I have visited India. I have also had extremely serious arrogance problems with Indians of the kind that I mentioned in the last month. I'm not saying all Indians are as out of touch as I mention, but being out of touch is part of the culture. India is poor because of Indian culture. That won't be improved quickly, although it is slowly being improved.
Here's a better example of the arrogance and disconnection of the Hindu caste
system: quote: "By his
very birth a Brahmin is a deity even for the gods and the only authority for
people in this world, for the Veda is the foundation in this matter." --
Manusmrti 11:85.
It would be better to outsource to Russia or an Eastern European country. The
cultural differences between the U.S. and India are too great.
Part of the problem is that someone who makes 22 times the normal pay of other
people in her country, as the article says, is that, for her, the company is
like a god. Arrogance, like many mental illnesses, is bipolar. Someone
affected with this will treat those perceived as inferiors as worthless, but
that person will also treat those perceived as superiors as though they are
perfect.
Often directions that come from above are faulty in some way. When arrogance
is a problem, managers simply won't hear information that is perceived as
different from what they want to hear.
Every engineering and programming project with which I've been associated has
required some mid-course correction, or some change in planning. It is part of
your job to teach your manager how to manage well. When there is such a huge
difference between the economic position of workers and managers, managers
just don't get the training they need to do their jobs well.
Outsourcing to India is just an extreme variation of top managers trying not
to have a human relationship with the people they manage. I've seen many
companies that have failed because of too little attention to relationships.
I think that many companies who think that outsourcing is saving them money
today will eventually realize that there are long-term costs they haven't considered. For
example, software that is successfully written in India may become the basis
for the domination of a field by an Indian company. Companies that outsource
export their business rules and business expertise. Those who live in a
country in which the average person makes $500 per year, as the article says,
may feel completely comfortable making illegal copies and selling them to
anyone who will pay. Yes, I know that Indian progammers aren't allowed to
bring pens and pencils to their desks. But, when they go home, someone has the
keys to the building. Someone, and probably many people, are able to make
copies of any successful code. In the U.S., there is not such economic pressure to break the law. It is usually not perceived as necessary to steal to make living. In a very poor, very economically unsuccessful country like India, there is a higher percentage of people willing to break the law. Think what will happen if a U.S. company tries to go to the Indian courts. That could erase any cost savings.
India is poor for serious reasons, whatever they are. Those who send jobs to India are trying to erase centuries of cultural failure. Those who outsource to India are trying to get success from a mostly unsuccessful people. If it were all so easy, Indians would make their own country successful, rather than getting money from outside.
You are very welcome on Slashdot. Those aren't flames you are seeing, they are people trying to cope with Microsoft's abusiveness. With Linux and BSD, the users come first. There are no billionaires to spoil the party.
Slashdot published my questions about drive imaging software and about mirroring controllers. Both discussions were very valuable to me in my work on Windows systems:
Off topic, but I noticed that the Slashdot ad servers are slow today. Before the ad appears it says, "Ads are broken." Is that the official OSDN corporate position?
I hope Microsoft learned this lesson: Abusive behavior often fails. Responsible, friendly negotiating often succeeds.
Someone at Microsoft, who was intent on doing things the abusive way, bought Microsoft perhaps $10,000,000 worth of bad publicity. Will he reimburse the company from his paycheck?
Mr. Gates makes so much money because he has a temporary monopoly.
Microsoft has never made money on products in which it did not have some kind
of monopoly position, such as file incompatibility.
Mr. Torvalds is one of the leaders of a very large team that has delivered
tens of billions of dollars worth of benefit and lasting value to the entire
world.
Giving money to charity is just the pasttime of bored wives of rich people
everywhere. If Mr. Gates truly wanted to benefit the world, he would fix the
problems in Windows XP. Part of the purpose of giving money to charity is that
it works as public relations. Rich people distract attention from the bad
things they do by giving money.
For example, Microsoft has deliberately designed the NTFS file system in
Windows XP so that it cannot copy all of its own system files. (Microsoft tech
support employees have verified that this is so.) That's why you can't use
XCOPY.EXE or NTBACKUP.EXE or ROBOCOPY.EXE to make a functional full hard disk
backups of a Windows XP system partition.
Many of the problems with Windows XP come from the fact that it was designed
for copy protection, not usability. For example, Windows XP puts system
settings in one big file called the registry. If something goes wrong in the
registry, it can be necessary to re-install and re-configure all the programs.
For some users who run many programs, this can take more than a week.
Think of the world of computing without Mr. Torvalds and Linux. It would be a
world in which doing things that are bad for the customer would be accepted
business practice. Mr. Torvalds has created strong competition. Even those who
don't use Linux are benefited, because competition from Linux has the effect
of limiting the abuses to which we are subjected.
It's about time that Britain recognized that the idea picking some
unremarkable people and calling them royalty serves no useful purpose. The
royalty are parasites that limit the success of Britain in the modern world.
"The Queen" is just a large organization that is trying to survive by
attaching itself to well-known people. The real woman who is called "The
Queen" probably neither knows nor cares about Mr. Gates, and probably has never
touched a computer. Giving Mr. Gates a national honor is old-fashioned fakery;
as the article indicates, it's happening because of the political aspirations
of someone named Gordon Brown.
I should have mentioned: Using TWO zipper lock FREEZER bags, not the thinner ones, or plastic containers will only work if you put the little silica gel bags inside.
I've stored vitamins this way for years. Multi-vitamins tend to be extremely sensitive to moisture, and degrade much more easily than CDs. Vitamins tend to show spots if they have been exposed to too much moisture.
"Many vendors sell CD-safe markers, and they vary in ink solution. They should not contain any solvents harmful to CDs or DVDs but should have a permanent quality. For risk-free labeling of any disc, it is best to mark the clear inner hub or the so-called mirror band of the disc, where there are no data (see Figure 12)."
"R discs: In theory, R discs should have a limited number of read times (several thousand) because of the cumulative effect on the data layer from the laser light. As with ROM discs, the polycarbonate may also eventually be affected, but there is no recorded evidence of ill effects of laser light, so such effects are deemed negligible.
"RW discs: RW discs, unlike the other types, can "wear-out." CD-RW and DVD-RW discs should last for about 1,000 rewrites, and DVD-RAM discs, 100,000 times, before the rewriting capability is lost. The reading functionality of the disc should continue for a limited number of read times after each writing. While the maximum number of read times possible after writing is unknown, it may become fewer after each successive writing."
You can get free dessicants in a shoe store. There is a small package of silica gel in every box of shoes. Friendly shoe salespeople will be glad to give them to you, since they are normally thrown away.
Putting CDs in a refigerator will work if you put them inside two plastic zipper lock freezer bags, or inside a heavy plastic container. However, use great care when you take them out. Let the entire container warm to room temperature before you open the container. Otherwise the cold plastic will cause moisture condensation.
"Numerous CD vendors have noted that the thin protective lacquer coating can deteriorate from contact with certain solvents in markers. To eliminate the risk, water-based markers are recommended for CD labeling. As a solvent, alcohol is generally less damaging than xylene and toluene, which are common in aromatic solvent-based markers. According to anecdotal reports, alcohol-based markers can be used to label CDs without causing performance problems. However, there are no explicit lab test results to show what effect solvents in markers have on different CDs or DVDs, particularly over the long term."
From the story: "I always use a fake name and address when I sign up for those...".
This only makes a difference if you NEVER use a credit card. If you use a credit card once, they have your true name and address, and they associate it with the discount card.
SgtChaireBourne seems more realistic about this subject.
Click on the comment #8064096 link. Subject: Smoke - 2Q drop in profits despite tax write-off (Score:1)
by SgtChaireBourne (457691)
on 12:17 AM -- Friday January 23 2004 (#8064096)
Software
giant threatens mikerowesoftZDNet.co.uk,UK-8 minutes
agoMicrosoft has set its lawyers onto a 17-year-old
software writer from Vancouver, called Mike Rowe, because he has registered
MikeRoweSoft.com, which the
Microsoft not
pleased about mikerowesoft websiteAnanova,UK-3 hours agoA Canadian teenager called Mike Rowe who added the word soft to his
name for
his website title, has been ordered by Microsoft to hand over the domain.
Microsoft lawyers
threaten Mike Rowe (17)The
Register,UK-5 hours agoIn
what could easily be mistaken for an Onion story, Microsoft has unleashed
the
full fury of its lawyers on 17-year-old Canadian high-school student, Mike
Rowe
Mike
may be Rowe, but 'soft' is troubleSeattle Times,WA-7 hours
agoBy The Associated Press. VANCOUVER, BC - Mike
Rowe knew he needed
a catchy name for his Web-site design company. But the folks
Big bully
Gates targets teenTimes of
India,India-8 hours agoVANCOUVER: No matter what Shakespeare said on the theme of
nomenclature, Microsoft
has thought it fit to sue a teenager whose domain name is a lot like the
Microsoft
vs MikeRoweSoftIndependent
Online,South Africa-10 hours agoVancouver, British Columbia - Mike Rowe thinks it's funny that his
catchy
name for a website design company sounds a lot like Microsoft.
Microsoft
takes on teenNEWS.com.au,Australia-10 hours
agoMIKE Rowe thinks it is funny that his catchy
name for a Web site design
company sounds a lot like Microsoft. "Since my name is Mike
Microsoft vs. Mike Rowe
SoftWIS,SC-47 minutes ago(Vancouver, British Columbia-AP) Jan. 19, 2004 - It's Microsoft
versus Mike Rowe-soft.
Mike Rowe, 17, wanted a catchy name for his Web site design company.
Support CD
Babyp2pnet.net,Canada-1 hour
agoBecause Mike, who lives in Victoria on Vancouver
Island in British Columbia, Canada
(and a short drive from p2pnet.net's thriving central base : ) makes a
Microsoft
Corporation vs MikeRoweSoftOfficialSpin-3 hours agoVictoria, British Columbia -- (OfficialSpin) -- 19/01/04 -- A 17
year-old high school student, Mike Rowe, who just so happens to earn a few
extra bucks...
Does this help? Sync is a free program that assures that all information in the cache is written to disk.
However, the volume must not be mounted when you remove the hardware. Try running CHKDSK against the drive letter you want to remove. If it tells you that something is using the drive, make sure that nothing is: 1) installed from the drive, 2) or thinks it is using something on the drive. That includes open DOS windows. Also, it might help if the Firewire drive is formatted as FAT32. I've seen instances where NTFS will think that something has gone wrong when it hasn't, and will try to repair something that isn't damaged, but rolling back to an earlier disk image.
I'm not saying you are wrong about data loss; I don't have enough experience.
Windows XP has an option for not caching Firewire writes. You can then just remove and reconnect the drive without any other adjustment and without data loss. If you have audio on, there is a tone when the drive is connected or disconnected.
"Something about the multiplayer effect always smelled like bullshit to me..."
Any lie to get re-elected.
Borrowing money from our children may be a good strategy in times of extreme emergency. Borrowing money to explore dirt and rocks in space is not an extreme emergency.
This is good news. Microsoft gives itself an enormous amount of bad
publicity by being the "Doctor Death" of assisted suicide for its own
products, particularly when such a large percentage of its customers use the
old product.
Note that there is NO comparison between Microsoft and Red Hat. If you are
forced by Microsoft to move away from Windows 98, you can only move to a
completely new operating system, Windows XP, which almost certainly will
require new hardware, is very expensive due to new licensing, has its own
bugs, has a completely new driver model, may require new application software,
has the same rate of discovery of extreme security vulnerabilities, has a new,
forced contract EULA, has more limited security in the case of
password-protected network shares, and requires more training.
If you want to stay with an old version of Red Hat Linux, you have many
companies willing to patch important old components, which are available
completely separately, including source code, and can be installed completely
separately. There is not a lot of pressure to upgrade, since the old versions
didn't have many security vulnerabilities, either.
If you decide to upgrade to a new version of Red Hat Linux, the
upgrade can be free, will not require new hardware (Linux runs fine on an old
Pentium II, I've found.), does not require new training, and requires only the
old contract.
Note that the principle of abandoning its own products is still there,
Microsoft just pushed the date back. Also, those who don't work with Microsoft
software may not realize that, without support, Windows 98 users are forced to
upgrade, because Microsoft has given itself so many security vulnerabilities.
The U.S. government is becoming increasingly militarized. If you are an American taxpayer, and you don't want to pay to kill people whose country you can't find on a map, I suggest you vote for Howard Dean, or the intelligent, non-violent candidate of your choice.
George Bush is not intelligent enough to lead the country. He only sells the government to the highest bidders, who happen to be oil-related companies like Halliburton, and weapons manufacturers.
Skype Shows the way to upgrade Speak Freely. I've been using Skype behind a hardware firewall and NAT that is locked down tight. When Skype found that its preferred port was not open, it simply used Port 80.
The sound quality is better than telephone. I talked to a friend in France for 2 hours yesterday.
But... It would be much better if there were an open source alternative, that could connect directly to the other person's IP, like dialpad.com did. This is a huge need, and I hope someone will accept the challenge. Otherwise the U.S. government's surveillance departments may one day control all communication: Feds Want to Tap VoIP.
Slashdot Mirror
I have visited India. I have also had extremely serious arrogance problems with Indians of the kind that I mentioned in the last month. I'm not saying all Indians are as out of touch as I mention, but being out of touch is part of the culture. India is poor because of Indian culture. That won't be improved quickly, although it is slowly being improved.
Here's a better example of the arrogance and disconnection of the Hindu caste system: quote: "By his very birth a Brahmin is a deity even for the gods and the only authority for people in this world, for the Veda is the foundation in this matter." -- Manusmrti 11:85.
For another example of Indian arrogance, see this story by an Indian : Hindian Arrogance on a Tourist Bus.
It would be better to outsource to Russia or an Eastern European country. The cultural differences between the U.S. and India are too great.
Part of the problem is that someone who makes 22 times the normal pay of other people in her country, as the article says, is that, for her, the company is like a god. Arrogance, like many mental illnesses, is bipolar. Someone affected with this will treat those perceived as inferiors as worthless, but that person will also treat those perceived as superiors as though they are perfect.
Often directions that come from above are faulty in some way. When arrogance is a problem, managers simply won't hear information that is perceived as different from what they want to hear.
Every engineering and programming project with which I've been associated has required some mid-course correction, or some change in planning. It is part of your job to teach your manager how to manage well. When there is such a huge difference between the economic position of workers and managers, managers just don't get the training they need to do their jobs well.
Outsourcing to India is just an extreme variation of top managers trying not to have a human relationship with the people they manage. I've seen many companies that have failed because of too little attention to relationships.
I think that many companies who think that outsourcing is saving them money today will eventually realize that there are long-term costs they haven't considered. For example, software that is successfully written in India may become the basis for the domination of a field by an Indian company. Companies that outsource export their business rules and business expertise. Those who live in a country in which the average person makes $500 per year, as the article says, may feel completely comfortable making illegal copies and selling them to anyone who will pay. Yes, I know that Indian progammers aren't allowed to bring pens and pencils to their desks. But, when they go home, someone has the keys to the building. Someone, and probably many people, are able to make copies of any successful code. In the U.S., there is not such economic pressure to break the law. It is usually not perceived as necessary to steal to make living. In a very poor, very economically unsuccessful country like India, there is a higher percentage of people willing to break the law. Think what will happen if a U.S. company tries to go to the Indian courts. That could erase any cost savings.
India is poor for serious reasons, whatever they are. Those who send jobs to India are trying to erase centuries of cultural failure. Those who outsource to India are trying to get success from a mostly unsuccessful people. If it were all so easy, Indians would make their own country successful, rather than getting money from outside.
You are very welcome on Slashdot. Those aren't flames you are seeing, they are people trying to cope with Microsoft's abusiveness. With Linux and BSD, the users come first. There are no billionaires to spoil the party.
Slashdot published my questions about drive imaging software and about mirroring controllers. Both discussions were very valuable to me in my work on Windows systems:
Experiences w/ Drive Imaging Software?
Mirroring Controllers - What have been Your Experiences?
Microsoft has serious management problems. People don't always know how to respond to this. Sometimes they become very upset.
On the other hand, I feel some sympathy for Microsoft's managers. It is not easy to run a large corporation in a caring way.
Off topic, but I noticed that the Slashdot ad servers are slow today. Before the ad appears it says, "Ads are broken." Is that the official OSDN corporate position?
I hope Microsoft learned this lesson: Abusive behavior often fails. Responsible, friendly negotiating often succeeds.
Someone at Microsoft, who was intent on doing things the abusive way, bought Microsoft perhaps $10,000,000 worth of bad publicity. Will he reimburse the company from his paycheck?
Linux Defender has read-write NTFS access: Linux Defender FTP site
Mr. Gates makes so much money because he has a temporary monopoly. Microsoft has never made money on products in which it did not have some kind of monopoly position, such as file incompatibility.
Mr. Torvalds is one of the leaders of a very large team that has delivered tens of billions of dollars worth of benefit and lasting value to the entire world.
Giving money to charity is just the pasttime of bored wives of rich people everywhere. If Mr. Gates truly wanted to benefit the world, he would fix the problems in Windows XP. Part of the purpose of giving money to charity is that it works as public relations. Rich people distract attention from the bad things they do by giving money.
For example, Microsoft has deliberately designed the NTFS file system in Windows XP so that it cannot copy all of its own system files. (Microsoft tech support employees have verified that this is so.) That's why you can't use XCOPY.EXE or NTBACKUP.EXE or ROBOCOPY.EXE to make a functional full hard disk backups of a Windows XP system partition.
Many of the problems with Windows XP come from the fact that it was designed for copy protection, not usability. For example, Windows XP puts system settings in one big file called the registry. If something goes wrong in the registry, it can be necessary to re-install and re-configure all the programs. For some users who run many programs, this can take more than a week.
Think of the world of computing without Mr. Torvalds and Linux. It would be a world in which doing things that are bad for the customer would be accepted business practice. Mr. Torvalds has created strong competition. Even those who don't use Linux are benefited, because competition from Linux has the effect of limiting the abuses to which we are subjected.
It's about time that Britain recognized that the idea picking some unremarkable people and calling them royalty serves no useful purpose. The royalty are parasites that limit the success of Britain in the modern world. "The Queen" is just a large organization that is trying to survive by attaching itself to well-known people. The real woman who is called "The Queen" probably neither knows nor cares about Mr. Gates, and probably has never touched a computer. Giving Mr. Gates a national honor is old-fashioned fakery; as the article indicates, it's happening because of the political aspirations of someone named Gordon Brown.
I should have mentioned: Using TWO zipper lock FREEZER bags, not the thinner ones, or plastic containers will only work if you put the little silica gel bags inside.
I've stored vitamins this way for years. Multi-vitamins tend to be extremely sensitive to moisture, and degrade much more easily than CDs. Vitamins tend to show spots if they have been exposed to too much moisture.
More quotes:
"Many vendors sell CD-safe markers, and they vary in ink solution. They should not contain any solvents harmful to CDs or DVDs but should have a permanent quality. For risk-free labeling of any disc, it is best to mark the clear inner hub or the so-called mirror band of the disc, where there are no data (see Figure 12)."
"R discs: In theory, R discs should have a limited number of read times (several thousand) because of the cumulative effect on the data layer from the laser light. As with ROM discs, the polycarbonate may also eventually be affected, but there is no recorded evidence of ill effects of laser light, so such effects are deemed negligible.
"RW discs: RW discs, unlike the other types, can "wear-out." CD-RW and DVD-RW discs should last for about 1,000 rewrites, and DVD-RAM discs, 100,000 times, before the rewriting capability is lost. The reading functionality of the disc should continue for a limited number of read times after each writing. While the maximum number of read times possible after writing is unknown, it may become fewer after each successive writing."
You can get free dessicants in a shoe store. There is a small package of silica gel in every box of shoes. Friendly shoe salespeople will be glad to give them to you, since they are normally thrown away.
Putting CDs in a refigerator will work if you put them inside two plastic zipper lock freezer bags, or inside a heavy plastic container. However, use great care when you take them out. Let the entire container warm to room temperature before you open the container. Otherwise the cold plastic will cause moisture condensation.
First paragraph, page 30:
"Numerous CD vendors have noted that the thin protective lacquer coating can deteriorate from contact with certain solvents in markers. To eliminate the risk, water-based markers are recommended for CD labeling. As a solvent, alcohol is generally less damaging than xylene and toluene, which are common in aromatic solvent-based markers. According to anecdotal reports, alcohol-based markers can be used to label CDs without causing performance problems. However, there are no explicit lab test results to show what effect solvents in markers have on different CDs or DVDs, particularly over the long term."
From the story: "I always use a fake name and address when I sign up for those...".
This only makes a difference if you NEVER use a credit card. If you use a credit card once, they have your true name and address, and they associate it with the discount card.
SgtChaireBourne seems more realistic about this subject.
Click on the comment #8064096 link. Subject: Smoke - 2Q drop in profits despite tax write-off (Score:1)
by SgtChaireBourne (457691) on 12:17 AM -- Friday January 23 2004 (#8064096)
Software giant threatens mikerowesoftZDNet.co.uk,UK-8 minutes agoMicrosoft has set its lawyers onto a 17-year-old software writer from Vancouver, called Mike Rowe, because he has registered MikeRoweSoft.com, which the
Microsoft not pleased about mikerowesoft websiteAnanova,UK-3 hours agoA Canadian teenager called Mike Rowe who added the word soft to his name for his website title, has been ordered by Microsoft to hand over the domain.
Microsoft won't go soft on Mike RoweLondon Free Press,Canada-4 hours agoVANCOUVER -- Like any good fledgling businessperson, Mike Rowe knew
Microsoft lawyers threaten Mike Rowe (17)The Register,UK-5 hours agoIn what could easily be mistaken for an Onion story, Microsoft has unleashed the full fury of its lawyers on 17-year-old Canadian high-school student, Mike Rowe
Mike may be Rowe, but 'soft' is troubleSeattle Times,WA-7 hours agoBy The Associated Press. VANCOUVER, BC - Mike Rowe knew he needed a catchy name for his Web-site design company. But the folks
Big bully Gates targets teenTimes of India,India-8 hours agoVANCOUVER: No matter what Shakespeare said on the theme of nomenclature, Microsoft has thought it fit to sue a teenager whose domain name is a lot like the
Microsoft vs MikeRoweSoftIndependent Online,South Africa-10 hours agoVancouver, British Columbia - Mike Rowe thinks it's funny that his catchy name for a website design company sounds a lot like Microsoft.
Microsoft takes on teenNEWS.com.au,Australia-10 hours agoMIKE Rowe thinks it is funny that his catchy name for a Web site design company sounds a lot like Microsoft. "Since my name is Mike
Langford student battles tech giant over use of his domain name: Canada.com,Canada-Jan 17, 2004Mike Rowe, a Langford high school student who does Web site design part-time, is locked in a legal battle with one of the world's biggest companies.
Microsoft vs. Mike Rowe SoftWIS,SC-47 minutes ago(Vancouver, British Columbia-AP) Jan. 19, 2004 - It's Microsoft versus Mike Rowe-soft. Mike Rowe, 17, wanted a catchy name for his Web site design company.
Support CD Babyp2pnet.net,Canada-1 hour agoBecause Mike, who lives in Victoria on Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada (and a short drive from p2pnet.net's thriving central base : ) makes a
Microsoft Talk Legal to 17 Year-Old Owner of MikeRoweSoft DomainShortNews.com-2 hours agoMike Rowe, 17, from British Columbia, Canada decided to start up a small web business and called his domain MikeRoweSoft. Smart
Microsoft Corporation vs MikeRoweSoftOfficialSpin-3 hours agoVictoria, British Columbia -- (OfficialSpin) -- 19/01/04 -- A 17 year-old high school student, Mike Rowe, who just so happens to earn a few extra bucks...
Microsoft demands teen to give up domain nameSalem Statesman Journal,OR-7 hours agoVANCOUVER, British Columbia - Mike Rowe knew that he needed
Does this help? Sync is a free program that assures that all information in the cache is written to disk.
However, the volume must not be mounted when you remove the hardware. Try running CHKDSK against the drive letter you want to remove. If it tells you that something is using the drive, make sure that nothing is: 1) installed from the drive, 2) or thinks it is using something on the drive. That includes open DOS windows. Also, it might help if the Firewire drive is formatted as FAT32. I've seen instances where NTFS will think that something has gone wrong when it hasn't, and will try to repair something that isn't damaged, but rolling back to an earlier disk image.
I'm not saying you are wrong about data loss; I don't have enough experience.
Some dorky moderator modded me down, after everyone else took my advice and modded the parent up.
MOD PARENT UP. Thanks for the complete answer.
Why would someone use Watcom rather than GCC?
I understand that the Fortran compiler may be better than free alternatives.
Windows XP has an option for not caching Firewire writes. You can then just remove and reconnect the drive without any other adjustment and without data loss. If you have audio on, there is a tone when the drive is connected or disconnected.
You'd be mad, too, if people thought you were food.
"Something about the multiplayer effect always smelled like bullshit to me..."
Any lie to get re-elected.
Borrowing money from our children may be a good strategy in times of extreme emergency. Borrowing money to explore dirt and rocks in space is not an extreme emergency.
This is good news. Microsoft gives itself an enormous amount of bad publicity by being the "Doctor Death" of assisted suicide for its own products, particularly when such a large percentage of its customers use the old product.
Note that there is NO comparison between Microsoft and Red Hat. If you are forced by Microsoft to move away from Windows 98, you can only move to a completely new operating system, Windows XP, which almost certainly will require new hardware, is very expensive due to new licensing, has its own bugs, has a completely new driver model, may require new application software, has the same rate of discovery of extreme security vulnerabilities, has a new, forced contract EULA, has more limited security in the case of password-protected network shares, and requires more training.
If you want to stay with an old version of Red Hat Linux, you have many companies willing to patch important old components, which are available completely separately, including source code, and can be installed completely separately. There is not a lot of pressure to upgrade, since the old versions didn't have many security vulnerabilities, either.
If you decide to upgrade to a new version of Red Hat Linux, the upgrade can be free, will not require new hardware (Linux runs fine on an old Pentium II, I've found.), does not require new training, and requires only the old contract.
Note that the principle of abandoning its own products is still there, Microsoft just pushed the date back. Also, those who don't work with Microsoft software may not realize that, without support, Windows 98 users are forced to upgrade, because Microsoft has given itself so many security vulnerabilities.
The U.S. government is becoming increasingly militarized. If you are an American taxpayer, and you don't want to pay to kill people whose country you can't find on a map, I suggest you vote for Howard Dean, or the intelligent, non-violent candidate of your choice.
George Bush is not intelligent enough to lead the country. He only sells the government to the highest bidders, who happen to be oil-related companies like Halliburton, and weapons manufacturers.
Skype Shows the way to upgrade Speak Freely. I've been using Skype behind a hardware firewall and NAT that is locked down tight. When Skype found that its preferred port was not open, it simply used Port 80.
The sound quality is better than telephone. I talked to a friend in France for 2 hours yesterday.
But... It would be much better if there were an open source alternative, that could connect directly to the other person's IP, like dialpad.com did. This is a huge need, and I hope someone will accept the challenge. Otherwise the U.S. government's surveillance departments may one day control all communication: Feds Want to Tap VoIP.
What did you expect of a photo of invisible speakers? The web page is displaying perfectly in Firebird 0.7. It's a white screen with no image.