"...and I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God." -- Every Single United States Congressman (of either house) in History.
Hillary Clinton gave a speech in which she opened by saying, "This is the day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it."
I'd keep going, but I've made my point. Congressmen are constitutionally required to swear (or affirm!) an oath in the name of God. All politicians regularly pander themselves to whatever cause they think will get them votes. Even at the most pessimistic of numbers, 80% of the US is Christian. Do the math.
If you want to look at it another way, I'm sure you're willing to admit that, overall, politicians are two-faced crooks with the moral fiber of your average used bible salesman, and will do whatever it takes to get elected. Now look at the fact that even the most jaded, cynical, sociopathic politicians we have in elected office don't come out and say: "That God thing is so silly. You should vote for Atheists(/Agnostics/Secular Humanists/Scientologists/Subgeniuses) like me!" They feel like doing so would destroy their chances of getting re-elected.
It's just how the game is played. I have no doubt that Bush believes in God and feels like he's fulfilling God's plan for his life, but I can't help but believe that a lot of his rhetoric is just that, and aimed at getting money and votes from the Bob Jones University crowd. It's the same reason Democrats pretend to care about the environment in between trips in their SUV motorcade, or slush-fund vacations to Europe on those private corporate jets.
For someone who is so obviously jaded about the government, you sure do seem willing to take the things politicians say at face value.
Unless you want to do something totally and completely out there, like using a ridiculously common Linksys wireless card (WPC54Gv2) on a laptop. Of course, it's a simple fix that any non-geek could do. All I had to do was download a third party utility to translate the Linksys driver into modules that Linux could understand and insert them into the kernel...
Come on. I really like Ubuntu, and I think it's taking Linux in the right direction for the desktop market, but easier than Windows? When the GNU/Linux crowd stops kidding themselves about Windows actually being that hard to install, we'll get a lot farther. The big problem with Linux is installs has always been, and continues to be, driver compatibility/availability, sometimes even for common hardware.
Big time manufacturers preload the operating system. If you -really- want Linux to take a major leap into the desktop market you have to get major companies to start putting them in retail stores, or (for "order only" companies) have a major marketing push to sell Linux. The fact that this hasn't happened yet means that guys in suits who make marketing decisions (read: the people who matter, no matter how crass it may sound) think it's not ready. Right or wrong, that's just the way it is.
As opposed to secret ballot systems, which somehow eliminate vote buying and intimidation? I live in a small town in Kentucky notorious for its political environment (which I've mentioned briefly in a post on another thread not long ago). We actually had election monitors here from the State Attorney General's office during our primary elections in May in an attempt to limit the shenanigans.
If you look at the election returns here by precinct and compare it to the number of absentee ballots cast, you'll find that an odd number of people for a community this small feel the "urge to travel" around election times. Usually after a representative of a candidate (plausible deniability) comes to them and gives them fifty dollars, a fifth of Crown Royal, and an absentee ballot to fill out. After making sure the appropriate vote is cast most of them will even be so kind as to drop it off at the post office for you, so you don't have to be inconvenienced "on your way out of town."
We had Republican gubernatorial administrations for a quarter century until the most recent.
This can actually be seen as further proof of cheating. No, seriously. Let me explain.
I live in Kentucky. We consistently elect Republicans for the Senate and have voted Bush in both elections, and there is only one Democrat in our national delegation (who happens to be from my district). Yet if you look at the State Senate and the State House, they are both overwhelmingly Democrat and have been for years. In other words, Republicans tend to get the majority of votes here, yet the State congressional districts have been gerrymandered to the point that it's pretty pointless to run against a Democrat in a State race. The only time Republicans tend to stand a chance here is in popular vote elections, or local elections in the Republican enclaves in the extreme western and northern parts of the state. The Democratic party in this state is as dirty as you'll find. They just lack the charisma of Louisiana's Dirty Dems, and the overtness of Illinois Dems.:P
State and local politics are so much more fun...
PS: I'm a registered Democrat. Mod me +1 Ironic.
This isn't quite a response to your question, but the responses made me think about it. I run a shop that specializes in creating signs, doing engraving, and other graphically artistic tasks. Before I started this place I used to boggle at how people could pay 3 or 400 dollars for Windows, or 600 dollars for a copy of Photoshop, or (perish the thought!) $1000 for Final Cut Pro. But, That Was Before (TM).
Some of the software I now use to run equipment in the shop costs over four thousand dollars, and, while it's useful and allows me to run my business (which is why I pay for it), it's not as "worth it" as I'd like it to be. Now I come to my point. None of this software uses serial-based authentication. It's all done via USB or (with older software) LPT dongles. It goes back to the two schools of authentication: something you know versus something you have/are.
There are HASP dongle crackers out there, but they're not very common, and I have no clue how well they work. I honestly haven't tried. Installing a pirated copy of Windows on grandma's computer so the poor old dear can check her email and play solitaire doesn't bug me, but my morals get rubbed the wrong way by "stealing" something that I plan on using to make a lot of money.
So, how long is it before we start seeing hardware-based registration schemes? It might be expensive for a company like Adobe to have the keys made, but volume pricing and the amount of money they'd save versus privacy might be worth it. Microsoft certainly has the weight (and the volume) to get them made cheaply enough for it to benefit. The increased usage of dongles would certainly make them a bigger target for cracking (vide: Windows viruses versus Mac viruses), so it might be a wash in the long run. Companies certainly gain mindshare by having their products be ubiquitous, even if it's at the cost of a few pirate copies, but it seems like every z0mg l33t p1r4t3 kiddie out there (at least the ones I know) have a copy of Photoshop even if they don't use it.
MLA is the most prevalent in high school English classes. It's nowhere near "full-featured" enough (if a style manual can be such a thing) to be used in universities for anything beyond a basic composition course. Even as an undergrad my university required all papers to conform to CMS (Chicago Manual of Style) rules. If any of you out there have never seen the full Chicago Manual of Style, go to a bookstore and find an unabridged hardback copy of Stephen King's "The Stand." They're about the same size.
(The above paragraph is addressing nothing but the statement that MLA is authoritative.)
As for the apostrophe-S, the answer I always got on it was that if the word ends on a Z sound ("Jones," "Evans"), then it's not incorrect to omit the s after the apostrophe, because it sounds cumbersome. For words ending on a s/long S sound ("Ness," "Morris") it sounds fine, and so you leave it.
>Come on, as in every console war the games will decide the winner...PERIOD! >Do not pass go, do not collect $10,000, the games will decide.
Okay...
>Love 'em or hate 'em Sony is right in their assumption that no matter what the >price the first 5 million are going to sell just because it's a playstation. [...] >Myself and most everybody else will plop down their 500-600 and get the playstation. >Let's be honest guys, the only reason people are complaining the price is because >they know they are getting the PS3 and didn't count on parting with that much money to have one.
So are they buyin it because they like the games (which, oh yeah, like the system, don't even exist yet) or because they're one of Sony's fanboys? You say one thing at the beginning of your post, and then spend the rest contradicting it. If MS follows through with their prediction of having 10 million units in the market before the PS3 even ships, then Sony is going to have some work to do. As it stands right now they're telling people that they've enjoyed the pleasure of waiting... what... an extra year and a half? Just to spend more money on something that looks exactly the same playing exactly the same games? And you're telling me that anyone that does that is doing it just so they can play MGS4? I don't think there are many people for whom playing MGS4 0MGRIGHTNOW is worth 600 dollars. If Microsoft DOES have the kind of market penetration they're predicting, then any studio would be an idiot to sign an exclusive contract with Sony when they'd have 10 million customers already eager and waiting with 360s.
The old stalwarts like Squaresoft are going to make Final Fantasy LXVIII for Sony and Sony alone, but what else will they have for exclusive games? I used to think that Playstation was the system to go for if you wanted quality RPG-sytle games (ie: Resident Evil), but now Xbox has given us Knights of the Old Republic (and yes, the second one blew) and Jade Empire (which is the reason KoTOR2 blew). Both of those games were incredible. Xbox also has Halo, which is for Microsoft what the FF franchise is for Sony. There are going to be plenty of titles to look forward to on the 360, and how many more great titles that MIGHT have been Sony exclusive are they going to steal just because they have market penetration, and the producer would be stupid not to at least do a dual release?
If you're really trying to say that Sony is going to win (as if it's possible for one console to win in the first place) because they've got some kind of magical game advantage (which is unknowable, since the system doesn't exist yet), then you're taking some pretty big logical leaps.
Enemy lawyers seeking to apply for source code release would have to sue the federal government. The federal government has what's called Sovereign Immunity. They don't have to let you sue them if they don't want to.
Everyone's always for helping the poor African citizens on principle, but they forget the African political climate. What money is netted from this is going to go to the Mobutu Sese-Seko, Charles Taylor, Robert Mugabe, King Mswati, Idi Amin, Omar al'Bashir, Sani Abacha, and Gaddafis of the world. Prosperity in Africa won't come about simply by giving them a new commodity they can use to make their dictators rich.
Reactionary does not mean what you think it means. This is a good English example of a "false friend"-- words that seem like they should mean one thing based on the apparent root, when in reality they mean something else entirely.
Don't forget, this is the same CIA that didn't see the collapse of the Soviet Union coming
You did? Most people knew the Soviet Union was in an untenable position with Gorbachev's policies, but I don't think anyone saw it happening as fast as it did.
If you're going to dislike the poor guy at least spell his name correctly. It's Boies (Yes, I realize you're repeating Newsweek's mistake). Also, though many Slashdotters might share your opinion that he's a scumbag for representing SCO, the same folks were probably cheering when he was helping to prosecute Microsoft's anti-trust case, or when he was representing Al Gore in the 2000 presidential election.
[...]a movie that I believe will make a fundamental impact on the future of how politics are played out in America[...]
Political commentary in the arts is hardly anything new. There are many many things in Alice in Wonderland that were a harsh critique of the UK's government at the time (getting a trial after you've been sentenced, the caucus race where everyone runs and no one gets anywhere). Then there's The Crucible, which was an indictment of Senator McCarthy's "Red Scare."
Even in "motion" media this is nothing new. The "flower girl" commercial from the LBJ/Goldwater election has become legendary. No matter what your opinion of Michael Moore or his "Documentary" style, to believe that this film is going to "make a fundamental impact on the future of how politics are played out in America" is probably reaching just a little. You can like the film, hate the film, or not even care, but this is nothing new.
She's scared to travel to her home country anymore, and wouldn't, if it weren't for her remaining family and friends state-side.
That's a little extreme, don't you think? It's not like you're going to get stopped on a sidewalk in Bumsville, Idaho by a Geheime Staatspolizei agent with a 5 o'clock shadow and a snazzy uniform who'll grasp the handle of his Walther P38 menacingly while intoning, "Papiere, bitte."
How does this affect the average Joe like me? Not at all. If a cop wants to see my driver's license he's welcome to, and you know what? I'll smile and be polite while he's doing it, because police deserve a certain amount of respect for the job they do. I am aware that there are cops out there who will use this as justification to ID a few more people whom they have a reasonable suspicion are guilty of Walking While Black, but those are the same cops who would do that anyway. That's a Human Resources problem, not a problem for the Supreme Court.
Has their been any word on licensing? Considering that JPEG and GIF are both subject to the whims of private groups (Joint Pictures Expert Group, and Compuserve respectively) it'd be nice to have a good free image format. I haven't "R"ed the "FA," so if my question's answered there I apologize.
And you'd be 100% correct if it weren't for the fact that Microsoft themselves have given us a set of instructions that allow one to change their XP activation code. There's even code there so you can write it as VBScript. When they first announced their activation system I thought that Windows XP would be a difficult program to pirate in such a way that it can't be differentiated from a valid install. Thanks to the handy instructions they've given us I've been proven wrong.
That's actually a common misconception that's been the source of quite a few jokes. What's causing the s/f confusion with most people is that in certain words Middle English used a "long s" similar to the German "ess-zet". It looked sort of like a lower case f except the crossbar is only on the left-hand side.
Most scholars of history agree that the arms race you warn about was what brought about the end of the Soviet Union and the Cold War. The United States is the richest country in the world, and it's got more than its fair share of brilliant minds.
We develop a laser that can shoot down ICBMs. In response potentially hostile nations (PHNs) begin spending money like a housewife on holiday to develop a weapon that (they hope) can penetrate the defense... Maybe... in the event of a war that may not happen. In the end game we've still got a laser capable of shooting down artillery, cruise missiles, and (I've not seen anyone else mention this yet) enemy aircraft. What do the PHNs have? Debt in the billions-to-trillions of dollars range that they probably can't afford that will play its part in collapsing their economy.
The best weapons platform you'll ever develop is the one that scares your enemy so much he spends himself into oblivion to counteract it. At the end of the day he's gone, and you haven't really had to do anything. It worked for Reagan with Star Wars, and by the sound of things it might just work again.
That means that the marketing AMD is using is WORKING.
If by "marketing" you mean "bearing prices significantly lower." I'm not trying to say that more expensive means "better," but I will venture to say that different people like Intel or AMD for different reasons. Why do people in the retail market like AMD? Because it's cheaper, and when they ask sales people who are desperate to make a sale if there's any difference, the sales people (who are also AMD fanboys, when they're not being Mac fanboys) tell them no.
I'm not going to take a side in the Intel/AMD war. My desktop is a P4 and I love it. My server is an AMD Athlon, and I love it too. All I'm saying is that in the retail market-- and yeah, I've worked there-- people "like" AMD because it's cheaper, not because they have any clue about quality.
For me nothing will ever beat the feeling of actually having the paper in my hands. Sorry folks, it may be mean to the trees, but nothing has the same feel as an actual paper book.
Slashdot Mirror
You're too late. You've obviously never heard of Van Eck Phreaking.
"...and I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God." -- Every Single United States Congressman (of either house) in History.
Hillary Clinton gave a speech in which she opened by saying, "This is the day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it."
I'd keep going, but I've made my point. Congressmen are constitutionally required to swear (or affirm!) an oath in the name of God. All politicians regularly pander themselves to whatever cause they think will get them votes. Even at the most pessimistic of numbers, 80% of the US is Christian. Do the math.
If you want to look at it another way, I'm sure you're willing to admit that, overall, politicians are two-faced crooks with the moral fiber of your average used bible salesman, and will do whatever it takes to get elected. Now look at the fact that even the most jaded, cynical, sociopathic politicians we have in elected office don't come out and say: "That God thing is so silly. You should vote for Atheists(/Agnostics/Secular Humanists/Scientologists/Subgeniuses) like me!" They feel like doing so would destroy their chances of getting re-elected.
It's just how the game is played. I have no doubt that Bush believes in God and feels like he's fulfilling God's plan for his life, but I can't help but believe that a lot of his rhetoric is just that, and aimed at getting money and votes from the Bob Jones University crowd. It's the same reason Democrats pretend to care about the environment in between trips in their SUV motorcade, or slush-fund vacations to Europe on those private corporate jets.
For someone who is so obviously jaded about the government, you sure do seem willing to take the things politicians say at face value.
It Couldn't be easier.
Unless you want to do something totally and completely out there, like using a ridiculously common Linksys wireless card (WPC54Gv2) on a laptop. Of course, it's a simple fix that any non-geek could do. All I had to do was download a third party utility to translate the Linksys driver into modules that Linux could understand and insert them into the kernel...
Come on. I really like Ubuntu, and I think it's taking Linux in the right direction for the desktop market, but easier than Windows? When the GNU/Linux crowd stops kidding themselves about Windows actually being that hard to install, we'll get a lot farther. The big problem with Linux is installs has always been, and continues to be, driver compatibility/availability, sometimes even for common hardware.
Big time manufacturers preload the operating system. If you -really- want Linux to take a major leap into the desktop market you have to get major companies to start putting them in retail stores, or (for "order only" companies) have a major marketing push to sell Linux. The fact that this hasn't happened yet means that guys in suits who make marketing decisions (read: the people who matter, no matter how crass it may sound) think it's not ready. Right or wrong, that's just the way it is.
As opposed to secret ballot systems, which somehow eliminate vote buying and intimidation? I live in a small town in Kentucky notorious for its political environment (which I've mentioned briefly in a post on another thread not long ago). We actually had election monitors here from the State Attorney General's office during our primary elections in May in an attempt to limit the shenanigans.
If you look at the election returns here by precinct and compare it to the number of absentee ballots cast, you'll find that an odd number of people for a community this small feel the "urge to travel" around election times. Usually after a representative of a candidate (plausible deniability) comes to them and gives them fifty dollars, a fifth of Crown Royal, and an absentee ballot to fill out. After making sure the appropriate vote is cast most of them will even be so kind as to drop it off at the post office for you, so you don't have to be inconvenienced "on your way out of town."
We had Republican gubernatorial administrations for a quarter century until the most recent.
:P
This can actually be seen as further proof of cheating. No, seriously. Let me explain.
I live in Kentucky. We consistently elect Republicans for the Senate and have voted Bush in both elections, and there is only one Democrat in our national delegation (who happens to be from my district). Yet if you look at the State Senate and the State House, they are both overwhelmingly Democrat and have been for years. In other words, Republicans tend to get the majority of votes here, yet the State congressional districts have been gerrymandered to the point that it's pretty pointless to run against a Democrat in a State race. The only time Republicans tend to stand a chance here is in popular vote elections, or local elections in the Republican enclaves in the extreme western and northern parts of the state. The Democratic party in this state is as dirty as you'll find. They just lack the charisma of Louisiana's Dirty Dems, and the overtness of Illinois Dems.
State and local politics are so much more fun... PS: I'm a registered Democrat. Mod me +1 Ironic.
This isn't quite a response to your question, but the responses made me think about it. I run a shop that specializes in creating signs, doing engraving, and other graphically artistic tasks. Before I started this place I used to boggle at how people could pay 3 or 400 dollars for Windows, or 600 dollars for a copy of Photoshop, or (perish the thought!) $1000 for Final Cut Pro. But, That Was Before (TM).
Some of the software I now use to run equipment in the shop costs over four thousand dollars, and, while it's useful and allows me to run my business (which is why I pay for it), it's not as "worth it" as I'd like it to be. Now I come to my point. None of this software uses serial-based authentication. It's all done via USB or (with older software) LPT dongles. It goes back to the two schools of authentication: something you know versus something you have/are.
There are HASP dongle crackers out there, but they're not very common, and I have no clue how well they work. I honestly haven't tried. Installing a pirated copy of Windows on grandma's computer so the poor old dear can check her email and play solitaire doesn't bug me, but my morals get rubbed the wrong way by "stealing" something that I plan on using to make a lot of money.
So, how long is it before we start seeing hardware-based registration schemes? It might be expensive for a company like Adobe to have the keys made, but volume pricing and the amount of money they'd save versus privacy might be worth it. Microsoft certainly has the weight (and the volume) to get them made cheaply enough for it to benefit. The increased usage of dongles would certainly make them a bigger target for cracking (vide: Windows viruses versus Mac viruses), so it might be a wash in the long run. Companies certainly gain mindshare by having their products be ubiquitous, even if it's at the cost of a few pirate copies, but it seems like every z0mg l33t p1r4t3 kiddie out there (at least the ones I know) have a copy of Photoshop even if they don't use it.
So pirates aren't full duplex?
MLA is the most prevalent in high school English classes. It's nowhere near "full-featured" enough (if a style manual can be such a thing) to be used in universities for anything beyond a basic composition course. Even as an undergrad my university required all papers to conform to CMS (Chicago Manual of Style) rules. If any of you out there have never seen the full Chicago Manual of Style, go to a bookstore and find an unabridged hardback copy of Stephen King's "The Stand." They're about the same size.
(The above paragraph is addressing nothing but the statement that MLA is authoritative.)
As for the apostrophe-S, the answer I always got on it was that if the word ends on a Z sound ("Jones," "Evans"), then it's not incorrect to omit the s after the apostrophe, because it sounds cumbersome. For words ending on a s/long S sound ("Ness," "Morris") it sounds fine, and so you leave it.
>Come on, as in every console war the games will decide the winner...PERIOD!
>Do not pass go, do not collect $10,000, the games will decide.
Okay...
>Love 'em or hate 'em Sony is right in their assumption that no matter what the
>price the first 5 million are going to sell just because it's a playstation. [...]
>Myself and most everybody else will plop down their 500-600 and get the playstation.
>Let's be honest guys, the only reason people are complaining the price is because
>they know they are getting the PS3 and didn't count on parting with that much money to have one.
So are they buyin it because they like the games (which, oh yeah, like the system, don't even exist yet) or because they're one of Sony's fanboys? You say one thing at the beginning of your post, and then spend the rest contradicting it. If MS follows through with their prediction of having 10 million units in the market before the PS3 even ships, then Sony is going to have some work to do. As it stands right now they're telling people that they've enjoyed the pleasure of waiting... what... an extra year and a half? Just to spend more money on something that looks exactly the same playing exactly the same games? And you're telling me that anyone that does that is doing it just so they can play MGS4? I don't think there are many people for whom playing MGS4 0MGRIGHTNOW is worth 600 dollars. If Microsoft DOES have the kind of market penetration they're predicting, then any studio would be an idiot to sign an exclusive contract with Sony when they'd have 10 million customers already eager and waiting with 360s.
The old stalwarts like Squaresoft are going to make Final Fantasy LXVIII for Sony and Sony alone, but what else will they have for exclusive games? I used to think that Playstation was the system to go for if you wanted quality RPG-sytle games (ie: Resident Evil), but now Xbox has given us Knights of the Old Republic (and yes, the second one blew) and Jade Empire (which is the reason KoTOR2 blew). Both of those games were incredible. Xbox also has Halo, which is for Microsoft what the FF franchise is for Sony. There are going to be plenty of titles to look forward to on the 360, and how many more great titles that MIGHT have been Sony exclusive are they going to steal just because they have market penetration, and the producer would be stupid not to at least do a dual release?
If you're really trying to say that Sony is going to win (as if it's possible for one console to win in the first place) because they've got some kind of magical game advantage (which is unknowable, since the system doesn't exist yet), then you're taking some pretty big logical leaps.
Enemy lawyers seeking to apply for source code release would have to sue the federal government. The federal government has what's called Sovereign Immunity. They don't have to let you sue them if they don't want to.
Everyone's always for helping the poor African citizens on principle, but they forget the African political climate. What money is netted from this is going to go to the Mobutu Sese-Seko, Charles Taylor, Robert Mugabe, King Mswati, Idi Amin, Omar al'Bashir, Sani Abacha, and Gaddafis of the world. Prosperity in Africa won't come about simply by giving them a new commodity they can use to make their dictators rich.
Reactionary does not mean what you think it means. This is a good English example of a "false friend"-- words that seem like they should mean one thing based on the apparent root, when in reality they mean something else entirely.
That question will be answered in the ever-elusive Fourth Prong.
Don't forget, this is the same CIA that didn't see the collapse of the Soviet Union coming
You did? Most people knew the Soviet Union was in an untenable position with Gorbachev's policies, but I don't think anyone saw it happening as fast as it did.
If you're going to dislike the poor guy at least spell his name correctly. It's Boies (Yes, I realize you're repeating Newsweek's mistake). Also, though many Slashdotters might share your opinion that he's a scumbag for representing SCO, the same folks were probably cheering when he was helping to prosecute Microsoft's anti-trust case, or when he was representing Al Gore in the 2000 presidential election.
[...]a movie that I believe will make a fundamental impact on the future of how politics are played out in America[...]
Political commentary in the arts is hardly anything new. There are many many things in Alice in Wonderland that were a harsh critique of the UK's government at the time (getting a trial after you've been sentenced, the caucus race where everyone runs and no one gets anywhere). Then there's The Crucible, which was an indictment of Senator McCarthy's "Red Scare."
Even in "motion" media this is nothing new. The "flower girl" commercial from the LBJ/Goldwater election has become legendary. No matter what your opinion of Michael Moore or his "Documentary" style, to believe that this film is going to "make a fundamental impact on the future of how politics are played out in America" is probably reaching just a little. You can like the film, hate the film, or not even care, but this is nothing new.
She's scared to travel to her home country anymore, and wouldn't, if it weren't for her remaining family and friends state-side.
That's a little extreme, don't you think? It's not like you're going to get stopped on a sidewalk in Bumsville, Idaho by a Geheime Staatspolizei agent with a 5 o'clock shadow and a snazzy uniform who'll grasp the handle of his Walther P38 menacingly while intoning, "Papiere, bitte."
How does this affect the average Joe like me? Not at all. If a cop wants to see my driver's license he's welcome to, and you know what? I'll smile and be polite while he's doing it, because police deserve a certain amount of respect for the job they do. I am aware that there are cops out there who will use this as justification to ID a few more people whom they have a reasonable suspicion are guilty of Walking While Black, but those are the same cops who would do that anyway. That's a Human Resources problem, not a problem for the Supreme Court.
Has their been any word on licensing? Considering that JPEG and GIF are both subject to the whims of private groups (Joint Pictures Expert Group, and Compuserve respectively) it'd be nice to have a good free image format. I haven't "R"ed the "FA," so if my question's answered there I apologize.
And you'd be 100% correct if it weren't for the fact that Microsoft themselves have given us a set of instructions that allow one to change their XP activation code. There's even code there so you can write it as VBScript. When they first announced their activation system I thought that Windows XP would be a difficult program to pirate in such a way that it can't be differentiated from a valid install. Thanks to the handy instructions they've given us I've been proven wrong.
A great reference to what is probably the Worst. Movie. Ever.
That's actually a common misconception that's been the source of quite a few jokes. What's causing the s/f confusion with most people is that in certain words Middle English used a "long s" similar to the German "ess-zet". It looked sort of like a lower case f except the crossbar is only on the left-hand side.
The Straight Dope tells the story.
Most scholars of history agree that the arms race you warn about was what brought about the end of the Soviet Union and the Cold War. The United States is the richest country in the world, and it's got more than its fair share of brilliant minds.
We develop a laser that can shoot down ICBMs. In response potentially hostile nations (PHNs) begin spending money like a housewife on holiday to develop a weapon that (they hope) can penetrate the defense... Maybe... in the event of a war that may not happen. In the end game we've still got a laser capable of shooting down artillery, cruise missiles, and (I've not seen anyone else mention this yet) enemy aircraft. What do the PHNs have? Debt in the billions-to-trillions of dollars range that they probably can't afford that will play its part in collapsing their economy.
The best weapons platform you'll ever develop is the one that scares your enemy so much he spends himself into oblivion to counteract it. At the end of the day he's gone, and you haven't really had to do anything. It worked for Reagan with Star Wars, and by the sound of things it might just work again.
That means that the marketing AMD is using is WORKING.
If by "marketing" you mean "bearing prices significantly lower." I'm not trying to say that more expensive means "better," but I will venture to say that different people like Intel or AMD for different reasons. Why do people in the retail market like AMD? Because it's cheaper, and when they ask sales people who are desperate to make a sale if there's any difference, the sales people (who are also AMD fanboys, when they're not being Mac fanboys) tell them no.
I'm not going to take a side in the Intel/AMD war. My desktop is a P4 and I love it. My server is an AMD Athlon, and I love it too. All I'm saying is that in the retail market-- and yeah, I've worked there-- people "like" AMD because it's cheaper, not because they have any clue about quality.
geeks in colleges would run IRC servers
And let's not forget BBSes. Next to the old boards, IRC is a whippersnapper.
For me nothing will ever beat the feeling of actually having the paper in my hands. Sorry folks, it may be mean to the trees, but nothing has the same feel as an actual paper book.