barratry: The offense of persistently instigating lawsuits, typically groundless ones
racketeering: To carry on illegal business activities that involve crimes, such as extortion.
extortion: An excessive or exorbitant charge, such as a $600 licensing fee for a dubiously made IP claim.
SCO's illegal activities aside, does SCO, being an American company, even have the ability to sue a foreign government? Where would the case even be tried? Any chance Darl can just get fed to a croc?
These new laptops have impressive specs, but the problem is still the LCD displays. LCD's (and even the plasma screens) have just too much motion blur to play extremely fast-action games. And actually it's not just games, it's also TV / DVD viewing. I was at a Best Buy, thinking about getting a plasma screen, but when I saw the blur I passed on buying it. What was I watching? Hockey... So I guess I can rule out NHL 2004 on that laptop as well, and I wouldn't want to see how bad the blur was on UT2004.
That being said, is there any hope that OLED's will alleviate the motion blur problem? Because right now, as far as gaming / DVD viewing, I'm not giving up my CRT.
As someone who lives in Texas, let me mention some of the virtues of the state.
1. NO STATE INCOME TAX. Yes, there is no state income tax. That's like a 15% raise in and of itself.
2. The Weather - Other then July and August, where it's *really* hot outside, you can always do things outside in Texas.
3. Concealed Carry - Crime rate in Texas has plummeted becasue of it.
4. Music Scene - Whether it's Dallas / Ft. Worth or Austin, there's a lot of good rock bands in the area. Like Country? There's Houston.
I would mention the sports teams... but they all suck. The Stars get owned by the Red Wings, the Rangers get owned by everyone (even the Detroit Tigers), the Astros are called the "Disatro's" for a reason, and c'mon.. the Cowboys are the NFL's most hated team, and the Houston Texans haven't been around long enough for anyone to really care yet. Oh wait - no, there's the Spurs and Mavericks, so yeah I guess the local teams aren't a total wash.
This is the same old crap MS has been saying about Software for years, and they haven't yet, and probably won't ever get it right.
First it was Visual Basic - design your apps then maybe spend a little time with program specific details. Though it never quite worked that way, especially if you need to make a Win32 API call. Then, you had to write a lot of code just to call SetWindowLong().
Then, it was COM. Devleopers everywhere would just be able to drag and drop COM objects to make their application. COM (and the horrible to configure DCOM) worked so well, with it's sometimes confusing threading model and it's reliance on UDP that now MS is saying "Well, VB wasn't all we thought it was going to be, an neither was COM, so.. here's.NET. And C#. No really, we mean it this time."
Meanwhile any developer worth their salt still has their text editor of choice thinking "we'll believe it when we see it."
640k jokes aside, the only thing remarkable about Bill Gates' future vision is that he's often wrong. Or did I miss the Tablet PC revolution that was supposed to happen a couple of years ago? And.. What About Bob? (Hint: Not the Bill Murray movie).
One question - I haven't played it, so I don't know - but - what do you like about Ninja Gaiden so much?
See, to me it looks like Rygar for PS2 (which is the same publisher.. and the same engine?), or Castlevania: Lament of Innocence for PS2.
As far as Ghost Recon, you can't swing a bat in a computer store without hitting a FPS...
The PC as a gaming platform isn't going anywhere any time soon - and one of the reasons is that the PC Games market is different from the console market. Sure, there's some overlap like there is in any good Venn Diagram, but for the most part it's two distinct segments of the gaming community. For example: A friend of mine will only play PC games. Sure, he's a bit of an elitist, but he's not touching any "inferior console". He plays Call of Duty, Medal Of Honor, Warcraft 3, GTA3 / GTA3 Vice City, etc... My brother-in-law is a fireman, he owns a PS2 and plays Madden 2004, NHL 2004, NCAA Football 2004, SSX2, Tony Hawk's Underground, and has no intention of upgrading his PC to play games on it. There are those of us in the middle, who play both PC and (in my case PS2).
In the end, it's all about the games, not the console. Some games, even the multi-platform port releases, just seem to play better on one platform over the other. Madden 2004? I'd rather play it or any other sports games on my PS2. Unreal Tournament 2004 or any other FPS? PC. Warcraft 3 or any other RTS? PC. Button Mashing Fighting Game (Soul Caliber, Tekken) - PS2.
The PC as a gaming platform is far from dead - there's just too many of them in homes for game developers to ignore. Also, most of the biggest console games (GTA3 / Vice City) get ported to the OC, and in the case of GTA3, the graphics are FAR superior on the PC.
I think the hardware would still be where it's at today, for one reason: games. Admit it - games is one of the primary reasons most people buy a PC. How many of you (just raise your hands) bought a new 486 just so you could play Doom? Wow.. that's a lot of hands. OK, how many of you bought a Voodoo card for Quake? Wow.. even more hands. OK, last question - how many of you now own a high end Radeon or Geforce card? Ok, I can't count that high.
Another reason that hardware would have advanced is image processing. OCR is being used for a lot of reasons (sorting mail) and the faster OCR is the more mail can be sorted faster and the less cost there is to the consumer (you don't get a rate hike in stamps).
And another reason - because we Americans like things faster and cheaper. And if Intel wasn't pushing the hardware forward back then, Motorola would have.
And while we might not need a 3Ghz P4 (or a new Athlon FX) to edit a text document... I certainly enjoy builds not taking an hour. The compiler can and does take advantage of that raw speed.
The sad reality is that in most journalism, the facts are irrelevant. If the facts are contradictory, ignore them, if you've got the facts wrong, well that's OK if the stories are politically correct.
See Blair, Jayson, formerly of the NY Times.
Besides - how many liberal reporters are all too happy to just rubber stamp *any* story that is critical of the Bush administration while spiking stories that praise the Bush administration?
See Bernard Goldberg's "Bias" for more examples of this and other liberal bias in the media.
As supporting facts.. well - there was a study released recently that said that Global Warming might be overstated as an issue. Did any of you hear about that? If so, it wasn't from any of the major press, I'd wager. Want another example? Watch any nightly newscast - all you hear is how "another American soldier was killed in Iraq today" leaving out the rest of the story of "and 25 more terrorists are assuming room temperature and are no longer a threat to anyone."
Dragon Ball processor huh... you know they could market that to a certain group of fan boys and probably make a killing.... I can see the login screen now:
Royal Linux Release 2.6 (Vegeta) for DragonBall
Kernel 2.6.1
Login:Goku
Password:********
Then, just name the Email client "Gohan", the Office Suite "Saiyan", and the mp3 player "Android 17" and you'd probably have the market cornered in no time.;)
I, for one, applaud the long overdue efforts of the FCC to crack down on this kind of thing. As a father with children, or just a human being for that matter, it's disturbing how society continues to slide towards being more disrespectful and crass toward each other.
I agree with one point you made - it is disturbing how society slides and degenerates. However, the government, in this case the FCC, is not the solution. Take the Janet Boobie incident - there was so much market outcry and complaints that it will be YEARS before CBS airs something like that - and that's how it should be. The issue was over when the marketplace rose up and complained. For this issue, the FCC was really not needed. Sure, CBSMTVVIACOM didn't like the fines, but the millions of extremely pissed off people is what scared them. People (the marketplace) rejected was CBS was offering as a halftime show. And no, it wasn't just the boobie that upset people, the lyrics and crotch grabbing weren't appreciated either.
And actually, you can take that one step further - the FCC in general doesn't need to exist - if you don't like the content on Television or Radio - don't watch or listen. Yes, it's really that simple. And as a parent - it's *your* job to censor what your kids watch and listen to, not the government's.
And finally, to whoever modded the parent as flamebait / troll, that wasn't fair - this guy had an honest opinion on the matter.
Wouldn't the open source of these viruses be an advantage to the Antivirus folks? (Symantec, Norton, etc.) I mean, if they know the basics of the virus, wouldn't it be easier to defend against them? (I don't have much experience in the realm of viruses...just curious!)
Well, yes, the open source nature of the virus would help the anti-virus folks. Just like a compressed-air nail gun can help you build a house faster. But.. what good is any tool if you don't know how to use it? Why is my inbox flooded with the "I send you this file" virus? Because, even though the AV folks do a good job of killing viruses, most people are too stupid to realize that they need to update the signature files for the scanner to remain effective. These same folks are the ones that are too stupid to realize that you shouldn't open up email attachments without scanning it first, and making sure it was expected.
The blame of virus propogation tends to exist between the chair and the keyboard...
I don't think it's a question of time invested as far as poor UI design goes, I think it's more of a problem that most engineers don't really know how to put together a User Friendly UI, because let's face it - we think the CLI is pretty user friendly.
UI's could get much easier to use if developers would just select the right widget for the job. For example: Have a two state switch? Whether some feature is enabled or disabled? Please, just use a check box. The goofy group box with the two radio buttons (one labeled "Enable" and the other "Disable") is just clutter.
Another tip? Ask a graphic designer to layout your UI, then go and implement it. Graphic Designers study the best way to graphically communicate an idea, so (speaking from experience, my wife is a graphic designer) they can be a terrific resource in laying out a UI.
Finally, if you're using any kind of graphical UI editor like MSVC, Glade, Qt Designer, etc.. it just takes a second, but line up your widgets for crying out loud. Nothing screams amateur loser like controls that don't line up correctly.
And remember - your average customer doesn't see the elegant code you wrote under the hood - they see your UI. Especially remember this when writing Linux UI's - one thing MS is fairly good at is putting together a consistent UI. Might be ugly as sin like WinXP's default, but it's consistent.
Why do people currently upgrade their video card? To get faster framerates on their favorite games.
To discount the importance of entertainment on Linux is a mistake. Now, I did read a poster talk about legacy windows games, and that's all fine and dandy, but what about some new games? Not every game has to be the latest 3d engine to be any good, there's still room for 2d games which tend to also be much easier to write. (as examples of excellent, recent 2d games, I submit Metroid Fusion, Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow, and the like.) So, let's not just include Tux Racer, or the UT2004 demo, let's also write some 2d games and get them to work properly with a joystick / gamepad. Puzzle games also work well, as they appeal to a wide variety of an audience. Yeah, Tetris has been done, what what about slapping some fancy graphics on it? How about a clone of Dr. Mario? How about a clone of Madden Football, or any other sports games? How about a Wrestling game? (Laugh all you want, but they sell extremely well..)
Instead of being able to play windows games, why don't we give better alternatives to windows games?
Hey - you can't make the assumption that there will even be a France in ten years. Who knows how many times (and to who) France will have surrendered to by then?
Remember, France is the country that planted trees along it's boulevards when it realized that Germans preferred to march in the shade....
Yes, as a metter of fact, it is tongue in cheek. I thought about making a joke about how the French National Mascot is Pepe Le Pew, etc., but I decided against doing that until now.
Lighten up, people! Quit taking yourselves so damned seriously all the time!
Obviously, the problem isn't my spelling ability, it's my typing ability and the fact that I just don't care enough about it to click "Preview" before I click "Submit".
And your comment about trying to speak the native language is racist. Since it's been determined that it's racist for Americans to expect Mexican immigrants to speak English instead of Spanish, then it's just as racist for the French or anyone else to expect Americans to speak anything other then our American form of English. Therefore, by that logic, you are a racist.
The bathing comment was meant as a joke, although a buddy of mine in London regulary complains about the smell coming across the channel. When I replied that it's too far away, he retorts - "No, the French are just really that stinky". So it's not just Americans that dislike the French. It's also the British. Maybe it's because when the Germans started marching the French instantly surrendered and subjected England to a long bombing campaign?
And tourists aren't people? If you were in France for 5 months, weren't you a tourist? So are you therefore admitting that you are not a person? If not, then get your hands off that keyboard you damn dirty stinkin' ape.:)
No, I implied that Britney and Justin and their manufactured pop crap shouldn't get a dime from someone downloading and burning an act with talent (as opposed to the utterly untalented Spears and Timberlake).
As far as acts with talent - well for starters, pick any rock group of the past 30 years - as long as they're playing an instrument.. and writing songs that are more advanced then the crap on the radio now.
I completely agree with your point about having already paid via the tax on your equipment, but there is one minor flaw - there's no way to ensure proper reimbursement for the artists - there's no way Britney Spears or Justim Timberlake or any of their clones should get compensated for a person buying a CD-R and burning an act with talent onto the disk.
And as far as hating the French? We American's have disliked the French for *years*. They're rude to our tourists, they maybe bathe once a year, they piss and moan about the dominance of English on the internet, (since to them, French is an obviosly superior language), and then they call US arrogant?
I know a lot of people are going to be upset (and understandably so) with any company who pays SCO protection (er, I mean licensing) money.
But we have to look at it from the businesses point of view. Until the case with IBM is settled, and SCO is proven to be the litigous bastard Microsoft funded puppets that they are, many companies will unfortunately make a business decision - pay a little money now, rather then possibly a lot later in lawyer's fees. So I can't entirely blame them.
But given the article and the memo leak that it is in fact MS that paid SCO a significant amount of money in order to start their puppet suing with the explicit goal of creating FUD about Linux, why hasn't any federal prosecutor stepped up and done an investigation on Microsoft and SCO? File racketeering charges against these guys - they're no better then the Mafia.
Microsoft has been doing very little innovation lately that the end user would be interested in. Sure, there's that personal firewall thing they're adding with WindowsXP, but does anyone really think that firewall will stop, say, Office XP 2005 or whatever from phoning home? Of course not.
If you consider ridiculously draconian DRM schemes and amusing little JVM ripoffs (cough*cough*.NET*cough*cough*) and the intentional freezing out of competitors innovating, then yeah, they're really innovative.
Through the funding of the SCO lawsuit and the suspicious Win2000 SP1 source leak (which some MS flunky may still try to get into the Linux kernel), I'd also say that MS is getting pretty innovative when it comes to unethically cutting off it's competitors at the knees.
Re:Other mappable relationship environments?
on
Guilty By Association
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· Score: 5, Informative
You know, I'm really not sure WordOfMouthResearch.com is legit..
I received a notice that my personal email address got listed on their site from someone apparently looking for information on me. So, I used my anonymous email address and registered as having information about the person who owns my personal address. So far, my anonymous alter-ego has not been contacted, though BOTH addresses have seen a marked increase of spam. When I started bouncing emails to my personal address from WordOfMouthResearch.com, I received the same "Someone is searching for information on you" message from a different source email address. After about 5 or 6 of these, I bounced the entire domain.
Anyone else have information on these guys? Again, I think they're just harvesting email addresses for spammers under the guise of providing a service (that no one seems to be using - again, if my "alter-ego / evil twin" email is the only address that has information on me, which when I checked last it was, these "people" looking for information on me would have contacted my alternate email by now.
And as far as using AOL IM and Friendster and all that to data mine, I suspect that the spammers will be the first to use this data, since they can't reliably harvest email addresses with web spiders anymore since people are trying to actively avoid them - however, there is a valid email address associated with an AOL IM login, and also with Yahoo IM, and with MSN Messenger, so there's some major sources that the spammers can get email addresses from, and they'll also cross reference the information, and you'll get more, and more targetted spam. Do you like guitars, for example? Here comes spam offering Guitar Strings cheap, along with the 50 others promising natural male enhancement.
You know, it's beyond the point where you can impress anyone playing Stairway to Heaven.. it seems like any guitarist worth his or her pick can play it.. yeah, some better then others, but still.
However, I've found that playing anything axed by Randy Rhoads can really turn some heads.
Diary of a Madman, Crazy Train, Over The Mountain, Suicide Solution... good stuff.
So I think you'll see the following happen - anything like Jerry Maguire or Cast Away (WIIIIIIIIIIIILLLLLSOOOOOOONNNNN!!!!!!) will get over done (along with anything by DeNiro).. and those that can pull off, say...
Sling Blade, for example - will be the ones that impress.
Besides, who doesn't like french fried pertater's with mustard. mmm hmm.
500m? What's the blast radius for a MOAB or a DasiyCutter?
Special Delivery for Al-Qeada...
Re:On behalf of Cats
on
See Spot Surf
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· Score: 2, Funny
Oh - there's a Catster out there, so Cats are equally represented. Damn.. makes the joke a lot less funny.
I guess all I have now is to channel Roseanna Roseannadanna and say "Never Mind".
On behalf of Cats
on
See Spot Surf
·
· Score: 2, Funny
I want, nay, I demand equal representation for Cats. Discrimination against cats has gone on too long.. Felines have for far too long been portrayed in film and other media as villians - for example, why was Tom the Cat in the Tom and Jerry cartoons the villians? Why was Sylvester inept and always scared? My cat tells me that she's not taking it, and the claws will come out if they have to!
This could very well be the most important civil rights issue in a long time.;)
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racketeering: To carry on illegal business activities that involve crimes, such as extortion.
extortion: An excessive or exorbitant charge, such as a $600 licensing fee for a dubiously made IP claim.
SCO's illegal activities aside, does SCO, being an American company, even have the ability to sue a foreign government? Where would the case even be tried? Any chance Darl can just get fed to a croc?
That being said, is there any hope that OLED's will alleviate the motion blur problem? Because right now, as far as gaming / DVD viewing, I'm not giving up my CRT.
As someone who lives in Texas, let me mention some of the virtues of the state.
1. NO STATE INCOME TAX. Yes, there is no state income tax. That's like a 15% raise in and of itself.
2. The Weather - Other then July and August, where it's *really* hot outside, you can always do things outside in Texas.
3. Concealed Carry - Crime rate in Texas has plummeted becasue of it.
4. Music Scene - Whether it's Dallas / Ft. Worth or Austin, there's a lot of good rock bands in the area. Like Country? There's Houston.
I would mention the sports teams... but they all suck. The Stars get owned by the Red Wings, the Rangers get owned by everyone (even the Detroit Tigers), the Astros are called the "Disatro's" for a reason, and c'mon.. the Cowboys are the NFL's most hated team, and the Houston Texans haven't been around long enough for anyone to really care yet. Oh wait - no, there's the Spurs and Mavericks, so yeah I guess the local teams aren't a total wash.
First it was Visual Basic - design your apps then maybe spend a little time with program specific details. Though it never quite worked that way, especially if you need to make a Win32 API call. Then, you had to write a lot of code just to call SetWindowLong().
Then, it was COM. Devleopers everywhere would just be able to drag and drop COM objects to make their application. COM (and the horrible to configure DCOM) worked so well, with it's sometimes confusing threading model and it's reliance on UDP that now MS is saying "Well, VB wasn't all we thought it was going to be, an neither was COM, so.. here's .NET. And C#. No really, we mean it this time."
Meanwhile any developer worth their salt still has their text editor of choice thinking "we'll believe it when we see it."
640k jokes aside, the only thing remarkable about Bill Gates' future vision is that he's often wrong. Or did I miss the Tablet PC revolution that was supposed to happen a couple of years ago? And.. What About Bob? (Hint: Not the Bill Murray movie).
See, to me it looks like Rygar for PS2 (which is the same publisher.. and the same engine?), or Castlevania: Lament of Innocence for PS2.
As far as Ghost Recon, you can't swing a bat in a computer store without hitting a FPS...
In the end, it's all about the games, not the console. Some games, even the multi-platform port releases, just seem to play better on one platform over the other. Madden 2004? I'd rather play it or any other sports games on my PS2. Unreal Tournament 2004 or any other FPS? PC. Warcraft 3 or any other RTS? PC. Button Mashing Fighting Game (Soul Caliber, Tekken) - PS2.
The PC as a gaming platform is far from dead - there's just too many of them in homes for game developers to ignore. Also, most of the biggest console games (GTA3 / Vice City) get ported to the OC, and in the case of GTA3, the graphics are FAR superior on the PC.
Another reason that hardware would have advanced is image processing. OCR is being used for a lot of reasons (sorting mail) and the faster OCR is the more mail can be sorted faster and the less cost there is to the consumer (you don't get a rate hike in stamps).
And another reason - because we Americans like things faster and cheaper. And if Intel wasn't pushing the hardware forward back then, Motorola would have.
And while we might not need a 3Ghz P4 (or a new Athlon FX) to edit a text document... I certainly enjoy builds not taking an hour. The compiler can and does take advantage of that raw speed.
See Blair, Jayson, formerly of the NY Times.
Besides - how many liberal reporters are all too happy to just rubber stamp *any* story that is critical of the Bush administration while spiking stories that praise the Bush administration?
See Bernard Goldberg's "Bias" for more examples of this and other liberal bias in the media.
As supporting facts.. well - there was a study released recently that said that Global Warming might be overstated as an issue. Did any of you hear about that? If so, it wasn't from any of the major press, I'd wager. Want another example? Watch any nightly newscast - all you hear is how "another American soldier was killed in Iraq today" leaving out the rest of the story of "and 25 more terrorists are assuming room temperature and are no longer a threat to anyone."
Royal Linux Release 2.6 (Vegeta) for DragonBall
Kernel 2.6.1
Login:Goku
Password:********
Then, just name the Email client "Gohan", the Office Suite "Saiyan", and the mp3 player "Android 17" and you'd probably have the market cornered in no time. ;)
I agree with one point you made - it is disturbing how society slides and degenerates. However, the government, in this case the FCC, is not the solution. Take the Janet Boobie incident - there was so much market outcry and complaints that it will be YEARS before CBS airs something like that - and that's how it should be. The issue was over when the marketplace rose up and complained. For this issue, the FCC was really not needed. Sure, CBSMTVVIACOM didn't like the fines, but the millions of extremely pissed off people is what scared them. People (the marketplace) rejected was CBS was offering as a halftime show. And no, it wasn't just the boobie that upset people, the lyrics and crotch grabbing weren't appreciated either.
And actually, you can take that one step further - the FCC in general doesn't need to exist - if you don't like the content on Television or Radio - don't watch or listen. Yes, it's really that simple. And as a parent - it's *your* job to censor what your kids watch and listen to, not the government's.
And finally, to whoever modded the parent as flamebait / troll, that wasn't fair - this guy had an honest opinion on the matter.
Well, yes, the open source nature of the virus would help the anti-virus folks. Just like a compressed-air nail gun can help you build a house faster. But.. what good is any tool if you don't know how to use it? Why is my inbox flooded with the "I send you this file" virus? Because, even though the AV folks do a good job of killing viruses, most people are too stupid to realize that they need to update the signature files for the scanner to remain effective. These same folks are the ones that are too stupid to realize that you shouldn't open up email attachments without scanning it first, and making sure it was expected.
The blame of virus propogation tends to exist between the chair and the keyboard...
UI's could get much easier to use if developers would just select the right widget for the job. For example: Have a two state switch? Whether some feature is enabled or disabled? Please, just use a check box. The goofy group box with the two radio buttons (one labeled "Enable" and the other "Disable") is just clutter.
Another tip? Ask a graphic designer to layout your UI, then go and implement it. Graphic Designers study the best way to graphically communicate an idea, so (speaking from experience, my wife is a graphic designer) they can be a terrific resource in laying out a UI.
Finally, if you're using any kind of graphical UI editor like MSVC, Glade, Qt Designer, etc.. it just takes a second, but line up your widgets for crying out loud. Nothing screams amateur loser like controls that don't line up correctly.
And remember - your average customer doesn't see the elegant code you wrote under the hood - they see your UI. Especially remember this when writing Linux UI's - one thing MS is fairly good at is putting together a consistent UI. Might be ugly as sin like WinXP's default, but it's consistent.
To discount the importance of entertainment on Linux is a mistake. Now, I did read a poster talk about legacy windows games, and that's all fine and dandy, but what about some new games? Not every game has to be the latest 3d engine to be any good, there's still room for 2d games which tend to also be much easier to write. (as examples of excellent, recent 2d games, I submit Metroid Fusion, Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow, and the like.) So, let's not just include Tux Racer, or the UT2004 demo, let's also write some 2d games and get them to work properly with a joystick / gamepad. Puzzle games also work well, as they appeal to a wide variety of an audience. Yeah, Tetris has been done, what what about slapping some fancy graphics on it? How about a clone of Dr. Mario? How about a clone of Madden Football, or any other sports games? How about a Wrestling game? (Laugh all you want, but they sell extremely well..)
Instead of being able to play windows games, why don't we give better alternatives to windows games?
Where's this guy's email - I'm signing up.
Remember, France is the country that planted trees along it's boulevards when it realized that Germans preferred to march in the shade....
Lighten up, people! Quit taking yourselves so damned seriously all the time!
And your comment about trying to speak the native language is racist. Since it's been determined that it's racist for Americans to expect Mexican immigrants to speak English instead of Spanish, then it's just as racist for the French or anyone else to expect Americans to speak anything other then our American form of English. Therefore, by that logic, you are a racist.
The bathing comment was meant as a joke, although a buddy of mine in London regulary complains about the smell coming across the channel. When I replied that it's too far away, he retorts - "No, the French are just really that stinky". So it's not just Americans that dislike the French. It's also the British. Maybe it's because when the Germans started marching the French instantly surrendered and subjected England to a long bombing campaign?
And tourists aren't people? If you were in France for 5 months, weren't you a tourist? So are you therefore admitting that you are not a person? If not, then get your hands off that keyboard you damn dirty stinkin' ape. :)
As far as acts with talent - well for starters, pick any rock group of the past 30 years - as long as they're playing an instrument.. and writing songs that are more advanced then the crap on the radio now.
And as far as hating the French? We American's have disliked the French for *years*. They're rude to our tourists, they maybe bathe once a year, they piss and moan about the dominance of English on the internet, (since to them, French is an obviosly superior language), and then they call US arrogant?
But we have to look at it from the businesses point of view. Until the case with IBM is settled, and SCO is proven to be the litigous bastard Microsoft funded puppets that they are, many companies will unfortunately make a business decision - pay a little money now, rather then possibly a lot later in lawyer's fees. So I can't entirely blame them.
But given the article and the memo leak that it is in fact MS that paid SCO a significant amount of money in order to start their puppet suing with the explicit goal of creating FUD about Linux, why hasn't any federal prosecutor stepped up and done an investigation on Microsoft and SCO? File racketeering charges against these guys - they're no better then the Mafia.
If you consider ridiculously draconian DRM schemes and amusing little JVM ripoffs (cough*cough*.NET*cough*cough*) and the intentional freezing out of competitors innovating, then yeah, they're really innovative.
Through the funding of the SCO lawsuit and the suspicious Win2000 SP1 source leak (which some MS flunky may still try to get into the Linux kernel), I'd also say that MS is getting pretty innovative when it comes to unethically cutting off it's competitors at the knees.
I received a notice that my personal email address got listed on their site from someone apparently looking for information on me. So, I used my anonymous email address and registered as having information about the person who owns my personal address. So far, my anonymous alter-ego has not been contacted, though BOTH addresses have seen a marked increase of spam. When I started bouncing emails to my personal address from WordOfMouthResearch.com, I received the same "Someone is searching for information on you" message from a different source email address. After about 5 or 6 of these, I bounced the entire domain.
Anyone else have information on these guys? Again, I think they're just harvesting email addresses for spammers under the guise of providing a service (that no one seems to be using - again, if my "alter-ego / evil twin" email is the only address that has information on me, which when I checked last it was, these "people" looking for information on me would have contacted my alternate email by now.
And as far as using AOL IM and Friendster and all that to data mine, I suspect that the spammers will be the first to use this data, since they can't reliably harvest email addresses with web spiders anymore since people are trying to actively avoid them - however, there is a valid email address associated with an AOL IM login, and also with Yahoo IM, and with MSN Messenger, so there's some major sources that the spammers can get email addresses from, and they'll also cross reference the information, and you'll get more, and more targetted spam. Do you like guitars, for example? Here comes spam offering Guitar Strings cheap, along with the 50 others promising natural male enhancement.
However, I've found that playing anything axed by Randy Rhoads can really turn some heads.
Diary of a Madman, Crazy Train, Over The Mountain, Suicide Solution... good stuff.
So I think you'll see the following happen - anything like Jerry Maguire or Cast Away (WIIIIIIIIIIIILLLLLSOOOOOOONNNNN!!!!!!) will get over done (along with anything by DeNiro).. and those that can pull off, say...
Sling Blade, for example - will be the ones that impress.
Besides, who doesn't like french fried pertater's with mustard. mmm hmm.
Special Delivery for Al-Qeada...
I guess all I have now is to channel Roseanna Roseannadanna and say "Never Mind".
This could very well be the most important civil rights issue in a long time. ;)