They aren't "[paying] to cut out a competitor's access." Foo, Inc. buying a direct connection into the @Home network isn't going to prevent Bar, Inc. from being accessable. The only difference is speed and latency. This is no different from what many ISPs already do -- how many ISPs have private peering between each other? between themselves and Microsoft? The only thing is, they usually don't actively promote it -- and both sides are paying for it.
I applaud @Home's inventiveness. Might I suggest selling web proxies as well?
It might be a microscopic technicality, but this user is interfering with other people's ability to use their account. Additionally, this might fall under the general "play nice" clause in just about every AUP/TOS/Contract I've ever seen -- basically don't send harassing, offensive, etc. stuff. (Obviously, this person offended someone. Then again, they might have been offended by his mere breathing too.) I'm sure the ISP would give them another account as long as they didn't make themselves another target.
(lame comparison) Imagine there being a contract on you and people actively trying to kill you. You are in danager as much as you are endangering everyone around you. Granted, the cops generally don't stick you in prison, but they also don't let you just walk into the local Taco Bell either.
PS: I've gladly terminated a user's account for being a general jack-ass. As I recall, it was about five minutes from faxed complaint [he pissed off a newsgroup] to "put his stuff on this (AOL) floppy." I just smiled "ear to ear" as I archived his files with an amiga archiver -- good luck gettin' that stuff back. Muhahhah!
Imagine loading another instance of Linux every time you had to launch a program.
That would waste about 4M of memory compared to most VM's need of 32M or more. Please try to keep in mind, JAVA is interpreted therefore it will always be slower than native instruction code -- some people will argue a few percent doesn't matter, but those are the same "idiots" who want the entire computer world to be text based (an "int" passed between programs as ascii text.)
VMs don't always have a "max memory" setting. Neither Netscape nor IE have any place to specify the maximum memory the VM is allowed to eat -- it'll eat all the memory the machine has and then crash. If you invoke a runtime VM from a command-line then you can specify a max, but it won't necessarily have one if you don't set it.
Where I work, "we" use far too much java. It's slow (much slower than native C++) and wastes several orders of magnitude more memory. (Plus, JAVA doesn't have direct access to CORBA or ObjectStore.) AND jre's X11 display engine is the most horrid thing I've ever seen -- god help you if it's not displayed locally.
I'm just adding emphasis to it's instability. As one of the researchers joked in the PBS plip I saw, "Just look at it wrong and it'll burst into flames -- violently." They showed a drop of water buring as it came in contact with the orange dust -- it was the liberated H2 that was burning:-)
A better question is why these scientists went to the trouble to make this stuff. It's not like adding xenon and florine in a bowel and stirring.
Correction: Helium is completely inert. I know of zero instances where helium had been forcablly chemically bonded to anything. Xenon has been bonded to florine (XeF6 -- xenon hexafloride) with some rather extreme measures -- but it's 150% unstable.
Don't forget SO2 and H2SO4:-) Both the US and USSR have sent probes to Venus. As I recall, they didn't last very long -- some didn't even make it to the surface before being destroyed.
Mass is one measure, but density is more important in looking at a gravitational field effect on an atmosphere -- most physics classes greatly simplify things by using a center of mass in the calculations, but on a planetary scale and an atmosphere... well, break out the cray.
I like that... it's alot like the fabled microbe to "eat" oil spills -- yeah, let's let that thing lose in the world. Or the Curt Voneget(sp?) concept of "Ice 9" from Cats Craddle -- blue crystal form of water at room temp.
Engineering lifeforms is an extremely dangerous thing to do. Makes me wonder how many times God has leaned back from the universe and said "oops" -- "Sorry I kill'd ya' Fidget!"
We already know how to "unfsck our own planet." Haven't you learned anything yet... What's the economic motivation to do so? (The "I'll be dead by the time they notice" problem.)
Well, people tend to forget a lot of things -- esp. considering most people know next to nothing about "rocket science".
Allow me to summarize: Mars is not Earth.
Mars is much further away from the sun than we are here on Earth. Mars is smaller and less massive than Earth. The surface conditions are vastly different from Earth -- lower atmospheric pressure, much lower average temperature, very little water, an atmosphere composed of mostly carbon dioxide, oh and vast sand storms than can last years...
Granted, I'm no physicist, but you don't need a PhD to know O2 is lighter than CO2. Translation: Mars doesn't have the gravity to keep an oxygen atmosphere. One must also observe the laws of thermodynamics. Thus, unless this device is based in alchemy, all you'll end up with is an equally thin oxygen atmosphere (which will slowly get thinner and bleed into space) + a huge pile of carbon. As a side effect of removing the CO2, the average surface temperature will decrease as less solar radiation is trapped by the now gone CO2.
SO... let us assume we instantly convert all the CO2 on Mars into O2. You still wouldn't be able to stand out under the stars and breathe easy -- you'd suffocate and "explode".
Now, let's be reasonable; no one is suggesting terraforming Mars:-) This kind of device is a heavenly gift to the planetary shipping industry. In effect, manned missions to Mars wouldn't require advanced air filtration and recycling technology (large heavy machines) and they certainly wouldn't have to carry a large supply of oxygen with them (read: more room for M&M's and Dr. Pepper.) This also has applications here on Earth in reducing the amount of CO2 we constantly throw into the atmosphere from fossil fuels.
(Hmm, how long before DeBeers outlaws diamond production on Mars?)
Most of the ocean isn't that deep -- 300 miles above sea level is in orbit. Unless you're sailing over an oceanic trench somewhere, you'll only need about 5 miles of cable (on average.) Of course, it would be much simpler to find one of the cable trallers and tap in while it's near the surface *grin* (AT&T has a fleet of ships the pick the cable up, clean it, etc. There's a small problem with continental drift.)
As the Navy Capt'n joke goes... you're never more than five miles from land. (i.e. five miles straight down.)
Actually, I thought that regulation was tied to the radio equipment encrypting transmissions. If the data it was handed to transmit (say ssh traffic) was already encrypted, I don't think there's a problem. Anyway, the password is the only thing that needs to be "scrambled" -- it's just email:-)
Correction, IDSL is 144Kbps - period. IDSL is ISDN with most of the channel signalling removed. Their aren't any B channels or a D channel. It's simply the raw 144Kbps HDLC data stream. It's the same speed one inch from the CO as it is 10 miles from the CO. As it's not the "AM radio" signal that normally constitutes xDSL, the range can be extended by repeaters/booster and it can be trunked like all other digital data.
I'll never understand why people treat IDSL dramtically different from ISDN. An IDSL line runs from 40$ to 150$ for "always on" connectivity complete with static addresses. However, ISDN "dialup" is impossible to get anywhere near "always on", flat rate at 128k, or with a single static address for less than 200$. Maybe if the telcos would get their head out of their ass long enough to see the advantage of Packet Switched Data (for which ISDN is designed)...
Competition is generally a good thing. However, there has to be a stable, profitable market and demand. If no one is willing to pay the cost of a service at the level of quality they demand, then competition cannot help; a company cannot run at an operating loss for extended periods -- this is where government traditionally steps in. (see also: dairy subsities)
Do you think anyone would be eager to step up and sell ISP services if people were only willing to pay 2$/month for dialup (56k modem and ISDN), 5$/month for DSL, or 7$/month for T3-like cable modem service? There's no way to make money like that. The "free ISPs" of the world are still very new to the scene and may very well fail hideously -- but then, they make money from advertising, not by selling connectivity. (If banner ads have taught us anything, it's that people become blind to them and even spend money on software to filter them out. How many banner ads are in the web pages you see everyday? How many do you notice? How many do you actually click on?)
trained from birth to pick up even the smallest flaw
I'd have to differ with you there. How many times per week did you study "listening for flaws"? Humans are interesting creatures, however, we are surprizingly insensitive to many things. If you listen intently for specific flaws, then you are likely to hear them -- even when they aren't there. You might be surprised by the amount of damage to a digital audio signal that you cannot hear.
I wouldn't say VoIP is "junk". It's not as perfect as conventional telephony, but for the price, you cannot beat it. I've setup and used VoIP and I found it to be on par with the quality of most cellular phones. The round-trip delay is alot higher and there are flitters of drops as packets get lost or too far out of sequence. In my case, the call was effectively zipping around the planet -- my desk in NC to CA via standard IP into GRIC's private IP network to a partner in Germany and back into the PSTN to a desk in London. There was about a half second delay (I was monitoring the call on my end.) Yes, it was far worse than me dialing London directly from my desk, but at 2.97 CENTS per minute, VoIP beat the crap out of convention telephony.
Yes, AIX and Solaris have their own distribution formats. However, AIX comes from IBM and only IBM, and Solaris comes from Sun and only Sun. Linux as a complete OS (technically, Linux is the kernel) comes from a dozen different sources.
The original Linux distributions, eons ago, were based on tar + gzip. Then the Redhat boys came along and decided tar just wasn't good enough -- it doesn't handle non-files very well nor does it carry any type of specs in the archive. They designed a package system centered on cpio which will archive almost anything with a custom header containing a variety of specifications. All of the distributions that followed adopted the Redhat paradigm of "packages" -- most of them just using the verbatium rpm.
Don't get me wrong; a package format is a good thing. Something other than tar is always a good thing:-) However, LINUX is a KERNEL; Redhat/SuSE/Debian/etc. are OPERATING SYSTEMS. There isn't an agreed upon standard for what makes a Linux OS, filesystem layout, or package. Every distribution will include its own administrative overhead, its own filesystem architecture, and its own package management structure.
Not to sound like Evil from Time Bandits, but... If I were designing a distribution, I'd start with package management; 8 o'clock, day one. Personally, I like the solaris methodology... a package needs to have the ability to install components onto root and others to where ever the user wants. It also has to have the ability to be patched without completely reinstalling the selected package. It also has to have the ability to detect changes from the package base so as to prevent destruction of customizations, etc. [and so forth...]
Actually "SunOS" does usually require a rebuild to add a new scsi controller, network card, nfs support, more processes, etc... "Solaris" is modular and doesn't have those requirements -- tho' sometimes one must invoke adb to change a thing here or there. I've rebuilt IRIX kernels numerous times -- tweaking performance for a web server [thank god they stopped using SGI's.]
"Until a court rules against it", yes. One can write what ever they want into a contract and the courts can ignore every damned word of it.
Such actions people are touting (canceling a domain registration) is legal suicide no matter what words they invent for their contract... interfering with free trade, anti-competive pratices, predatory business practices, attempting to weld monoply power, etc. (basically, everything M$ has ever done.)
[Disclaimer: I'm the wrong kind of Evil(tm) to be a lawyer.]
Is the U.S. Post office liable for the content of mail it delivers? No.
Hmm, I wonder if anyone has ever tried to sue USPS for delivering a bomb?
Are manufacturers of TV broadcast equipment liable for the content of programs broadcast using their equipment? No.
No, but then again, they aren't broadcasting anything -- your analogy suggests Dell and Intel would be liable for computer virii; transmitters are "stand-alone" units. It's the broadcasting station that's liable for what's transmitted -- it's part of their FCC license.
Is Napster responsible for the contents of the files that it transferrs?
I would say "not directly", however, they are willingly assisting a crime. While, ultimately, it's the end-users who are the truely guilty, Napster is not completely guiltless -- they are, after all, holding the keys to the get-away car. You can argue there's no way to tell what transactions are legal or illegal -- that's something Napster has failed to address...
As for FTP... "no more so than they ever have." There's a difference between making it possible to break a law, and facilitating the breaking of a law. FTPd only makes it possible to publish copyrighted material; the authors of the software are not active participants in the courying of files. If Napster were not "in the middle" "brokering" all the file transfers, then they too would not be facilitating a crime. [of course, that would suggest IRC is liable for a lot of illegal things.]
To quote Jesse Helms, "... I cant rightly define it, but I know it when I see it." [C-SPAN: hearings on Arts funding in light of "pronographic" art.]
And in other news, following their glowing success in their suits against MP3 dot Com and Napstar dot ComRIAA has decided to "let it ride!", filling suits against Washington University, Necmer Soft, Inc.,The Apache Group, Netscape, and Microsoft. Only Microsoft was available for comment saying, "... this is no different than STAC...", making reference to the buyout and dissolution of STAC by Microsoft a number of years ago.
Gez. Fuck it! Let's sue the whole damned country. (*whisper*) Oh, Metallica is already doing that...
[And people say Communism and Socialism are Evil (tm).]
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It's always been a commodity. ISPs just never make it a news item. Peering agreements are just part of the game for real ISPs.
They aren't "[paying] to cut out a competitor's access." Foo, Inc. buying a direct connection into the @Home network isn't going to prevent Bar, Inc. from being accessable. The only difference is speed and latency. This is no different from what many ISPs already do -- how many ISPs have private peering between each other? between themselves and Microsoft? The only thing is, they usually don't actively promote it -- and both sides are paying for it.
I applaud @Home's inventiveness. Might I suggest selling web proxies as well?
It might be a microscopic technicality, but this user is interfering with other people's ability to use their account. Additionally, this might fall under the general "play nice" clause in just about every AUP/TOS/Contract I've ever seen -- basically don't send harassing, offensive, etc. stuff. (Obviously, this person offended someone. Then again, they might have been offended by his mere breathing too.) I'm sure the ISP would give them another account as long as they didn't make themselves another target.
(lame comparison) Imagine there being a contract on you and people actively trying to kill you. You are in danager as much as you are endangering everyone around you. Granted, the cops generally don't stick you in prison, but they also don't let you just walk into the local Taco Bell either.
PS: I've gladly terminated a user's account for being a general jack-ass. As I recall, it was about five minutes from faxed complaint [he pissed off a newsgroup] to "put his stuff on this (AOL) floppy." I just smiled "ear to ear" as I archived his files with an amiga archiver -- good luck gettin' that stuff back. Muhahhah!
- Imagine loading another instance of Linux every time you had to launch a program.
That would waste about 4M of memory compared to most VM's need of 32M or more. Please try to keep in mind, JAVA is interpreted therefore it will always be slower than native instruction code -- some people will argue a few percent doesn't matter, but those are the same "idiots" who want the entire computer world to be text based (an "int" passed between programs as ascii text.)VMs don't always have a "max memory" setting. Neither Netscape nor IE have any place to specify the maximum memory the VM is allowed to eat -- it'll eat all the memory the machine has and then crash. If you invoke a runtime VM from a command-line then you can specify a max, but it won't necessarily have one if you don't set it.
Where I work, "we" use far too much java. It's slow (much slower than native C++) and wastes several orders of magnitude more memory. (Plus, JAVA doesn't have direct access to CORBA or ObjectStore.) AND jre's X11 display engine is the most horrid thing I've ever seen -- god help you if it's not displayed locally.
I'm just adding emphasis to it's instability. As one of the researchers joked in the PBS plip I saw, "Just look at it wrong and it'll burst into flames -- violently." They showed a drop of water buring as it came in contact with the orange dust -- it was the liberated H2 that was burning :-)
A better question is why these scientists went to the trouble to make this stuff. It's not like adding xenon and florine in a bowel and stirring.
Correction: Helium is completely inert. I know of zero instances where helium had been forcablly chemically bonded to anything. Xenon has been bonded to florine (XeF6 -- xenon hexafloride) with some rather extreme measures -- but it's 150% unstable.
Don't forget SO2 and H2SO4 :-) Both the US and USSR have sent probes to Venus. As I recall, they didn't last very long -- some didn't even make it to the surface before being destroyed.
Mass is one measure, but density is more important in looking at a gravitational field effect on an atmosphere -- most physics classes greatly simplify things by using a center of mass in the calculations, but on a planetary scale and an atmosphere... well, break out the cray.
I like that... it's alot like the fabled microbe to "eat" oil spills -- yeah, let's let that thing lose in the world. Or the Curt Voneget(sp?) concept of "Ice 9" from Cats Craddle -- blue crystal form of water at room temp.
Engineering lifeforms is an extremely dangerous thing to do. Makes me wonder how many times God has leaned back from the universe and said "oops" -- "Sorry I kill'd ya' Fidget!"
We already know how to "unfsck our own planet." Haven't you learned anything yet... What's the economic motivation to do so? (The "I'll be dead by the time they notice" problem.)
Well, people tend to forget a lot of things -- esp. considering most people know next to nothing about "rocket science".
:-) This kind of device is a heavenly gift to the planetary shipping industry. In effect, manned missions to Mars wouldn't require advanced air filtration and recycling technology (large heavy machines) and they certainly wouldn't have to carry a large supply of oxygen with them (read: more room for M&M's and Dr. Pepper.) This also has applications here on Earth in reducing the amount of CO2 we constantly throw into the atmosphere from fossil fuels.
Allow me to summarize: Mars is not Earth.
Mars is much further away from the sun than we are here on Earth. Mars is smaller and less massive than Earth. The surface conditions are vastly different from Earth -- lower atmospheric pressure, much lower average temperature, very little water, an atmosphere composed of mostly carbon dioxide, oh and vast sand storms than can last years...
Granted, I'm no physicist, but you don't need a PhD to know O2 is lighter than CO2. Translation: Mars doesn't have the gravity to keep an oxygen atmosphere. One must also observe the laws of thermodynamics. Thus, unless this device is based in alchemy, all you'll end up with is an equally thin oxygen atmosphere (which will slowly get thinner and bleed into space) + a huge pile of carbon. As a side effect of removing the CO2, the average surface temperature will decrease as less solar radiation is trapped by the now gone CO2.
SO... let us assume we instantly convert all the CO2 on Mars into O2. You still wouldn't be able to stand out under the stars and breathe easy -- you'd suffocate and "explode".
Now, let's be reasonable; no one is suggesting terraforming Mars
(Hmm, how long before DeBeers outlaws diamond production on Mars?)
Most of the ocean isn't that deep -- 300 miles above sea level is in orbit. Unless you're sailing over an oceanic trench somewhere, you'll only need about 5 miles of cable (on average.) Of course, it would be much simpler to find one of the cable trallers and tap in while it's near the surface *grin* (AT&T has a fleet of ships the pick the cable up, clean it, etc. There's a small problem with continental drift.)
As the Navy Capt'n joke goes... you're never more than five miles from land. (i.e. five miles straight down.)
Actually, I thought that regulation was tied to the radio equipment encrypting transmissions. If the data it was handed to transmit (say ssh traffic) was already encrypted, I don't think there's a problem. Anyway, the password is the only thing that needs to be "scrambled" -- it's just email :-)
Correction, IDSL is 144Kbps - period. IDSL is ISDN with most of the channel signalling removed. Their aren't any B channels or a D channel. It's simply the raw 144Kbps HDLC data stream. It's the same speed one inch from the CO as it is 10 miles from the CO. As it's not the "AM radio" signal that normally constitutes xDSL, the range can be extended by repeaters/booster and it can be trunked like all other digital data.
...
I'll never understand why people treat IDSL dramtically different from ISDN. An IDSL line runs from 40$ to 150$ for "always on" connectivity complete with static addresses. However, ISDN "dialup" is impossible to get anywhere near "always on", flat rate at 128k, or with a single static address for less than 200$. Maybe if the telcos would get their head out of their ass long enough to see the advantage of Packet Switched Data (for which ISDN is designed)
Competition is generally a good thing. However, there has to be a stable, profitable market and demand. If no one is willing to pay the cost of a service at the level of quality they demand, then competition cannot help; a company cannot run at an operating loss for extended periods -- this is where government traditionally steps in. (see also: dairy subsities)
Do you think anyone would be eager to step up and sell ISP services if people were only willing to pay 2$/month for dialup (56k modem and ISDN), 5$/month for DSL, or 7$/month for T3-like cable modem service? There's no way to make money like that. The "free ISPs" of the world are still very new to the scene and may very well fail hideously -- but then, they make money from advertising, not by selling connectivity. (If banner ads have taught us anything, it's that people become blind to them and even spend money on software to filter them out. How many banner ads are in the web pages you see everyday? How many do you notice? How many do you actually click on?)
- trained from birth to pick up even the smallest flaw
I'd have to differ with you there. How many times per week did you study "listening for flaws"? Humans are interesting creatures, however, we are surprizingly insensitive to many things. If you listen intently for specific flaws, then you are likely to hear them -- even when they aren't there. You might be surprised by the amount of damage to a digital audio signal that you cannot hear.I wouldn't say VoIP is "junk". It's not as perfect as conventional telephony, but for the price, you cannot beat it. I've setup and used VoIP and I found it to be on par with the quality of most cellular phones. The round-trip delay is alot higher and there are flitters of drops as packets get lost or too far out of sequence. In my case, the call was effectively zipping around the planet -- my desk in NC to CA via standard IP into GRIC's private IP network to a partner in Germany and back into the PSTN to a desk in London. There was about a half second delay (I was monitoring the call on my end.) Yes, it was far worse than me dialing London directly from my desk, but at 2.97 CENTS per minute, VoIP beat the crap out of convention telephony.
Yes, AIX and Solaris have their own distribution formats. However, AIX comes from IBM and only IBM, and Solaris comes from Sun and only Sun. Linux as a complete OS (technically, Linux is the kernel) comes from a dozen different sources.
:-) However, LINUX is a KERNEL; Redhat/SuSE/Debian/etc. are OPERATING SYSTEMS. There isn't an agreed upon standard for what makes a Linux OS, filesystem layout, or package. Every distribution will include its own administrative overhead, its own filesystem architecture, and its own package management structure.
The original Linux distributions, eons ago, were based on tar + gzip. Then the Redhat boys came along and decided tar just wasn't good enough -- it doesn't handle non-files very well nor does it carry any type of specs in the archive. They designed a package system centered on cpio which will archive almost anything with a custom header containing a variety of specifications. All of the distributions that followed adopted the Redhat paradigm of "packages" -- most of them just using the verbatium rpm.
Don't get me wrong; a package format is a good thing. Something other than tar is always a good thing
Not to sound like Evil from Time Bandits, but... If I were designing a distribution, I'd start with package management; 8 o'clock, day one. Personally, I like the solaris methodology... a package needs to have the ability to install components onto root and others to where ever the user wants. It also has to have the ability to be patched without completely reinstalling the selected package. It also has to have the ability to detect changes from the package base so as to prevent destruction of customizations, etc. [and so forth...]
"long long" is not a valid ANSI type. (most things will process it (correctly), however.)
The general rule is to never assume anything about byte sizes of common types that don't have concrete, defined sizes. "If in doubt, don't."
And this surprises you why? M$ has a very entrenched history of brain damaged shit along the lines of "portability".
Actually "SunOS" does usually require a rebuild to add a new scsi controller, network card, nfs support, more processes, etc... "Solaris" is modular and doesn't have those requirements -- tho' sometimes one must invoke adb to change a thing here or there. I've rebuilt IRIX kernels numerous times -- tweaking performance for a web server [thank god they stopped using SGI's.]
"Until a court rules against it", yes. One can write what ever they want into a contract and the courts can ignore every damned word of it.
Such actions people are touting (canceling a domain registration) is legal suicide no matter what words they invent for their contract... interfering with free trade, anti-competive pratices, predatory business practices, attempting to weld monoply power, etc. (basically, everything M$ has ever done.)
You forget... Microsoft owns part of NSI, so this will "never happen."
What do you expect from people who call everything a "web address"? They are starting to become as stupidly greedy as Micro$oft.
I suppose I'm putting out a fire with acetone, but...
So, how long before they start targeting MP3 search engines? [3pm MP3]
- Is the U.S. Post office liable for the content of mail it delivers? No.
Hmm, I wonder if anyone has ever tried to sue USPS for delivering a bomb?- Are manufacturers of TV broadcast equipment liable for the content of programs broadcast using their equipment? No.
No, but then again, they aren't broadcasting anything -- your analogy suggests Dell and Intel would be liable for computer virii; transmitters are "stand-alone" units. It's the broadcasting station that's liable for what's transmitted -- it's part of their FCC license.- Is Napster responsible for the contents of the files that it transferrs?
I would say "not directly", however, they are willingly assisting a crime. While, ultimately, it's the end-users who are the truely guilty, Napster is not completely guiltless -- they are, after all, holding the keys to the get-away car. You can argue there's no way to tell what transactions are legal or illegal -- that's something Napster has failed to address...As for FTP... "no more so than they ever have." There's a difference between making it possible to break a law, and facilitating the breaking of a law. FTPd only makes it possible to publish copyrighted material; the authors of the software are not active participants in the courying of files. If Napster were not "in the middle" "brokering" all the file transfers, then they too would not be facilitating a crime. [of course, that would suggest IRC is liable for a lot of illegal things.]
To quote Jesse Helms, "... I cant rightly define it, but I know it when I see it." [C-SPAN: hearings on Arts funding in light of "pronographic" art.]
And in other news, following their glowing success in their suits against MP3 dot Com and Napstar dot Com RIAA has decided to "let it ride!", filling suits against Washington University, Necmer Soft, Inc.,The Apache Group, Netscape, and Microsoft. Only Microsoft was available for comment saying, "... this is no different than STAC...", making reference to the buyout and dissolution of STAC by Microsoft a number of years ago.
Gez. Fuck it! Let's sue the whole damned country. (*whisper*) Oh, Metallica is already doing that...
[And people say Communism and Socialism are Evil (tm).]