Geeze anyone can google and find out the truth in 10 seconds. Try the National Hurricane Centers own statistics. Look at the 10 year statistics. You cannot make any correlation. It's oddly cyclical and you cannot say any given year is normal. I'm not denying global warming, but it's not the cause of every bad storm. Stuff happens, hurricanes, tsunami's, earthquakes it has happened since the man first walked upright.
When you have alot of chicken littles running around crying 'the end is near', and make unsubstantiated claims, nobody can take you seriously. You end up getting compared with crop circles, yeti and ufo's.
When are people going to learn to be happy with what they have and who they are. It's funny because I recognize in this debate some aspects of Maslow's hierarchy of needs [wikipedia.org] and there a lot of folks that just ain't getting to the top!
Needs theory is a theory of motivation. The original post was about communism, if the state provides everything and everyone is supposedly equal under the state, then there isn't any motivation to do anything more than the minimum required. I make a hell of alot more than my friends I went to high school with. At 21 they made more me, in school their parents were better off. I'll never get to the absolute top, it's who I'm comparing myself to that changes. I'll never be a Billionare, but I am better off than I ever thought I would be at 21.
I've had ample opportunity to see socialism in practice. I have worked for the federal government as both military and a civilian contractor for nasa for almost 30 years. I've seen people too lazy to even empty their own trash can into the dumpster 25 feet away because 'it's not their responsibility'. I have watched as civil service people claimed in a meeting that the reason a project was behind was because they needed a $5000 piece of software. The government sent them to school on the software, and then when they get the software it never even get's installed correctly because they handed it off to the system admin who didn't travel to Las Vegas to take the class. As a contractor, I have waited for months to get a node on a cluster replaced because the price is too high for a credit card purchase. So the order bounces from desk to desk while they get bids. They could literally fire over half of the civil service people and the effect would be negligeable.
Want to see socialism in action? Just look at Mexico, they have been electing socialist leaders for years. Look what it's brought them.
I wasn't suggesting that, I knew had the teacher, his arrest was not surprising.
I'd hardly believe that a retired professor would pull a Columbine-style stunt.
It happens in work environments too. It's called fragging in the military. It's also called going postal. Public humiliation is a stupid way of discipline whether it's a student or a professor shouldn't be an issue, they are both people.
And with the kind of money Microsoft has at its disposal, they are finally cutting down on those security issues.
They have been at it over ten years, and still new bugs keep coming. With more cash than some countries, there is no excuse for any new exploits by your logic.
1) Firefox is newer, it's code is less mature.
2) The entire world is privy to the source code of Firefox, the more exploits initially is good for open source. That means their getting fixed faster too.
3) What these 'known exploits' are, is people reviewing that code finding faults and reporting them. Since the code is readily available this makes it easier and quicker. This is a good thing. Closed source makes it harder to find the bugs, they tend to be found out by exploit, more often than review.
4) All bugs are not the same, a bug in an option is not the same as a bug in something that can't be turned off. Severity of the bug was compared here, as has been pointed out numerous time this is dumb.
5) Money is a reason to hide exploits and fix them only when absolutely necessary. When you donate time and effort freely, pride in your work provides the opposite motivation.
6) You can uninstall firefox and use something else, try that with IE.p
Remember Columbine? So what happens when the student kills themself or others because of intense humiliation and the resulting bullying?,p.
While it won't physically harm the individual(s) responsible for this lapse, it will discipline them and it will provide an example for others.
Sounds exactly like something the coach in my high school would say. He was convicted of abusing his son.
Less than half of the energy by volume is available from hydrogen than from gasoline. From the article, the energy density by volume is 13.0 MJ/liter where as according to The Physics Factbook gasoline has a density of 8.6 kwh/liter. Using this online converter
13 MJ = 3.61 kilowatt hours.
By comparison the post office runs several propane powered vehicles around the city here. These poor performing vehicles run on a fuel with an energy density of 7.5 kwh/liter.
You know how many times I've had to edit a configuration file on Linux? I just did it 12 times yesterday alone for two different programs
You couldn't edit it just twice? You had to re-edit 10 times? Couldn't read more than one line at time? I noticed you didn't say which 2 programs. Because just about every single desktop program has a settings menu and the are quite a few server and system setup utilities such as Yast, Webmin etc. I've had had to edit the registry several times over the years. Mostly to remove spyware,viruses and to get a periphial card card to work now and then. I can't say I ever had to edit a configuration file to fix spyware in linux. I have edited configuration files quite a bit too, not because I have to. Because I can and many times it's just simpler. I can read and edit several files in a tabbed editor at once. In fact I can copy those files and use as template and with a small bit of perl I can then replicate that across the entire network. You can to but first may I suggest http://www.mindperk.com/EvelynWood.htm>Evelyn Wood it might help you get over that one line at at a time issue. Don't be ashamed, I find that many windows users are similarly afflicted. It's how they learned using regedit.
Our class was given this exact same problem for Physics 201. It was worth 25% of our grade. I used this site as a resource. Giving due credit of course. Our assignment had the efficiency of the rocket and the fuel supply given. We had to calculate the most efficient way to get there and back and how long it would take. We were told to research it and not given any hint on where to get the information. I plugged the info into these formulas and got 100%.
There crime is not selling the product, it's how they choose to market it. If I hire a thug to threaten people unless they join a union isn't that illegal marketing of a legal enterprise? By paying the spammer they are complicit in the crime.
In my neigborhood, there are 2 sex offenders living near families with children and within blocks of an elementary school
1) In what US city are you not within blocks of an elementery school? There are 2 schools within 1/4 mile of my house. That doesn't count 1 high school and 1 middle school.
2) Many sex offender lists are hopelessly outdated. People have had to post signs or move because their house is on the list and they are constantly harassed.Link
3) Most people on the sexual offenders list were listed for reasons other than pedophilia! Your children aren't their target your wife maybe. I checked my zip code and the "list" is long. About 20 individual of these 20, 10 are for 'aggravated sexual battery' , 8 are listed as rape. The other two have a long list of repeated rape, indecent liberties with a minor, aggravated sexual battery etc. These persons should not be released period!
4) Public harassment doesn't 'fix' a person from being a sexual deviant. I would rather see sex offenders given muuch longer sentances with mandatory therapy. And they don't get out until the doctor says they get out. The therapy might be expensive but if it stops one repeat offender it's worth it. Right now sexual deviants are just getting time and many aren't serving all of it
5) If they would let out some of the 3 time minor drug (Marijuana) ofenders they would have more room and save enough money to do #4
6) In regards to the spammer, they need to go after what the spammer is selling! It wouldn't happen so much if someone weren't profiting!
i think your all pretty sad bashing microsoft for giving money to charity.
I wasn't bashing your precious Microsoft. I was pointing out it wasn't enought for a Multibilion dollar company to worry about keeping. They get more by buying goodwill. It's a business decision that has nothing to do with the concept of good or evil except in the public perception. If anything the "not enough"offended you, apply it to the spammer. Fine him enough for MS to worry about keeping some of it.
Hmm! Looking back at my title I should have been more specific. It's not enough money for a billion dollar company to worry about keeping! I didn't mean it was a slam on Microsoft, just a shrewed business move. I think the spammer got off too easy. The courts should go after the source of the spammers income too.
When you have billions you can be really generous with millions. The price of good advertising is probably higher. Giving the paltry five million away buys a lot of good will from New York state.
I'm a professor, I attempt to select the best possible book for the course that I teach.
Maybe you do but I've had professors forcing expensive books down our throughts that they didn't even use! Worse yet one forced us to use textbooks he co-wrote at almost $200 each! Another professor in the same department teaches the same class with a $59 book.
I try to take into account the cost of texts but there are many other considerations and while I might hate requiring a $100 book, what am I to do if I decide this book is superior to an $50 book?
Try creating web pages or handouts with background materials to supplement the inferior parts of the book. Write in your own words and you don't have to wory about fair use. Who is doing the teaching you or the book? One of the best and one of the more challenging classes I took was algorithms. It had a terrible book but the teacher took the time to create a wonderful web recource he created with powerpoint and word exported to html. According to the professor, after he created the site the class averages went up %25.
Wow, nice way to elude responsibility! Users are users, _NOT_ developers!
Wow, what a way to elude responsibility! When someone develops a program, gives it to you for free, also provides the source code so you can make changes add features you need etc. You respond by "demanding" additional freebees! I suppose it's like welfare, you get to a point where you start to believe a free ride on the taxpayers dime is your god given right. The ideal behind open source is a community project where I provide some expertise, others decide they can save a lot of development by adding them. IBM and Novell realize this. As for your "COMMON PEOPLE" when they start buying packaged distributions they then can "demand" stuff from their distributor, be it Suse, Mandriva or whatever. Or else they pay Microsoft and make their demands. But this article wasn't enven about desktop linux and "THE COMMON PEOPLE"
The transition may determine whether the technology will continue its momentum, or stall in the face of tougher competition at the heart of corporate computer networks.' Eric Singleton, chief information officer at retailer Tommy Hilfiger Corp., which recently switched its e-commerce site 'Tommy.com' from Linux to Microsoft software, calls Linux 'a great product,' but adds, 'it's got to get the final tier of reliability and predictability that I'm going to bet a multi-billion dollar corporation's future on.'"
Tommy Hilfinger is not the "THE COMMON PEOPLE" for christ's sake at least read the post! The article was so much crap.
Eric Singleton, chief information officer at retailer Tommy Hilfiger Corp., which recently switched its e-commerce site 'Tommy.com' from Linux to Microsoft software, calls Linux 'a great product,' but adds, 'it's got to get the final tier of reliability and predictability that I'm going to bet a multi-billion dollar corporation's future on.'
What is not stated is that obviously linux worked for them before the switch, they are a "multi-billion dollar corporation". They don't mention what incentives are being provided by Microsoft to make this little switch and public "endorsement".
And back to your "COMMON PEOPLE" youy
asked:
How do you suppose they're going to contribute?
Try paying for those features, that's they way things are done in the proprietary software world too! If more people would buy distributions, then those companies can afford to add features. But then you didn't mention any specific features that are needed did you? You decided to bitch an inflame in generalizations such as "COMMON PEOPLE"!
What you conveniently fail to mention is that we wouldn't be where we are in terms of ubiquitous computers everywhere if not for Microsoft.
That's crap! There still would be computers today and they would be just as popular. The fact that many households now have computers has a lot more to do with the internet and the productivity gained using a computer than what operating system they run. Before and after windows came on the scene, there were plenty of OS's available that could easily have become the market leader. There was GEOS, OS2, Amiga , Apple OS, BeOS to name a few. Microsoft only rode the wave of off the shelf hardware. IBM published all the specs to 8086 and that spawned clones. I was building IBM clones as far back as 1992. Microsofts business practices and innovative (illegal) tactics with hardware providors kept them there. The US government bought wintel because with all the clones, there were plenty of suppliers of the hardware.
Microsoft didn't invent the internet, and it didn't invent office software. It got an early lead thanks to IBM and Intel then used illegal business practices to destroy any challengers. You cannot know what advances could have been done had Microsoft decided they didn't want to be the biggest, but rather the best software company in teh world. Had we had a healthy software market there would be a lot more options today and many billions would probably be spread more evenly across the market. Or some other company just as decietful and greedy might have sprung up in it's place. Nobody will ever know for sure.
Others suggest more radical solutions might be needed..... "Unless we can develop instantaneous time and space transfer technologies like Dr Who's TARDIS."
Lets create a series of large rings composed of an as yet undiscovered element that can create an interdimensional portal. Lastly, we change our name from humans or earthlings to "The Ancients"
According to this review of Xandros 3.0 it can read but not write to NTFS. That is exactly the same level of compatibilty I have with Fedora Core 4 and others. Read only is a far cry from "support". I just don't see where they are doing anything that different from other distros. The only thing I see is pay extra to get Codeweavers included. I can buy Codeweavers and download Fedora for $10 less.
I have never used Xandros, but are you implying installing linux on a Fat32 filesystem? Why would I want to use a filesystem that does not provide for permissions? If your just talking about mounting and accessing it, what distro doesn't? Every single dual boot system I have ever installed (Suse, Mandrake, RedHat, Fedora etc.) has detected and mounted the existing windows partition. My USB thumbrive mounts automatically in Fedora Core 4, it uses windows format. The only thing I really see different about Xandros is Codeweavers which I already have. I really don't see anything truly revolutionary here. Don't get me wrong I like linux but if you have seen one KDE/Gnome desktop you've seen them all. Every week a new screenshot gallery showing the same tired pictures of KDE, Gnome, OpenOffice etc makes it's rounds on all the linux sites. The only thing to me that has really made things easier recently is the move to Synaptic, APT, Yum, URPMI, Click & Run etc. But again they all do basically the same thing, some better than others but nothing earth shattering. What is so much better about Xandros that would make me want to dump PCLinuxOS? If your just trying to attract windows users, your going to have a hard time. Until Linux is pre-installed on Dell Desktops as a dual boot or cheaper option, your never going to get a windows user to switch.
If a kid walks in for a lemonade and starts downloading porn what do you tell the parents when they sent their lawyer to pay you a visit?
Well if you are providing WiFi and not computers there isn't alot they could do. Who provided the laptop w/wireless capability? If you are just providing a connection with a wireless modem. I don't see an issue. You agree to let the ISP give the RIAA/MPAA any logs and give them your ISP's phone number. Whether the ISP actually releases the logs is not your concern, you are being helpful. The RIAA isn't gonna waste money on trying to sue you unless they think you are trying to 'protect' someone or promote illegal use. Also many wireless routers have a built in firewall, just make the attempt to block standard p2p ports and you have a pretty good case your not promoting illegal copyright infringement.
When NASA discovers oil on Mars
on
Ice Lake on Mars
·
· Score: 1
I'm curious about how long everyone thinks it will take before people are able to live on Mars.
Truthfully, it will happen when the benefits outweigh the costs. That doesn't mean we can't explore. I just don't see a need to stay.
this includes "should have known". if you were being offered a Windows XP at prices too good to be true
So if I buy a computer from CompUSA or Best Buy and the software comes with it advertised as 'free with purchase' should I think it's stolen? Give me a break, that is the dumb as as saying I can't sell my old system and software to my brother. The only thing this will accomplish is hacks to get around it. You really think this will stop the Chinese and Indian trade in illegal software? In Kuwait I would be hard pressed to tell which is pirated and which is not. When I was in Korea they didn't even bother making a fake pakage the software was for sale on CD-RW with the key written with a marker on it. I hope this has the unexpected effect of causing Linux use in China & India to soar.
I tend to mark my next song in the list, then when I fade the volume enough on the track, I press the center button and the next track starts and I fade back in the volume. I rarely wait for the next track to start. Besides, different tracks can have widely varying levels. What bothers me is sometimes after a song ends the ipod will lockup for no reason. I have had to resort to a CD while the ipod resets itself.
Slashdot Mirror
When you have alot of chicken littles running around crying 'the end is near', and make unsubstantiated claims, nobody can take you seriously. You end up getting compared with crop circles, yeti and ufo's.
Needs theory is a theory of motivation. The original post was about communism, if the state provides everything and everyone is supposedly equal under the state, then there isn't any motivation to do anything more than the minimum required. I make a hell of alot more than my friends I went to high school with. At 21 they made more me, in school their parents were better off. I'll never get to the absolute top, it's who I'm comparing myself to that changes. I'll never be a Billionare, but I am better off than I ever thought I would be at 21.
I've had ample opportunity to see socialism in practice. I have worked for the federal government as both military and a civilian contractor for nasa for almost 30 years. I've seen people too lazy to even empty their own trash can into the dumpster 25 feet away because 'it's not their responsibility'. I have watched as civil service people claimed in a meeting that the reason a project was behind was because they needed a $5000 piece of software. The government sent them to school on the software, and then when they get the software it never even get's installed correctly because they handed it off to the system admin who didn't travel to Las Vegas to take the class. As a contractor, I have waited for months to get a node on a cluster replaced because the price is too high for a credit card purchase. So the order bounces from desk to desk while they get bids. They could literally fire over half of the civil service people and the effect would be negligeable.
Want to see socialism in action? Just look at Mexico, they have been electing socialist leaders for years. Look what it's brought them.
I'd hardly believe that a retired professor would pull a Columbine-style stunt.
It happens in work environments too. It's called fragging in the military. It's also called going postal. Public humiliation is a stupid way of discipline whether it's a student or a professor shouldn't be an issue, they are both people.
They have been at it over ten years, and still new bugs keep coming. With more cash than some countries, there is no excuse for any new exploits by your logic.
1) Firefox is newer, it's code is less mature.
2) The entire world is privy to the source code of Firefox, the more exploits initially is good for open source. That means their getting fixed faster too.
3) What these 'known exploits' are, is people reviewing that code finding faults and reporting them. Since the code is readily available this makes it easier and quicker. This is a good thing. Closed source makes it harder to find the bugs, they tend to be found out by exploit, more often than review.
4) All bugs are not the same, a bug in an option is not the same as a bug in something that can't be turned off. Severity of the bug was compared here, as has been pointed out numerous time this is dumb.
5) Money is a reason to hide exploits and fix them only when absolutely necessary. When you donate time and effort freely, pride in your work provides the opposite motivation.
6) You can uninstall firefox and use something else, try that with IE.p
Sounds exactly like something the coach in my high school would say. He was convicted of abusing his son.
By comparison the post office runs several propane powered vehicles around the city here. These poor performing vehicles run on a fuel with an energy density of 7.5 kwh/liter.
You couldn't edit it just twice? You had to re-edit 10 times? Couldn't read more than one line at time? I noticed you didn't say which 2 programs. Because just about every single desktop program has a settings menu and the are quite a few server and system setup utilities such as Yast, Webmin etc. I've had had to edit the registry several times over the years. Mostly to remove spyware,viruses and to get a periphial card card to work now and then. I can't say I ever had to edit a configuration file to fix spyware in linux. I have edited configuration files quite a bit too, not because I have to. Because I can and many times it's just simpler. I can read and edit several files in a tabbed editor at once. In fact I can copy those files and use as template and with a small bit of perl I can then replicate that across the entire network. You can to but first may I suggest http://www.mindperk.com/EvelynWood.htm>Evelyn Wood it might help you get over that one line at at a time issue. Don't be ashamed, I find that many windows users are similarly afflicted. It's how they learned using regedit.
It's all software driven albeit embedded software.
Our class was given this exact same problem for Physics 201. It was worth 25% of our grade. I used this site as a resource. Giving due credit of course. Our assignment had the efficiency of the rocket and the fuel supply given. We had to calculate the most efficient way to get there and back and how long it would take. We were told to research it and not given any hint on where to get the information. I plugged the info into these formulas and got 100%.
There crime is not selling the product, it's how they choose to market it. If I hire a thug to threaten people unless they join a union isn't that illegal marketing of a legal enterprise? By paying the spammer they are complicit in the crime.
1) In what US city are you not within blocks of an elementery school? There are 2 schools within 1/4 mile of my house. That doesn't count 1 high school and 1 middle school.
2) Many sex offender lists are hopelessly outdated. People have had to post signs or move because their house is on the list and they are constantly harassed.Link
3) Most people on the sexual offenders list were listed for reasons other than pedophilia! Your children aren't their target your wife maybe. I checked my zip code and the "list" is long. About 20 individual of these 20, 10 are for 'aggravated sexual battery' , 8 are listed as rape. The other two have a long list of repeated rape, indecent liberties with a minor, aggravated sexual battery etc. These persons should not be released period!
4) Public harassment doesn't 'fix' a person from being a sexual deviant. I would rather see sex offenders given muuch longer sentances with mandatory therapy. And they don't get out until the doctor says they get out. The therapy might be expensive but if it stops one repeat offender it's worth it. Right now sexual deviants are just getting time and many aren't serving all of it
5) If they would let out some of the 3 time minor drug (Marijuana) ofenders they would have more room and save enough money to do #4
6) In regards to the spammer, they need to go after what the spammer is selling! It wouldn't happen so much if someone weren't profiting!
I wasn't bashing your precious Microsoft. I was pointing out it wasn't enought for a Multibilion dollar company to worry about keeping. They get more by buying goodwill. It's a business decision that has nothing to do with the concept of good or evil except in the public perception. If anything the "not enough"offended you, apply it to the spammer. Fine him enough for MS to worry about keeping some of it.
Hmm! Looking back at my title I should have been more specific. It's not enough money for a billion dollar company to worry about keeping! I didn't mean it was a slam on Microsoft, just a shrewed business move. I think the spammer got off too easy. The courts should go after the source of the spammers income too.
When you have billions you can be really generous with millions. The price of good advertising is probably higher. Giving the paltry five million away buys a lot of good will from New York state.
Maybe you do but I've had professors forcing expensive books down our throughts that they didn't even use! Worse yet one forced us to use textbooks he co-wrote at almost $200 each! Another professor in the same department teaches the same class with a $59 book.
I try to take into account the cost of texts but there are many other considerations and while I might hate requiring a $100 book, what am I to do if I decide this book is superior to an $50 book?
Try creating web pages or handouts with background materials to supplement the inferior parts of the book. Write in your own words and you don't have to wory about fair use. Who is doing the teaching you or the book? One of the best and one of the more challenging classes I took was algorithms. It had a terrible book but the teacher took the time to create a wonderful web recource he created with powerpoint and word exported to html. According to the professor, after he created the site the class averages went up %25.
Wow, what a way to elude responsibility! When someone develops a program, gives it to you for free, also provides the source code so you can make changes add features you need etc. You respond by "demanding" additional freebees! I suppose it's like welfare, you get to a point where you start to believe a free ride on the taxpayers dime is your god given right. The ideal behind open source is a community project where I provide some expertise, others decide they can save a lot of development by adding them. IBM and Novell realize this. As for your "COMMON PEOPLE" when they start buying packaged distributions they then can "demand" stuff from their distributor, be it Suse, Mandriva or whatever. Or else they pay Microsoft and make their demands. But this article wasn't enven about desktop linux and "THE COMMON PEOPLE"
The transition may determine whether the technology will continue its momentum, or stall in the face of tougher competition at the heart of corporate computer networks.' Eric Singleton, chief information officer at retailer Tommy Hilfiger Corp., which recently switched its e-commerce site 'Tommy.com' from Linux to Microsoft software, calls Linux 'a great product,' but adds, 'it's got to get the final tier of reliability and predictability that I'm going to bet a multi-billion dollar corporation's future on.'"
Tommy Hilfinger is not the "THE COMMON PEOPLE" for christ's sake at least read the post! The article was so much crap.
Eric Singleton, chief information officer at retailer Tommy Hilfiger Corp., which recently switched its e-commerce site 'Tommy.com' from Linux to Microsoft software, calls Linux 'a great product,' but adds, 'it's got to get the final tier of reliability and predictability that I'm going to bet a multi-billion dollar corporation's future on.'
What is not stated is that obviously linux worked for them before the switch, they are a "multi-billion dollar corporation". They don't mention what incentives are being provided by Microsoft to make this little switch and public "endorsement".
And back to your "COMMON PEOPLE" youy asked:
How do you suppose they're going to contribute?
Try paying for those features, that's they way things are done in the proprietary software world too! If more people would buy distributions, then those companies can afford to add features. But then you didn't mention any specific features that are needed did you? You decided to bitch an inflame in generalizations such as "COMMON PEOPLE"!
I wouldn't brag about being older than 46!
GEOS Came on the scene about 1986, the link has a screenshot with the date showing 1988
That's crap! There still would be computers today and they would be just as popular. The fact that many households now have computers has a lot more to do with the internet and the productivity gained using a computer than what operating system they run. Before and after windows came on the scene, there were plenty of OS's available that could easily have become the market leader. There was GEOS, OS2, Amiga , Apple OS, BeOS to name a few. Microsoft only rode the wave of off the shelf hardware. IBM published all the specs to 8086 and that spawned clones. I was building IBM clones as far back as 1992. Microsofts business practices and innovative (illegal) tactics with hardware providors kept them there. The US government bought wintel because with all the clones, there were plenty of suppliers of the hardware. Microsoft didn't invent the internet, and it didn't invent office software. It got an early lead thanks to IBM and Intel then used illegal business practices to destroy any challengers. You cannot know what advances could have been done had Microsoft decided they didn't want to be the biggest, but rather the best software company in teh world. Had we had a healthy software market there would be a lot more options today and many billions would probably be spread more evenly across the market. Or some other company just as decietful and greedy might have sprung up in it's place. Nobody will ever know for sure.
Lets create a series of large rings composed of an as yet undiscovered element that can create an interdimensional portal. Lastly, we change our name from humans or earthlings to "The Ancients"
According to this review of Xandros 3.0 it can read but not write to NTFS. That is exactly the same level of compatibilty I have with Fedora Core 4 and others. Read only is a far cry from "support". I just don't see where they are doing anything that different from other distros. The only thing I see is pay extra to get Codeweavers included. I can buy Codeweavers and download Fedora for $10 less.
I have never used Xandros, but are you implying installing linux on a Fat32 filesystem? Why would I want to use a filesystem that does not provide for permissions? If your just talking about mounting and accessing it, what distro doesn't? Every single dual boot system I have ever installed (Suse, Mandrake, RedHat, Fedora etc.) has detected and mounted the existing windows partition. My USB thumbrive mounts automatically in Fedora Core 4, it uses windows format. The only thing I really see different about Xandros is Codeweavers which I already have. I really don't see anything truly revolutionary here. Don't get me wrong I like linux but if you have seen one KDE/Gnome desktop you've seen them all. Every week a new screenshot gallery showing the same tired pictures of KDE, Gnome, OpenOffice etc makes it's rounds on all the linux sites. The only thing to me that has really made things easier recently is the move to Synaptic, APT, Yum, URPMI, Click & Run etc. But again they all do basically the same thing, some better than others but nothing earth shattering. What is so much better about Xandros that would make me want to dump PCLinuxOS? If your just trying to attract windows users, your going to have a hard time. Until Linux is pre-installed on Dell Desktops as a dual boot or cheaper option, your never going to get a windows user to switch.
Well if you are providing WiFi and not computers there isn't alot they could do. Who provided the laptop w/wireless capability? If you are just providing a connection with a wireless modem. I don't see an issue. You agree to let the ISP give the RIAA/MPAA any logs and give them your ISP's phone number. Whether the ISP actually releases the logs is not your concern, you are being helpful. The RIAA isn't gonna waste money on trying to sue you unless they think you are trying to 'protect' someone or promote illegal use. Also many wireless routers have a built in firewall, just make the attempt to block standard p2p ports and you have a pretty good case your not promoting illegal copyright infringement.
Truthfully, it will happen when the benefits outweigh the costs. That doesn't mean we can't explore. I just don't see a need to stay.
So if I buy a computer from CompUSA or Best Buy and the software comes with it advertised as 'free with purchase' should I think it's stolen? Give me a break, that is the dumb as as saying I can't sell my old system and software to my brother. The only thing this will accomplish is hacks to get around it. You really think this will stop the Chinese and Indian trade in illegal software? In Kuwait I would be hard pressed to tell which is pirated and which is not. When I was in Korea they didn't even bother making a fake pakage the software was for sale on CD-RW with the key written with a marker on it. I hope this has the unexpected effect of causing Linux use in China & India to soar.
I tend to mark my next song in the list, then when I fade the volume enough on the track, I press the center button and the next track starts and I fade back in the volume. I rarely wait for the next track to start. Besides, different tracks can have widely varying levels. What bothers me is sometimes after a song ends the ipod will lockup for no reason. I have had to resort to a CD while the ipod resets itself.