVD then untar it on fresh systems.
From scratch to working you're taking ~5-10 mins at most after you make the image.
I do that for my laptop once in a while and works well.
Slashdot Mirror
... that said ...
...".
... you clearly don't have a command on said invention and should be left in the cold anyways...
Why not make the documentation less stupid?
"It is claimed that said invention par takes in the action of said monotonous variations of the post-haste mentioned
I mean if you can't explain the jist of your invention without lawyer speak
If the patents were written so engineers could read them [in a timely fashion] you'd see more filtering of patents and less junk.
But nobody ever thinks that the very action of "CYA-lawyerspeak" is WHAT GETS YOU IN THIS MESS!
Tom
icewm, gnome or KDE.
That covers basically all the useful WMs out there.
Icewm is very light, fast and works well. It's good for memory constrained devices [laptops, media boxes, etc].
Gnome is larger but more "gui user" friendly. Useful for desktops/laptops.
KDE is larger still but essentially wraps the entire desktop in a nice shiny GUI [it's filemanager is way better than Nautilus for example].
All the other WMs out there are rehashes of the same.
Tom
...have anything todo with the fact that most radio stations are canned and pre-programmed from a master list of the "latest hits".
{fineprint}
Notice: Latest hit has been defined as the latest album or single that the master controlling agency (see RIAA) demands be played over and over and over and over.
{/fineprint}
Three things annoy me about radio stations
1. Lame on-air "personalities" that are never critical of anything [specially sponsor related].
2. Same music over and over
3. Lame advertisements and endorsements that are for things you just don't need that much advertisement for. e.g. I don't care how often you mention it, I'm not buying a $200,000 yacht!
And seriously an mp3 player with a shuffle mode can replace the "selection" of music played on air.
Tom
...these IE using motherfuckers?
I haven't used IE in months [other than on my pocketpc where I don't really give a shit].
In windows firefox is just a nicer browser. MS IE has so little to offer that is productive...
Tom
You'd have to ask a Rockstar developer. Chances are there is memory for the texture it's just zeroed [e.g. zero alpha == transparent] maybe ?
/me not feeling particularly good today... arrg.
All I know is with radio off the cd will seek/read/etc when you drive super fast [more than if you just sit still] and it's the best explanation my feeble mind could come up with.
Tom
No, I think well thoroughly documented [no less than 900 pages] of gibberish on every-step-of-the-way-from-start-to-end-encryption -and authentication ... is much better..
...
simple people. Challenge response + salts + cipher + MAC == much simpler and likely more secure.
If you wanna have fun look at 802.16e it's like 950 pages and specifies dozens of encode methods for the data [e.g. FSK, BFSK, QAM]
So it has 16 modes to transmit it... let's see what the hardware will do... oh right THE BARE ASS MINIMUM!
So why don't these smart and overly intelligent folks on standards committees just specify ONLY the minimum and let people have their own extensions? E.g.
Broadcom 802.16 + Broadcom-super-plus
and
Linksys 802.16 + Linksys-max!
[or whatever]...
AT the very least they have 802.16 at the base so the two products can talk... and if their admendmends are good you turn it into a new standard [not one huge god forsaken hard to read and remember 950 page behemoth].
Of course that's just my opinion and I'm right.
Tom
um, stop using Windows? Why is that such a hard concept? Wanna game? Pester the developers or get a console.
The fact that games run on Windows is no reason todo **WORK** in it as well. And if all you're buying a $400 copy of windows for is gaming you might as well get an Xbox and save yourself a couple 100 dollars...
Tom
What? ok... we obviously play games for different reasons.
... I play to waste time.
BTW the exact reason for the "not yet rendered" [it is actually rendering btw] is CD load time. The model for the city is in memory but not the textures [they're rotated out LRU style]. So if you drive super fast you're going faster than the CD can access/load the data [seems odd]. Thus the game engine just renders transparent surfaces.
If you drive fast enough you can occasionally see the green backing of the interstate signs blank and just have the white wireframe text up... it's funny.
Anyways, I find the game a sufficiently pleasant waste of time even with that shortcomming.
When I look at games like the old Splinter cells [chaos theory is good imo] they're nice looking games that are way too hard to play. I don't play for work
In GTA I can hop on a quadbike and go on a murder spree. That's not only fun but it's educational in case I have todo it in real life.
Tom
I'm holding out for the Xbox 540 or 720... why would I want only one circle when I can have two! ... seriously though... As a moderate gamer [serious GTA:SA addict] I'd have to say "bleh who cares". Content of games is the shits. Shinier shit is just shiny shit.
PS2/XBOX are at the point of decent graphics that don't tear away from the gameplay [like the PS1 would] and really the only "better" thing they could have is more ram [for lower load times].
Anyways, I'll hold my breath for anything good to come out of this.
Tom
Use reiserfs?
...] and hasn't skipped a beat. It even comes back up on it's own [go Asus bios ;-)] when I'm say on another continent ;-)
At least then the file is either there or not there.
My gentoo box has been through a few brownouts/powerouts [I have a UPS now
Tom
That worked for my laptop when I spilled water on it. [small room + lots of things == mess waiting to happen].
... but it wouldn't turn on until it dried out.
I took the battery out and opened the laptop up and let it sit for a few hours. It works just fine.
I did a stupid thing and tried to turn it on right away
If I had to guess the mobo has some short circuit detector and just wouldn't start. I know PSUs in desktops have a similar functionality [really crappy motherboards back in the day].
Tom
hahahahahahahahaha.
What a tool. First off, why would you leave your ipod in your pocket when you take your pants off? It's not like it's a $20 mp3 player...
What a fucking idiot.
Tom
legacy...
They would be to be able to run existing programs. And since none of their programs run with open standards nobody has OSS replacements.
So that means say they make a new OS... say OS2 [hehehe] they would have to port office, outlook, etc... to it.
Had they used open formats the OSS community would be able to get there much quicker thus making the OS much more attractive [but also cutting into their bottom dollar].
Essentially MSFT is making themself largely obsolete as more and more people move to OSS tools. You still have people using the MSFT tools but they tend to be older.
So really the question is, will there be a MSFT in 20 years? My hunch is if they are around they will be a very different company in terms of culture. Likely they will have to embrace open standards.
It wouldn't blow my mind in 5 years to see [for example] Word being able to open OpenOffice documents and saving in a format that is well documented.
Tom
Because Kermit is not a file share service?
...
I mean why don't they just use pkzip? Or how about tar! Maybe a good smattering of defrag.exe or how about EMM386!
Tom
There is hardware for decoding but a lot of it goes into scheduling windows, register renaming, etc... the OOE support.
;-)
It's not quite fair to compare a cpu that doesn't have any of that to a recent x86 that does.
Cuz you know what, an AMD64 can hold it's own against alpha just fine. And with CISC instructions it does so with less code space pollution.
lw $0,blah
work
sw $0,blah
boring...
ADD [eax],ebx
much more efficient
I mean something like an ARM processor.. you won't see that at 2Ghz anytime soon [even though the ARM has a good ISA].
Tom
I signed up for the course because I found computers fascinating. You're either much older than I or were in a worse off school district. We had a lab of twenty PCs and a half dozen Apples [G3/G4]. Anyone could sign up for the class and in fact many of the students had never made a page before [let alone used a computer a whole hour a day].
...
Point is you have to take something away from that. I bugged my parents when I was 11 or so to get a PC. I had to bug them for nearly a year before they got a family PC. Given that kids are spoiled horrible nowadays anyways you can likely expect kids to get PCs easily.
The point of the classes was not to say "now you're a web developer go make money" the point was to get you the initial learning curve settled so that if you wanted to pursue it on your own it wouldn't be so hard.
Just like high school algebra doesn't cover all subjects of algebra
Tom
That's off topic. My point is if you want to excel at [say] web page development you're likely going to have to take a serious interest in it. If you do the bare minimum to pass the class you're not going to become professional at it.
... you're not going to be a very useful person in life.
If you're into mechanics then take that serious, if you're into algebra, etc...
My point is the schools are to give you a head start and guide you. It's up to the students [specially at the high school level] to learn to branch out and pursue knowledge/skill on their own time.
That is, afterall, what high school prepares you for. To leave the confines of a totally controlled atmosphere and goto college or the work force.
If at 17/18 you're only motivated "to not piss off the parents by failing"
As for entertaining students... there is a difference between being enthuiastic and being their chummy buddy pal ol' friend. I mean seriously how fun is Calculus anyways?
In advanced subjects like math or bio or chem, etc... you really have to be "into it". Otherwise you're not going to take much away from it.
As for "not knowing what you want todo"... right now I develop cryptosystems and implement them. That's not exactly what I wanted todo in life. I like crypto and find it fascinating but I'm a comp.sci nerd at heart.
If you can't tell by age 14/15 that you have an aptitude for math or english or journalism or biology, etc... then you're really not taking anything to heart.
And no, I wasn't a A+ student in all subjects. I did take bio/chem/maths/etc but I really excelled at comp.sci and math which is why I'm where I am.
Tom
My parents bought said computer. Though I don't buy this "we can't afford a computer" bullshit. If you can afford a TV, stereo, gas for your SUV, etc... you can afford a computer.
... too fucking bad. I'm so tired of that "we gotta entertain the children" bullshit. If the kid is that arrogant to think they have nothing to learn as a child then they're probably not going to make for very intelligent adults. I wanted to learn things when I was in school. I came to class early and left late [by like 10 mins here and there] to ask questions about the lesson or things I read on my own.
And actually, at age 12 I was writing a BBS in Pascal. Age 13 I started teaching myself how to "code" in C [neither of which I'd say I was professional at but at least I was learning it].
As for "not every kid does"
I printed off hundreds of papers and read them on my own time. I experimented with software I wrote, etc...
I'm sorry if you [or your kids] are brats that think school is a punishment. But that just reflects about the parents. If "being cool" and having a good time is all that counts...
And frankly, I was the "odd kid out" in school. Had next to no friends [a few but not many] and didn't really socialize that much. Now I'm 23, work at software firm and those "cool" kids serve me lunch at Subway and run my things through the scanner at Walmart.
Oh the shame. I took the time to learn things and got a job solely on merit [didn't apply for it and I was actually in France when they made first contact with me].
Oh woe is me...
Tom
two hours? We did a couple weeks on web pages [then a couple weeks on flash, couple weeks on video processing, etc...].
... cuz my "back in the day" was a whole five years ago [when I was in high school]. I guess us "old timers" just were expected to "not be total f'ing morons".
Why can't you expect the student to learn on their own time as well? If the kid really wants to learn how to make a website they don't need a teacher to guide them every step of the way. All they need is a $500 PC, browser and a text editor.
Of course that's just me
Tom
I'd rather they spent the 24% on updating antiquainted "big business" oriented lesson plans then on "this years Office license."
Kids should learn computers not in the context of "what I have todo to make Windows do work" but in the context of "what is a panel, menu, dialog box, what does "save" mean, what's a directory, etc..."
This would be like having "McDonalds brand algebra text books" where all the examples are like
"If McBurgerlar has two delicious all beef patties on a whole wheat seasemeseed bun and he adds a delicious McFrosty to the order, what is the total percentage of his monthly McWage spent today on a wholesome quality meal?"
How's that any different then
"In Microsoft (tm) Windows (tm) you always click options and then click preferences to get to the page layout [or somesuch]. This is how "it works"".
Or
"In Microsoft Windows XP you always click "start" then "explore" to see your home folder."
etc...
So even if they did spend the 24% on new lesson plans... that's not a bad thing.
... I work in the "real world" and my PC runs Fedora and I use OpenOffice.
It's a myth that you "need Word" skills to get a job. And I wonder who puts that myth out... oh say MSFT.
Ignoring OSS will do your kid more harm then just teaching them one specific tool. If your kid can master OpenOffice they can figure out and work with Word with relative ease.
But if your kid is totally ignorant of things like Linux, userland tools and the other things in the OSS world (Gnome/KDE/X, Firefox, etc..) and learns things in context of MSFT only
e.g.
"In msft I click the "start" button"
Instead of "In the desktop I click taskbar/panel menu button"....
Your kid is not going to be able to adopt for the many companies that have mixed or non-windows workshops.
On the other front this could [probably won't] save on school budget which saves on taxes. At the very least they could put the budget to better use [e.g. replace worn out textbooks/equipment, pay the teachers a competitive wage, etc..]
Tom
If you want to learn web development you ought to know HTML. My tech class had us making pages first in notepad then in Frontpage [though I just stuck to notepad because it's simpler].
... well you get what you deserve.
If you hire some cocaine addict off the street [e.g. my college] who doesn't know HTML or anything about W3C to teach a tech class about web pages
Of course my high school went the other way at first. Buying all Apple bullshit. Of course we were doing video processing on them back when PCs could hardy capture video let alone process it in any meaningful way...
Tom
People will buy what gets the job done. If they think "Office" is what gets the job done because their little exposure to computers has told them so... then they buy Office.
...] is not really there.
... for free ...
The actually real "need" for Office over say TeX or OpenOffice [or Abiword or
If the schools used OpenOffice on Linux you'd still be able to open your crippled Word documents from home. And in the case they don't look pretty you can just pick up your own copy of OpenOffice
But as the OP said there are a lot of families that can't afford the 700 dollars or so that an Office suite costs. So they either pirate or do without [either with nothing or with something free].
That and the school would be promoting diversity/openness as the OpenOffice formats are all public knowledge. You'd be promoting a proper practice [open file format] and not supporting an inproper practice [basically what MSFT does].
Tom
Because it's not productive. Good hunters will eat/use what they kill. If you're killing something 1000 miles away chances are you're not going to have it shipped to your home to eat.
It's just killing for the sake of killing and any proper hunter will agree with that.
While I don't agree with the typical hunter [e.g. weekend deer terrorist] I don't think the practice is bad. I eat meat and I fully realize it comes from the Meatrix so I'm not a hypocrite.
Tom
two words ...
... image...
disk
If you have similar boxes in the house (e.g. x86 athlon or p4) you can just install your base system, tarball up the filesystem to a DVD then untar it on fresh systems.
From scratch to working you're taking ~5-10 mins at most after you make the image.
I do that for my laptop once in a while and works well.
Tom