Media and software are mediums that are inherently vulnerable to "stealing" by copying. And that's their problem, not mine. I'm not allowing them to make it mine either.
Many companies, though not all (and apparently not Sony), have enough sense to add to their EULA that these limitations may not apply to you as dictated by state law. In other words, it doesn't matter whether the person agreed to the EULA because that didn't apply to them anyway in that state. I've seen this before on software EULAs and other guarantees/refund policies.
Btw, I just have no more use for Sony anyway. They're DRMing their stuff to death so that you can barely use it after you pay for it and they, contrary to what they say, the do not make the best products. It's just their compnay policy that they make the best products, so if some of their products are reported to have problems, those problems don't exist and Sony denies them. Just say no to Sony.
I know I'm a bit late to the party, but I'll go ahead and post this rant anyway. (This is still/. right? Good, I can rant.) First of all, I must say I feel sorry for this guy, getting so thoroughly screwed by MS, if it happened like he said it did.
I don't know about anyone else, but I'm sick to death of all these companies bickering over their trademark names. And it's every company in every type of business, it seems. They're always quivering in terror that someone is using their name. The only excuse they have is that it might generate confusion among their custoemrs. Bullshit. All it takes to prevent this confusion is a clear disclaimer that they are not afiliated with the company, as long as said disclaimer isn't buried in fine print. But nooooooo. They file lawsuits and waste everybody's time with this crap. All to protect us customers from confusion, based on the premise that we all have an average IQ of 10.
Now I'm going desecrate what is sacred to many geeks here. The Linux world is just as bad about trademark names as Microsoft! It's true. Debian won't let another distro use their name. Debian Pure is now Genie OS, even though all it seems to be is an alternate installer; otherwise it is Debian. Most laughably, the guy who developed Squiggle OS changed it to Squiggle from Freespire after a talk with people at Linspire, and the ink on their settlement with MS barely dry over the name Lindows. And I'm sure we all remember how RH was about their name before they put out Fedora; you could sell RH the regular distro, under the terms of the GPL, but you couldn't even list what you were selling as the distro it was. All we need is something like this:
Such & Such (product)
Independent & Not Associated with Such & Such, Inc.
So MS may be guilty yet again for screwing somebody over again. No surprise. They really need to get it through their heads that they can't own words they didn't invent (although the same could be said for Tolkien's estate and the word "hobbit" - no, he didnt' make that up). But every company in the world is apparently just as paranoid over the use of their name or anything even similar to their name. Soon enough you'll have to wait twenty days or longer to finsih the research on whether or not the name of your new company is even slightly similar to the name of another company. This does not earn my respect, in fact, I'm disgusted with the lot of them. It's very easy to think of them as bullies, protecting their names with lawyerly force against people who can't afford to fight back when they weren't really trying to deceive anyone to begin with. If they were trying to deceive people, I could understand it, but how often does someone who is doing that get sued or threatened by the company whose name they're using under false pretenses, in comparison to cases like this? 1 in 20? 1 in 100? That's likely not even in the ballpark.
There. Rant over. As you might have guessed, this is something that has been bugging me for a while. Thanks for reading.
Here's why these things happen so much with Windows: no developer ever sees all of the code, only their own portion. They don't work together. One developer has few, if any, clues what the other developers are doing. This is Microsoft's idea of securing the code (Didn't work, did it?)
Traditionally, Microsoft Windows is built by thousands of software engineers, each producing their own segments of code that are stitched together into one program. From Microsoft Admits Trouble with Windows
Imagine it this way. Joe, Bob, Dave and Greg are coding a program. Each of them is assigned different parts of the same program. Bob's code conflicts with Greg's. Dave's code covers part of what Joe wrote, but accomplishes the same thing in a different fashion. Nobody writes a bit of code that would protect the program from a vulnerability to a certain file type.
Now multiply that by a few hundred, like a freakin' huge patchwork quilt added onto and re-sewn by generations of half-blind seamstresses. That's how Windows has been written, from 95 and on. So are the indivdual developers to blame? Some certainly could have been lazy or just mistaken (and probably have been). But since Microsft has deliberately made the code for their OS into such a total mess, how could you find out which developers to hold responsible? So you see, the problem isn't really Micorosoft's developers, it's Microsoft the company.
Now, normally, I'd agree with you. If you've got, say, 20 developers on a project working together and a vulnerability like this crops up, they are directly resposible. But in a case when they are effectively working blind at the company's behest, they don't know what their co-workers are doing or have done, so they can truthfully say they only did the part they were supposed to and wasn't that supposed to be taken care of by Department Z and not even be passing the buck, just confused.
Exactly. Even if I won the lottery this week, you wouldn't see me running out to get a new video card that costs over $150. In fact, I don't need a new video card at all (*knocks on wooden desk*) so I don't see a reason to upgrade. The one I've got works fine. Not to mention that you frequently run into compatibility issues getting the latest and greatest hardware even on Windows (e.g., your favorite game may not work with the new card and it may take them months to cough up a driver that it will work with that game).
Nevertheless, I can't say I blame the industry so much as the people who think they have to have the latest and most powerful hardware; after all, what are they rushing out to get this stuff for except for bragging rights? I say, let the manufacturers produce expensive cards like this, which they're pretending isn't expensive - by the time I need it, the cost will have (usually) come down to something more reasonable anyway.
This is so very true. The business model of almost all corporations these days is "you'll buy what we offer and that's that, becaue we don't need you". They're not even trying - why bother trying to make good quality products when you can just patent everything and drive out competition? But competition appears anyway. And then they're response is "WTF?! We're losing money! Let's screw our customers for their pocket change!". It never even occurs to them to make better products or offer a better service in order to compete.
Yeah, I know this post sounds trollish, but that's the way it is in layman's terms. Crude, but true.
True, but that could be esily fixed in a few months. All it would require is there be a link to a page that features instructions on how to change it on your web page. After that, you need it publicized and their own ISPs could do that easily (e.g., you log in and on your user page there's a link on the subject, and also on their support page). Three months, most active sites could change to be more friendly to all browsers, and only unmaintained pages would still be IE only.
But from what I'm reading from those with first-hand knowledge of South Korea, I doubt this switch will go over. Too bad, although I think Xandros OCE would be a better choice than Linspire for people so accustomed to Windows (free, not stripped down like Linspire, much better compatibility with Debian repositories, etc).
From my experience with using both Windows and Linux, I'd have to say that depends on what kinds of games they like. There are more free "little" games for Linux than for Windows out there. Free little games for Windows are really little in comparison to what's available for Linux; most of the games you can get free for Linux would cost at least $15 for a similar game on Windows. But "big" games for Linux are relatively few. In that way, someone who doesn't like to get into big, involved storyline games is better off with Linux than Windows.
Actually, I could see an invasion ending exactly that way. "Let's scan for harmful bacteria. Yep, there's plenty. Let's innoculate ourselves. Ok, we're innoculated. Nothing can stop us now....... Oh wait. This bacteria is growing immune to the vaccine/it's interacting with other bacteria in us/the vaccine (or some drug, whatever) caused it to mutate, etc."
Of course, that depends on the aliens being just as prone to mistakes and overconfidence as we humans.
A very good point. But what I want to know is this:
SCO threatened comapnies, saying pay us a licensing fee or face a lawsuit for using the products such as Linux that were made with our stolen code, which was legally never stolen in the first place. Microsoft is one of the few companies that did pay up ($14 million, if I recall corretly, but naturally that's pocket change to MS). So.... why isn't anyone suing SCO for extortion? That is what they did, both legally and morally. If they'd threatned my software/site/whatever on that claim, that's what I'd be doing. Or is SCO in legal trouble for extortion? If they are, we need links.
I like you. That is exactly the way it should be but almost ceratinaly never will be. Corpporations are made up of people, but the corporations themselves should not have the same rights as individual people.
(Yes, I know that was off-topic, but I've got the karma to burn anyway.)
The patent system wasn't designed to patent ideas at all, only the implemetations of ideas. Unfortunately, that was before the rampant patent abuse of the modern era. If you try to patent an idea, you will find you can't, but it's definitely not the same for a powerful corporation, no matter how much those in the patent office try to say differently - you can confirm this by reviewing the guidelines on patents and then read the patents some corporations hold. The only questio is, for how much longer will this continue?
Re:Zombies in Reality
on
How Zombies Work
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
Do a search on Clairvius Narcisse. Still not conclusive proof for the zombie drug, but the facts are: the man was supposed to be dead and buried when he turned up 18 years later. It took him months to recover from near-catatonia and he claimed to ahve sold as a zombie slave. He was afraid to go home for some time after that because he believed his brother was involved in what happened to him. After his brother died, he finally re-united with the family who thought he's been dead for 20 years.
Fobes and others are upset that bloggers don't simply adore them? Oh, that's so horrible! Brings tears to my eyes, it does.
Bloggers are only saying what people would say anyway if there weren't blogs. The difference is that what they say is published. As many have already pointed out, they don't like the proles rising up and being heard. What's even worse is that their poor products and under-handed schemes remain published, unlike the one-night sensation on the news that is quickly fogotten. Blogging is a form of publishing that is difficult to control, unlike the "real" news media. Modern technology and the itnernet makes that possible. And Forbes (among others) are complaining? Boohoo. Get used to it. It's here, now, and it ain't going away. In other words, quit yer whining.
'Course, not giving so many people a good reason to attack you in the first place just might help deflect some future attacks.....
If they were not an evil company out to rape my wallet, Windows XP would not require online activation to use after I pay for it. Furthermore, it would not require re-activation if I should have to reinstall it - which MS has failed to do for several people. You can blather away about software piracy all you want, but when you're talking about one of the richest companies in the world and in the history of the world, it all comes down to is greed on an overwhelming scale. I would have bought XP if not for the activation problem. It's done a great job of preventing piracy hasn't it? It's also preventing people like me from buying it at all. I'm on Win 2k and have no intention of buying XP ever. Yes, all software is prone to piracy by it's very nature, but that's their problem, not mine, and I'm nto going to jump through hoops to earn the privilege to use software after I pay for it. Hello Linux!
And speaking of the most feature-filled, least buggy and most compatible softwarem what about Windows ME? I had to buy a copy of Win 2k to replace it because it was almost unusable, between the blue screens and continual freezing up. We actually called Microsoft tech support about this. The guy we got hold of was whispering into the phone and said "Yes, there are problems with Windows ME". We asked when there might be patches to fix these problems. He whispered back "There aren't going to be". He was right, of course, because soon after that Windows XP came out. Windows ME has never been fixed to this day. So I have paid for two Microsoft OSes in my time, one of which I couldn't make use of because it was too buggy.
Hey, here's an idea. Wonder how many people who are pirating XP also paid for Windows ME? Maybe they feel like MS owed them a working operating system - which they do. So when is Microsoft going to refund the money to all the people who bought Windows ME or exchange their copies for a working version of Windows? Never.
I hate online RPGs because of stupid rules like that. And there's nothing you can do about it. I was reminded of this recently when playing Neverwinter Nights; there's a lot of rules in 3rd Edition D&D that I hate, possibly because I'm an old-time gamer, but when playing NWN I have no choice. I quit playing it because it got to the point that having to swallow these bad rules whole was ruining the fun altogether. So give me pen & paper RPGs any day; you can keep the computer RPGs. In a pen & paper RPG, if it's agreed that a particular rule is stupid, it can be ignored or replaced.
Agreed. The Patriot Act is not a law that might be easy to abuse, it is a law that was expressly designed to be abused - the illegal search and seizure that was forbidden by the Bill of Rights. Not only that, the Patriot Act states that they can do so secretly and need not ever tell anyone what happened to the person they've arrested, let alone give them a fair trial of any sort. You don't write a law like that with the peoples' best interests at heart. So is it being abused now? So how a many people have been rounded up under the Patriot Act? Remember, they don't have to tell us, so how are we supposed to know? Exactly.
And all the years when I was growing up every single official in the US loudly criticzed Soviet Russia for these same activities. Movies and tv shows constantly had people being disappeared by the Soviet government. There were even a few news reports over here about that. Remember, comrade?
Also Xnview. But I recommend FastStone Image Viewer the most; it does basic editing functions, viewing (of course), can take screen shots without fuss and more.
Well, as a member of the American public, I can say for sure that I certainly would (if it were for real, which it looks like it isn't). My husband has a long commute to work, none of his co-workers live near us so there can't be a car pool, and the high gas prices are really hurting us financially. We have to spend more than three times to pay for one week's gas than we did two years ago, and that's just for the minimum necessary. There are a lot of ther people we know who are also hurting financially due to the high price of gas. Not all Americans are well-to-do folks talking on their cell phones while driving their SUVs; some are still poor, hard-working people.
Slashdot Mirror
Media and software are mediums that are inherently vulnerable to "stealing" by copying. And that's their problem, not mine. I'm not allowing them to make it mine either.
Many companies, though not all (and apparently not Sony), have enough sense to add to their EULA that these limitations may not apply to you as dictated by state law. In other words, it doesn't matter whether the person agreed to the EULA because that didn't apply to them anyway in that state. I've seen this before on software EULAs and other guarantees/refund policies.
Btw, I just have no more use for Sony anyway. They're DRMing their stuff to death so that you can barely use it after you pay for it and they, contrary to what they say, the do not make the best products. It's just their compnay policy that they make the best products, so if some of their products are reported to have problems, those problems don't exist and Sony denies them. Just say no to Sony.
I know I'm a bit late to the party, but I'll go ahead and post this rant anyway. (This is still /. right? Good, I can rant.) First of all, I must say I feel sorry for this guy, getting so thoroughly screwed by MS, if it happened like he said it did.
I don't know about anyone else, but I'm sick to death of all these companies bickering over their trademark names. And it's every company in every type of business, it seems. They're always quivering in terror that someone is using their name. The only excuse they have is that it might generate confusion among their custoemrs. Bullshit. All it takes to prevent this confusion is a clear disclaimer that they are not afiliated with the company, as long as said disclaimer isn't buried in fine print. But nooooooo. They file lawsuits and waste everybody's time with this crap. All to protect us customers from confusion, based on the premise that we all have an average IQ of 10.
Now I'm going desecrate what is sacred to many geeks here. The Linux world is just as bad about trademark names as Microsoft! It's true. Debian won't let another distro use their name. Debian Pure is now Genie OS, even though all it seems to be is an alternate installer; otherwise it is Debian. Most laughably, the guy who developed Squiggle OS changed it to Squiggle from Freespire after a talk with people at Linspire, and the ink on their settlement with MS barely dry over the name Lindows. And I'm sure we all remember how RH was about their name before they put out Fedora; you could sell RH the regular distro, under the terms of the GPL, but you couldn't even list what you were selling as the distro it was. All we need is something like this:
Such & Such (product)
Independent & Not Associated with Such & Such, Inc.
So MS may be guilty yet again for screwing somebody over again. No surprise. They really need to get it through their heads that they can't own words they didn't invent (although the same could be said for Tolkien's estate and the word "hobbit" - no, he didnt' make that up). But every company in the world is apparently just as paranoid over the use of their name or anything even similar to their name. Soon enough you'll have to wait twenty days or longer to finsih the research on whether or not the name of your new company is even slightly similar to the name of another company. This does not earn my respect, in fact, I'm disgusted with the lot of them. It's very easy to think of them as bullies, protecting their names with lawyerly force against people who can't afford to fight back when they weren't really trying to deceive anyone to begin with. If they were trying to deceive people, I could understand it, but how often does someone who is doing that get sued or threatened by the company whose name they're using under false pretenses, in comparison to cases like this? 1 in 20? 1 in 100? That's likely not even in the ballpark.
There. Rant over. As you might have guessed, this is something that has been bugging me for a while. Thanks for reading.
Here's why these things happen so much with Windows: no developer ever sees all of the code, only their own portion. They don't work together. One developer has few, if any, clues what the other developers are doing. This is Microsoft's idea of securing the code (Didn't work, did it?)
Traditionally, Microsoft Windows is built by thousands of software engineers, each producing their own segments of code that are stitched together into one program. From Microsoft Admits Trouble with Windows
Imagine it this way. Joe, Bob, Dave and Greg are coding a program. Each of them is assigned different parts of the same program. Bob's code conflicts with Greg's. Dave's code covers part of what Joe wrote, but accomplishes the same thing in a different fashion. Nobody writes a bit of code that would protect the program from a vulnerability to a certain file type.
Now multiply that by a few hundred, like a freakin' huge patchwork quilt added onto and re-sewn by generations of half-blind seamstresses. That's how Windows has been written, from 95 and on. So are the indivdual developers to blame? Some certainly could have been lazy or just mistaken (and probably have been). But since Microsft has deliberately made the code for their OS into such a total mess, how could you find out which developers to hold responsible? So you see, the problem isn't really Micorosoft's developers, it's Microsoft the company.
Now, normally, I'd agree with you. If you've got, say, 20 developers on a project working together and a vulnerability like this crops up, they are directly resposible. But in a case when they are effectively working blind at the company's behest, they don't know what their co-workers are doing or have done, so they can truthfully say they only did the part they were supposed to and wasn't that supposed to be taken care of by Department Z and not even be passing the buck, just confused.
You obviously haven't seen Tubgirl yet. No, I'm not posting a link (Ick!!!!!)
Exactly. Even if I won the lottery this week, you wouldn't see me running out to get a new video card that costs over $150. In fact, I don't need a new video card at all (*knocks on wooden desk*) so I don't see a reason to upgrade. The one I've got works fine. Not to mention that you frequently run into compatibility issues getting the latest and greatest hardware even on Windows (e.g., your favorite game may not work with the new card and it may take them months to cough up a driver that it will work with that game).
Nevertheless, I can't say I blame the industry so much as the people who think they have to have the latest and most powerful hardware; after all, what are they rushing out to get this stuff for except for bragging rights? I say, let the manufacturers produce expensive cards like this, which they're pretending isn't expensive - by the time I need it, the cost will have (usually) come down to something more reasonable anyway.
Ok, so where are these books that are made of cheese? I'm hungry! Are any made of sharp chedar? Monterey Jack?
This is so very true. The business model of almost all corporations these days is "you'll buy what we offer and that's that, becaue we don't need you". They're not even trying - why bother trying to make good quality products when you can just patent everything and drive out competition? But competition appears anyway. And then they're response is "WTF?! We're losing money! Let's screw our customers for their pocket change!". It never even occurs to them to make better products or offer a better service in order to compete.
Yeah, I know this post sounds trollish, but that's the way it is in layman's terms. Crude, but true.
He's only 8. Barring disaster, he's got plenty of time.
True, but that could be esily fixed in a few months. All it would require is there be a link to a page that features instructions on how to change it on your web page. After that, you need it publicized and their own ISPs could do that easily (e.g., you log in and on your user page there's a link on the subject, and also on their support page). Three months, most active sites could change to be more friendly to all browsers, and only unmaintained pages would still be IE only.
But from what I'm reading from those with first-hand knowledge of South Korea, I doubt this switch will go over. Too bad, although I think Xandros OCE would be a better choice than Linspire for people so accustomed to Windows (free, not stripped down like Linspire, much better compatibility with Debian repositories, etc).
From my experience with using both Windows and Linux, I'd have to say that depends on what kinds of games they like. There are more free "little" games for Linux than for Windows out there. Free little games for Windows are really little in comparison to what's available for Linux; most of the games you can get free for Linux would cost at least $15 for a similar game on Windows. But "big" games for Linux are relatively few. In that way, someone who doesn't like to get into big, involved storyline games is better off with Linux than Windows.
Actually, I could see an invasion ending exactly that way. "Let's scan for harmful bacteria. Yep, there's plenty. Let's innoculate ourselves. Ok, we're innoculated. Nothing can stop us now....... Oh wait. This bacteria is growing immune to the vaccine/it's interacting with other bacteria in us/the vaccine (or some drug, whatever) caused it to mutate, etc."
Of course, that depends on the aliens being just as prone to mistakes and overconfidence as we humans.
So it's not just another MS project. That's interesting. But who will own the copyright to it when it's finished?
Mice singers have groupies! And they don't even play guitar. That freaks me out, man.
A very good point. But what I want to know is this:
SCO threatened comapnies, saying pay us a licensing fee or face a lawsuit for using the products such as Linux that were made with our stolen code, which was legally never stolen in the first place. Microsoft is one of the few companies that did pay up ($14 million, if I recall corretly, but naturally that's pocket change to MS). So.... why isn't anyone suing SCO for extortion? That is what they did, both legally and morally. If they'd threatned my software/site/whatever on that claim, that's what I'd be doing. Or is SCO in legal trouble for extortion? If they are, we need links.
I like you. That is exactly the way it should be but almost ceratinaly never will be. Corpporations are made up of people, but the corporations themselves should not have the same rights as individual people.
(Yes, I know that was off-topic, but I've got the karma to burn anyway.)
The patent system wasn't designed to patent ideas at all, only the implemetations of ideas. Unfortunately, that was before the rampant patent abuse of the modern era. If you try to patent an idea, you will find you can't, but it's definitely not the same for a powerful corporation, no matter how much those in the patent office try to say differently - you can confirm this by reviewing the guidelines on patents and then read the patents some corporations hold. The only questio is, for how much longer will this continue?
Do a search on Clairvius Narcisse. Still not conclusive proof for the zombie drug, but the facts are: the man was supposed to be dead and buried when he turned up 18 years later. It took him months to recover from near-catatonia and he claimed to ahve sold as a zombie slave. He was afraid to go home for some time after that because he believed his brother was involved in what happened to him. After his brother died, he finally re-united with the family who thought he's been dead for 20 years.
The story of Clairvius Narcisse
Wikipedia entry
Passage of Darkness
Perfect subject to research for Halloween, huh?
Fobes and others are upset that bloggers don't simply adore them? Oh, that's so horrible! Brings tears to my eyes, it does.
Bloggers are only saying what people would say anyway if there weren't blogs. The difference is that what they say is published. As many have already pointed out, they don't like the proles rising up and being heard. What's even worse is that their poor products and under-handed schemes remain published, unlike the one-night sensation on the news that is quickly fogotten. Blogging is a form of publishing that is difficult to control, unlike the "real" news media. Modern technology and the itnernet makes that possible. And Forbes (among others) are complaining? Boohoo. Get used to it. It's here, now, and it ain't going away. In other words, quit yer whining.
'Course, not giving so many people a good reason to attack you in the first place just might help deflect some future attacks.....
If they were not an evil company out to rape my wallet, Windows XP would not require online activation to use after I pay for it. Furthermore, it would not require re-activation if I should have to reinstall it - which MS has failed to do for several people. You can blather away about software piracy all you want, but when you're talking about one of the richest companies in the world and in the history of the world, it all comes down to is greed on an overwhelming scale. I would have bought XP if not for the activation problem. It's done a great job of preventing piracy hasn't it? It's also preventing people like me from buying it at all. I'm on Win 2k and have no intention of buying XP ever. Yes, all software is prone to piracy by it's very nature, but that's their problem, not mine, and I'm nto going to jump through hoops to earn the privilege to use software after I pay for it. Hello Linux!
And speaking of the most feature-filled, least buggy and most compatible softwarem what about Windows ME? I had to buy a copy of Win 2k to replace it because it was almost unusable, between the blue screens and continual freezing up. We actually called Microsoft tech support about this. The guy we got hold of was whispering into the phone and said "Yes, there are problems with Windows ME". We asked when there might be patches to fix these problems. He whispered back "There aren't going to be". He was right, of course, because soon after that Windows XP came out. Windows ME has never been fixed to this day. So I have paid for two Microsoft OSes in my time, one of which I couldn't make use of because it was too buggy.
Hey, here's an idea. Wonder how many people who are pirating XP also paid for Windows ME? Maybe they feel like MS owed them a working operating system - which they do. So when is Microsoft going to refund the money to all the people who bought Windows ME or exchange their copies for a working version of Windows? Never.
I hate online RPGs because of stupid rules like that. And there's nothing you can do about it. I was reminded of this recently when playing Neverwinter Nights; there's a lot of rules in 3rd Edition D&D that I hate, possibly because I'm an old-time gamer, but when playing NWN I have no choice. I quit playing it because it got to the point that having to swallow these bad rules whole was ruining the fun altogether. So give me pen & paper RPGs any day; you can keep the computer RPGs. In a pen & paper RPG, if it's agreed that a particular rule is stupid, it can be ignored or replaced.
Agreed. The Patriot Act is not a law that might be easy to abuse, it is a law that was expressly designed to be abused - the illegal search and seizure that was forbidden by the Bill of Rights. Not only that, the Patriot Act states that they can do so secretly and need not ever tell anyone what happened to the person they've arrested, let alone give them a fair trial of any sort. You don't write a law like that with the peoples' best interests at heart. So is it being abused now? So how a many people have been rounded up under the Patriot Act? Remember, they don't have to tell us, so how are we supposed to know? Exactly.
And all the years when I was growing up every single official in the US loudly criticzed Soviet Russia for these same activities. Movies and tv shows constantly had people being disappeared by the Soviet government. There were even a few news reports over here about that. Remember, comrade?
It's a helluva lot more than I usually get. I'm most often paid with beer. "Will Hack for Beer", that's me.
Also Xnview. But I recommend FastStone Image Viewer the most; it does basic editing functions, viewing (of course), can take screen shots without fuss and more.
Well, as a member of the American public, I can say for sure that I certainly would (if it were for real, which it looks like it isn't). My husband has a long commute to work, none of his co-workers live near us so there can't be a car pool, and the high gas prices are really hurting us financially. We have to spend more than three times to pay for one week's gas than we did two years ago, and that's just for the minimum necessary. There are a lot of ther people we know who are also hurting financially due to the high price of gas. Not all Americans are well-to-do folks talking on their cell phones while driving their SUVs; some are still poor, hard-working people.