Save As, Office 97-2003 Document (.doc) You can even set this option as your default, I am pretty sure.
You aren't FORCED to use the new file formats. You can use Word, Excel, and Powerpoint 2007/2010 without ever creating a DOCX, XLSX, or PPTX file. The only way you are "Forced" into the new file format is if people you share documents with refuse to save the document in the old format. Even then, Office 2003 at the very least (And I believe Office 2000 and Office XP) have a converter tool free from Microsoft that you can install to allow you to open the docx files.
I can tell you one very enormous thing that you can do with Office 2010 that you can't do with Office 2000. Get mail using RPC over HTTPS. I have found this to be a HUGE hit for companies that I have worked for. Instead of popping mail, using Outlook Web Access, a Firewall/VPN solution, or jumping on Remote Desktop, users simply open Outlook when they are at home just as they would at work. The speed is consistently good and along with the fact that it is so convienient makes this a huge upgrade.
Regarding Windows 7 vs. Windows XP, I'd have to say the answer is "Use 16 GB of RAM". Windows XP 64-Bit was pretty much terrible. Windows 7 64-Bit? Not terrible. With Engineering (Cad, 3d modeling) tools and software development tools increasing in complexity, having enough RAM to avoid constant paging is very nice.
There. Two decent examples without thinking much about your question.
I thought there was a story about a year ago where Microsoft was buying back Microsoft Stock with its cash reserves. That would explain why they have significantly less hard cash laying around, as I'm pretty sure they didn't just buy 10 shares.
I would imagine that they don't really want people going over to google at all. People use Google's search and like it. People use Google Mail and like it. People use Google Docs and like it. Suddenly the idea pops into some heads that "Hey, instead of paying for Exchange, Office, Server 2003, and all of this other crap lets move everything over to the Googleplex of Google Cloud Solutions instead. Microsoft wants to avoid that at all costs.
If everyone typed "Bing.com" instead of "Google.com" when they wanted to search the Internet, they wouldn't be exposed to all those shiny Google Applications that could lure people away from some of Microsoft's core products. I'd also have to guess that at some point Bing will become more "Google Like" in that they will have "Bing Search", "Bing Office", "Bing Exchange", and especially "Bing VendorLockIn". Windows/Office/Exchange/Sharepoint/SQL/Windows Server may be the turnkey solution of today, but the Internet is becoming more vital to business of all sizes. Search/Maps/Social networks/Next Big thing may need to be part of that turnkey solution five to ten years from now.
I actually have to applaud Microsoft for showing some foresight here and not just looking at present day numbers and saying "No Profit in this new sector? Cut it." Compare this to the XXAA's and Newspapers who are thinking "we have been doing business this way for 1000 years and we don't want to change." Microsoft does some really idiotic things but I have to say this isn't one of them.
I have to wonder if that doesn't have something to do with corporate purchases. I doubt many businesses have already moved to Windows 7 (although I have no idea what the Windows 7 in the workplace penetration has been) but I'm thinking a lot of them are considering it in the near future.
With the economy as it was this year, IT departments probably submitted a smaller budget, got it approved, and sat on it for the year in case of disaster. End of year comes and their attempts at being frugal leave quite a bit of unused budget money. In a sane business world, they would have left the money unused and been applauded by the higher ups. In reality, the higher ups would think "Awesome! I can give myself a bigger bonus. I figured IT could run on a smaller budget. I can't wait to slash their next year's budget to less than the amount they spent this year, giving me an even larger bonus next year."
Realizing that leaving the money unspent would be slitting their department's wrists for the future, IT managers probably saw that Microsoft released Windows 7, and just went and blew the wad on upgrading their volume license agreements from Windows XP, Server 2003, Exchange 2003, and Office 2003 to Windows 7, Server 2008, Exchange 2010, and Office 2007. They know they'll want/have to do it sooner or later. Might as well spring for it now. You can lay out a 2 year plan of testing and rolling out all the new Client and Server stuff at the same time, which will also give you the ability to say "Look at all this work that we are going to do...we can't lose any of our staff during this critical transition" so that their department isn't gutted in cost saving measures.
This may not be what happened, but it seems plausible to me. I have no evidence to back up said claims and I thought of it just now so it could be an utterly foolish idea.
How is this for an objective? Let's put a man (or woman) on Mars. That doesn't seem like all that ambiguous of a goal. Oh, and it isn't something that I just dreamed up in my wildly imaginative and brilliant mind...it is a goal that millions of others have already thought of. Now that we have that problem solved, let's get to it!
I wish my Boss (actually, most of the people I work with) would forward E-Mail to me, or write me E-Mail in general. I work at a place with a bunch of people who are generally not very good with tech stuff. I sent out informative messages/questions, I get "We'll have to sit down and discuss this." Trying to find a good time for both parties to be free ends up taking longer than sending an Email message would have.
Email you can read and respond to when you find time. The Email isn't really important? You can just take 2 second to file it away in case it is someday important. If the boss wants to send me every joke and every detail of his day in an EMAIL. Fine. It is better than sitting in a fucking meeting and listening to said things.
My Dad works in a Factory. It is a "heavy industry" factory that produces draglines and the like for mining raw materials. He works on the shop floor, operating a machine like your typical factory grunt. Did I mention he has pulled in over $100k in some recent years? Granted he had to put it some significant overtime to reach that number but the potential to have a very nice job in a manufacturing facility is there. Note that he is a bright guy but the closest he came to college was visiting me to party it up when I was attending.
So overall, yeah. I think manufacturing isn't as bad as some think it is.
Then again, the creator MAY have been a genius. Perhaps he was told "Put this enormous program together in one month or the company is screwed." In cases like that, poorly thought out algorithms, bloated classes, using variables with names like "x", "y", "z" with no comments, nothing really works except for the absolute bare minimum required and other coding no-nos probably do not seem that important. Given appropriate time and resources, perhaps he could have written the greatest code EVAR! Given a very limited time frame and managing to save the company would probably qualify them as a genius.
You know....I guess I never really thought about it but what the hell is that Malicious Software Removal Tool anyway? Does it actually....you know...remove malicious software?
Really, this is a pretty Golden Opportunity for Microsoft to really push its "Windows Security Essentials" or whatever it is called. "You are about to install some new security updates. It is highly recommended that you scan your system with Microsoft Security Essentials before receiving these updates. Click "Yes" to automatically download, install, and scan your computer for any potential problems during the update process.
Yes, we all know Windows has some security holes. We can argue until we are blue in the face as to who is at fault for these holes. I do have a hard time blaming Microsoft if a "3rd party" piece of software is causing an update to blow up computers. You can't really expect them to find a machine, infect it with every malware/virus/rootkit variant (not to mention legitimate software) and run the updates to ensure that they will not crash the system.
"More Retarded than Sarah Palin" shouldn't be a negative mod. To post something that deserves that tag requires something so special that it would need to be marked up to +10 so we could all marvel at the intricacies of that user's "mind". Don't worry, it would not be common. Someone as special as Palin comes around only once per generation.
I think your point about what is "right to bear arms" is a very big one. Their most destructive weapon at the time was what? A canon? Some crude explosives? Flintlock rifles? Does the right to bear arms give us the right to own a Shoulder mounted surface to air missle? A tank? An Apache chopper? An atomic/nuclear bomb? A device with a biochemical payload? A stealth bomber? Even more realistically, how about malicious software? Distributing a Virus, creating a DoS botnet, installing keyloggers...right now they are used for criminal activities. In the future if we were forced to rise up against an oppressive regime, I believe that the information warfare battlefront would be a very important one. Whichever side destroys the others ability to coordinate information is going to have a massive advantage.
I really am a supporter of the Constitution and would prefer to adhere to its principles as long as possible. However, I don't know how long we can use a (modified) 200+ year old document. It is still mostly viable now but how much less relevant will it be in the year 2100? 2200? 4000? How many modifications will it require over the span of those years. The framers of the constitution were very intelligent men with quite a bit of foresight. They obviously were very careful in their wording of the document. They were not, however, infallible and did not have the gift of seeing hundreds of years into the future. Not in their wildest dreams would they have dreamed up society as it is today.
There is also the problem of later modifications to the Constitution and starting in large part by John Marshall, the loose interpretations that kind of set of precedent for bastardizing the original intent of the words. If those interpretations were changes for the positive or negative is up for debate but I think it certainly waters down the quaint notion of the original words forever being the law of the land.
To be fair, it sounds like he talked his (Well Underage?) niece into being an honest person. Frankly with all the illegal downloading that kids do these days I think this is actually quite an accomplishment in itself. Maybe he is around his brother/sisters house several times a week. Doubtful. In this case, he would have had to teach his niece about backups, the importance of backups, and hoped she would go through the hassle anytime she spent some money on music. She is already (in her mind) being inconvienced by paying for music that her friends get for free. Pushing her to go through extra hoops isn't going to encourage her any more.
After all, Limewire will allow you to "recover" your songs if something goes wrong. Why pay money if you get LESS service than stealing the music? Besides, isn't "Cloud" computing the new fad? Your data, backed up and safe on a huge corporation's servers instead of your crappy home computer? The music store has the bytes. She paid for the bytes. It costs them nearly nothing to replace the bytes. What is the problem? Seriously? If I were in headkase's shoes I'd tell my niece "Well, you just learned how the world really works. It sucks. Everyone will fuck you as often and as hard as possible. Sorry you have to become jaded at this age, but you might as well steal as honesty isn't rewarded.
Update - I checked with the person who had lent me the telescope back in the day and it was actually a 6". Remember how faint the Red Spot was...yeah. You probably won't see it with a 4".
I had a decent telescope when I was a kid. I thought it was a 4" reflector. Perhaps maybe a little bigger. I know that on at least one occasion I was able to faintly see the great Red Spot. Red Spot + watching the position of the four moons over a period of days was actually pretty exciting for me.
I think if you are running Windows 2000, you are stuck on IE 6, right?
Just a thought. I still see posts here ranting and raving about Windows 2000 being the be all end all of Windows software and how they'll never upgrade to XP, Vista, or Windows 7 because Windows 2000 is fine.
Really, this is my best advice. It is hard to really make your wife/girlfriend think she is important when it appears that every other person in the world is also out for dinner at the place your choice (or a nicer place). You will be herded in like cattle, some generic Valentines Day special things will be found at the tables (candles, special napkins, whatever) but they won't be special or unique as every table will have them. It will be loud, crowded, and uncomfortable even if you do drop a good amount of money at a nice establishment.
Usually I will take the time and cook a fancy meal by myself, something I usually wouldn't do. She gets that nice meal and sees me slaving away to deliver it. Our house is much quieter and private than an overloaded eatery which leads to great conversation (except in one case where she was so in awe by my to that point unknown culinary talents that she preferred to keep trying the different things I cooked rather than talk much.) After that, an activity you both like (hopefully...if not you'll have to settle on one she likes) is good. This can be anything but hopefully not going to the Movie Theater...which will also be crowded and irritating like places to eat.
You are probably correct that the "Good Ole' Boys Club" mentality is the root of the problem. However, you or I who are both white males, could probably work at getting into the Club. It would require us to clean up a little bit, buy nicer clothes to "Dress for Success", polish up the Golf game, start attending "Paranet" or other meetings of the sort, get over that feeling of discomfort that is felt when hearing offensive racist/sexist type jokes (getting comfortable telling them would be better), and generally put on a facade of being "normal" and well off financially.
Women and Minorities are going to have a higher barrier of entry. The Racist/Sexist jokes would disappear from the club and the titty bar luncheons would make the fact that you are female stick out even more. At that point the Good Ole Boys Club would cease to be the Good Ole Boys Club.
I think another factor not taken into account much of the time is the fact that hospitals cannot refuse emergency treatment to people who need it. Uninsured individual goes to the hospital after some sort of brutal accident. Individual racks up Tens of Thousands of dollars in medical bills (they add up really quickly). Person either recovers or dies. If they recover they will be presented with a bill they cannot even begin to imagine settling up. They are forced into bankruptcy or just completely ignore the bill. In any case, that bill gets eaten by the hospitals, government, or somebody else. Of course, the hospital needs to recover that money so they bump up all of their costs. Insurance companies start getting bills which are higher and tell the companies that carry their insurance that premiums will be going up next year. Your company informs you that premiums are being raised so you will have to pay more money from your pocket.
I also have personally known two doctors who juggled patient billing between the insured and uninsured. I'd find procedures that were billed to my insurance company that I never had done. I found it really hard to blame the doctor for simply trying to get a hepatitis workup on someone who couldn't afford it (although what they were doing was illegal). Same scenario as above. Insurance notices higher bills, premiums go up, money comes out of your check. If I met two doctors like this...how many else do it? It might be easier to count those that do not.
So the way I see it, we currently have a poor "Socialized" health care system that requires all sorts of little dancing around rules, collection agencies, bankruptcies, and whatever else. In the end this little charade provides barely adequate health care to the poor and gives us an increasing number of companies/people who can not afford care (which in turn compounds the problem).
I'm not really a big advocate of many government programs and I am usually in the "Keep your hands off my fucking money" camp, but this is different. Maybe I don't necessarily care about some nebulous "other person's health" but when I see people suffering greatly and cannot afford to go get it taken care of I really find it hard to play the "You should have went to college and gotten a better job" card. I am totally fine with that attitude when it comes to a better place to live, better vehicle, better gadgets, better vacations, and better entertainment. Denying someone life, sanity, or the lack of chronic pain seems fairly barbaric.
I think the parent (at least for the majority of his post) trying to make a point against comprehensive health coverage. Need a physical? Pay the $120. It is actually only $100 more after the $20 co-pay. Need a generic medication (say...amoxicillin)? Pay cash for it. Heck, I often take generics like that to a pharmacy that doesn't have insurance on file for me, as a Co-Pay would be $10 and I can fill the prescription for $8.50. Yup. Cheaper than with "insurance". Funny thing about that is that if you take the prescription to a pharmacy WITH your insurance on file, they will insist you cannot pay cash. Allowing for a system with more a la carte coverage where you can choose to only pay for huge dollar items seems reasonable.
The end of his post...yeah. I think he was saying "Fuck the poor".
Yeah. If I remember correctly "Time's Man of the Year" one year was the Personal Computer. As far as the Peace Prize goes, I would say "The Internet" winning the prize would be pretty silly. If four years of the Peace Prize have "International Panel on Climate Change", Barack Obama, and the Internet as three of the winners I would have to say it is rapidly becoming "The Nobel What has been popular/newsworthy this year Prize".
Perhaps it is time that they consider not trying to find someone worthy of the prize every year, but begin considering if anyone is worthy of the prize. If not....no Nobel Peace Prize for that cycle. They did suspend the Peace Prize during much of WWII. The situation would be different but the idea is the same. I believe this would prevent the prize from becoming a watered down version of what they want it to be.
The thing about Google and all this stuff they are doing...with exceptions being the Street Level Photos, Insides of Public Buildings, and (when it comes to authors) this Google Books fiasco...you don't have to participate in. You can use a different search Engine. You can block Google from crawling your site. You can use hotmail, yahoo, your ISP E-Mail, or some other free or pay service. You do not need to use Google Docs, Google Calender, Google Whatevertheycallmedical, or Google whatevertheycallfinancials. There are alternatives to the Google Phone and Google Groups. There are crappy video clips other places than YouTube. In essence, Google is pretty much Opt-In.
"But Google is the best search engine!", "Gmail is the best free mail system", "YouTube has the most videos!". Yup. And guess what? You can use all of these services as often as you want, free of monetary charge to you. To provide these services Google does need something in return. That something is your privacy.
I think at times people forget the reality that Google is a For-Profit Corporation employing people who expect a paycheck in return for their work. It seems some have this idea that Google has always been a version of Linus Torvalds and the thousands of volunteers that have produced an impressive array of software for free. They never were that. They've been "violating your privacy" to some degree since day 1. It is just now, that they have grown so much and have access to that much more of your personal information, that you have stood up and took notice.
Slashdot Mirror
Save As, Office 97-2003 Document (.doc) You can even set this option as your default, I am pretty sure.
You aren't FORCED to use the new file formats. You can use Word, Excel, and Powerpoint 2007/2010 without ever creating a DOCX, XLSX, or PPTX file. The only way you are "Forced" into the new file format is if people you share documents with refuse to save the document in the old format. Even then, Office 2003 at the very least (And I believe Office 2000 and Office XP) have a converter tool free from Microsoft that you can install to allow you to open the docx files.
I can tell you one very enormous thing that you can do with Office 2010 that you can't do with Office 2000. Get mail using RPC over HTTPS. I have found this to be a HUGE hit for companies that I have worked for. Instead of popping mail, using Outlook Web Access, a Firewall/VPN solution, or jumping on Remote Desktop, users simply open Outlook when they are at home just as they would at work. The speed is consistently good and along with the fact that it is so convienient makes this a huge upgrade.
Regarding Windows 7 vs. Windows XP, I'd have to say the answer is "Use 16 GB of RAM". Windows XP 64-Bit was pretty much terrible. Windows 7 64-Bit? Not terrible. With Engineering (Cad, 3d modeling) tools and software development tools increasing in complexity, having enough RAM to avoid constant paging is very nice.
There. Two decent examples without thinking much about your question.
I thought there was a story about a year ago where Microsoft was buying back Microsoft Stock with its cash reserves. That would explain why they have significantly less hard cash laying around, as I'm pretty sure they didn't just buy 10 shares.
I would imagine that they don't really want people going over to google at all. People use Google's search and like it. People use Google Mail and like it. People use Google Docs and like it. Suddenly the idea pops into some heads that "Hey, instead of paying for Exchange, Office, Server 2003, and all of this other crap lets move everything over to the Googleplex of Google Cloud Solutions instead. Microsoft wants to avoid that at all costs.
If everyone typed "Bing.com" instead of "Google.com" when they wanted to search the Internet, they wouldn't be exposed to all those shiny Google Applications that could lure people away from some of Microsoft's core products. I'd also have to guess that at some point Bing will become more "Google Like" in that they will have "Bing Search", "Bing Office", "Bing Exchange", and especially "Bing VendorLockIn". Windows/Office/Exchange/Sharepoint/SQL/Windows Server may be the turnkey solution of today, but the Internet is becoming more vital to business of all sizes. Search/Maps/Social networks/Next Big thing may need to be part of that turnkey solution five to ten years from now.
I actually have to applaud Microsoft for showing some foresight here and not just looking at present day numbers and saying "No Profit in this new sector? Cut it." Compare this to the XXAA's and Newspapers who are thinking "we have been doing business this way for 1000 years and we don't want to change." Microsoft does some really idiotic things but I have to say this isn't one of them.
I have to wonder if that doesn't have something to do with corporate purchases. I doubt many businesses have already moved to Windows 7 (although I have no idea what the Windows 7 in the workplace penetration has been) but I'm thinking a lot of them are considering it in the near future.
With the economy as it was this year, IT departments probably submitted a smaller budget, got it approved, and sat on it for the year in case of disaster. End of year comes and their attempts at being frugal leave quite a bit of unused budget money. In a sane business world, they would have left the money unused and been applauded by the higher ups. In reality, the higher ups would think "Awesome! I can give myself a bigger bonus. I figured IT could run on a smaller budget. I can't wait to slash their next year's budget to less than the amount they spent this year, giving me an even larger bonus next year."
Realizing that leaving the money unspent would be slitting their department's wrists for the future, IT managers probably saw that Microsoft released Windows 7, and just went and blew the wad on upgrading their volume license agreements from Windows XP, Server 2003, Exchange 2003, and Office 2003 to Windows 7, Server 2008, Exchange 2010, and Office 2007. They know they'll want/have to do it sooner or later. Might as well spring for it now. You can lay out a 2 year plan of testing and rolling out all the new Client and Server stuff at the same time, which will also give you the ability to say "Look at all this work that we are going to do...we can't lose any of our staff during this critical transition" so that their department isn't gutted in cost saving measures.
This may not be what happened, but it seems plausible to me. I have no evidence to back up said claims and I thought of it just now so it could be an utterly foolish idea.
How is this for an objective? Let's put a man (or woman) on Mars. That doesn't seem like all that ambiguous of a goal. Oh, and it isn't something that I just dreamed up in my wildly imaginative and brilliant mind...it is a goal that millions of others have already thought of. Now that we have that problem solved, let's get to it!
I wish my Boss (actually, most of the people I work with) would forward E-Mail to me, or write me E-Mail in general. I work at a place with a bunch of people who are generally not very good with tech stuff. I sent out informative messages/questions, I get "We'll have to sit down and discuss this." Trying to find a good time for both parties to be free ends up taking longer than sending an Email message would have.
Email you can read and respond to when you find time. The Email isn't really important? You can just take 2 second to file it away in case it is someday important. If the boss wants to send me every joke and every detail of his day in an EMAIL. Fine. It is better than sitting in a fucking meeting and listening to said things.
Pro-Tip: A PROTIP is WAAAAAAY more serious and intense than your standard Pro-Tip.
My Dad works in a Factory. It is a "heavy industry" factory that produces draglines and the like for mining raw materials. He works on the shop floor, operating a machine like your typical factory grunt. Did I mention he has pulled in over $100k in some recent years? Granted he had to put it some significant overtime to reach that number but the potential to have a very nice job in a manufacturing facility is there. Note that he is a bright guy but the closest he came to college was visiting me to party it up when I was attending.
So overall, yeah. I think manufacturing isn't as bad as some think it is.
Then again, the creator MAY have been a genius. Perhaps he was told "Put this enormous program together in one month or the company is screwed." In cases like that, poorly thought out algorithms, bloated classes, using variables with names like "x", "y", "z" with no comments, nothing really works except for the absolute bare minimum required and other coding no-nos probably do not seem that important. Given appropriate time and resources, perhaps he could have written the greatest code EVAR! Given a very limited time frame and managing to save the company would probably qualify them as a genius.
You know....I guess I never really thought about it but what the hell is that Malicious Software Removal Tool anyway? Does it actually....you know...remove malicious software?
Really, this is a pretty Golden Opportunity for Microsoft to really push its "Windows Security Essentials" or whatever it is called. "You are about to install some new security updates. It is highly recommended that you scan your system with Microsoft Security Essentials before receiving these updates. Click "Yes" to automatically download, install, and scan your computer for any potential problems during the update process.
Yes, we all know Windows has some security holes. We can argue until we are blue in the face as to who is at fault for these holes. I do have a hard time blaming Microsoft if a "3rd party" piece of software is causing an update to blow up computers. You can't really expect them to find a machine, infect it with every malware/virus/rootkit variant (not to mention legitimate software) and run the updates to ensure that they will not crash the system.
"More Retarded than Sarah Palin" shouldn't be a negative mod. To post something that deserves that tag requires something so special that it would need to be marked up to +10 so we could all marvel at the intricacies of that user's "mind". Don't worry, it would not be common. Someone as special as Palin comes around only once per generation.
I think your point about what is "right to bear arms" is a very big one. Their most destructive weapon at the time was what? A canon? Some crude explosives? Flintlock rifles? Does the right to bear arms give us the right to own a Shoulder mounted surface to air missle? A tank? An Apache chopper? An atomic/nuclear bomb? A device with a biochemical payload? A stealth bomber? Even more realistically, how about malicious software? Distributing a Virus, creating a DoS botnet, installing keyloggers...right now they are used for criminal activities. In the future if we were forced to rise up against an oppressive regime, I believe that the information warfare battlefront would be a very important one. Whichever side destroys the others ability to coordinate information is going to have a massive advantage.
I really am a supporter of the Constitution and would prefer to adhere to its principles as long as possible. However, I don't know how long we can use a (modified) 200+ year old document. It is still mostly viable now but how much less relevant will it be in the year 2100? 2200? 4000? How many modifications will it require over the span of those years. The framers of the constitution were very intelligent men with quite a bit of foresight. They obviously were very careful in their wording of the document. They were not, however, infallible and did not have the gift of seeing hundreds of years into the future. Not in their wildest dreams would they have dreamed up society as it is today.
There is also the problem of later modifications to the Constitution and starting in large part by John Marshall, the loose interpretations that kind of set of precedent for bastardizing the original intent of the words. If those interpretations were changes for the positive or negative is up for debate but I think it certainly waters down the quaint notion of the original words forever being the law of the land.
To be fair, it sounds like he talked his (Well Underage?) niece into being an honest person. Frankly with all the illegal downloading that kids do these days I think this is actually quite an accomplishment in itself. Maybe he is around his brother/sisters house several times a week. Doubtful. In this case, he would have had to teach his niece about backups, the importance of backups, and hoped she would go through the hassle anytime she spent some money on music. She is already (in her mind) being inconvienced by paying for music that her friends get for free. Pushing her to go through extra hoops isn't going to encourage her any more.
After all, Limewire will allow you to "recover" your songs if something goes wrong. Why pay money if you get LESS service than stealing the music? Besides, isn't "Cloud" computing the new fad? Your data, backed up and safe on a huge corporation's servers instead of your crappy home computer? The music store has the bytes. She paid for the bytes. It costs them nearly nothing to replace the bytes. What is the problem? Seriously? If I were in headkase's shoes I'd tell my niece "Well, you just learned how the world really works. It sucks. Everyone will fuck you as often and as hard as possible. Sorry you have to become jaded at this age, but you might as well steal as honesty isn't rewarded.
"Go to a friend's computer"
Dude, this is Slashdot. That should read something more like "Go to someone who isn't immediately repulsed by you" or something like that.
But seriously though, not as big of a deal as it sounds. You are correct.
Update - I checked with the person who had lent me the telescope back in the day and it was actually a 6". Remember how faint the Red Spot was...yeah. You probably won't see it with a 4".
I had a decent telescope when I was a kid. I thought it was a 4" reflector. Perhaps maybe a little bigger. I know that on at least one occasion I was able to faintly see the great Red Spot. Red Spot + watching the position of the four moons over a period of days was actually pretty exciting for me.
I think if you are running Windows 2000, you are stuck on IE 6, right?
Just a thought. I still see posts here ranting and raving about Windows 2000 being the be all end all of Windows software and how they'll never upgrade to XP, Vista, or Windows 7 because Windows 2000 is fine.
Really, this is my best advice. It is hard to really make your wife/girlfriend think she is important when it appears that every other person in the world is also out for dinner at the place your choice (or a nicer place). You will be herded in like cattle, some generic Valentines Day special things will be found at the tables (candles, special napkins, whatever) but they won't be special or unique as every table will have them. It will be loud, crowded, and uncomfortable even if you do drop a good amount of money at a nice establishment.
Usually I will take the time and cook a fancy meal by myself, something I usually wouldn't do. She gets that nice meal and sees me slaving away to deliver it. Our house is much quieter and private than an overloaded eatery which leads to great conversation (except in one case where she was so in awe by my to that point unknown culinary talents that she preferred to keep trying the different things I cooked rather than talk much.) After that, an activity you both like (hopefully...if not you'll have to settle on one she likes) is good. This can be anything but hopefully not going to the Movie Theater...which will also be crowded and irritating like places to eat.
You are probably correct that the "Good Ole' Boys Club" mentality is the root of the problem. However, you or I who are both white males, could probably work at getting into the Club. It would require us to clean up a little bit, buy nicer clothes to "Dress for Success", polish up the Golf game, start attending "Paranet" or other meetings of the sort, get over that feeling of discomfort that is felt when hearing offensive racist/sexist type jokes (getting comfortable telling them would be better), and generally put on a facade of being "normal" and well off financially.
Women and Minorities are going to have a higher barrier of entry. The Racist/Sexist jokes would disappear from the club and the titty bar luncheons would make the fact that you are female stick out even more. At that point the Good Ole Boys Club would cease to be the Good Ole Boys Club.
I think another factor not taken into account much of the time is the fact that hospitals cannot refuse emergency treatment to people who need it. Uninsured individual goes to the hospital after some sort of brutal accident. Individual racks up Tens of Thousands of dollars in medical bills (they add up really quickly). Person either recovers or dies. If they recover they will be presented with a bill they cannot even begin to imagine settling up. They are forced into bankruptcy or just completely ignore the bill. In any case, that bill gets eaten by the hospitals, government, or somebody else. Of course, the hospital needs to recover that money so they bump up all of their costs. Insurance companies start getting bills which are higher and tell the companies that carry their insurance that premiums will be going up next year. Your company informs you that premiums are being raised so you will have to pay more money from your pocket.
I also have personally known two doctors who juggled patient billing between the insured and uninsured. I'd find procedures that were billed to my insurance company that I never had done. I found it really hard to blame the doctor for simply trying to get a hepatitis workup on someone who couldn't afford it (although what they were doing was illegal). Same scenario as above. Insurance notices higher bills, premiums go up, money comes out of your check. If I met two doctors like this...how many else do it? It might be easier to count those that do not.
So the way I see it, we currently have a poor "Socialized" health care system that requires all sorts of little dancing around rules, collection agencies, bankruptcies, and whatever else. In the end this little charade provides barely adequate health care to the poor and gives us an increasing number of companies/people who can not afford care (which in turn compounds the problem).
I'm not really a big advocate of many government programs and I am usually in the "Keep your hands off my fucking money" camp, but this is different. Maybe I don't necessarily care about some nebulous "other person's health" but when I see people suffering greatly and cannot afford to go get it taken care of I really find it hard to play the "You should have went to college and gotten a better job" card. I am totally fine with that attitude when it comes to a better place to live, better vehicle, better gadgets, better vacations, and better entertainment. Denying someone life, sanity, or the lack of chronic pain seems fairly barbaric.
I think the parent (at least for the majority of his post) trying to make a point against comprehensive health coverage. Need a physical? Pay the $120. It is actually only $100 more after the $20 co-pay. Need a generic medication (say...amoxicillin)? Pay cash for it. Heck, I often take generics like that to a pharmacy that doesn't have insurance on file for me, as a Co-Pay would be $10 and I can fill the prescription for $8.50. Yup. Cheaper than with "insurance". Funny thing about that is that if you take the prescription to a pharmacy WITH your insurance on file, they will insist you cannot pay cash. Allowing for a system with more a la carte coverage where you can choose to only pay for huge dollar items seems reasonable.
The end of his post...yeah. I think he was saying "Fuck the poor".
Yeah. If I remember correctly "Time's Man of the Year" one year was the Personal Computer. As far as the Peace Prize goes, I would say "The Internet" winning the prize would be pretty silly. If four years of the Peace Prize have "International Panel on Climate Change", Barack Obama, and the Internet as three of the winners I would have to say it is rapidly becoming "The Nobel What has been popular/newsworthy this year Prize".
Perhaps it is time that they consider not trying to find someone worthy of the prize every year, but begin considering if anyone is worthy of the prize. If not....no Nobel Peace Prize for that cycle. They did suspend the Peace Prize during much of WWII. The situation would be different but the idea is the same. I believe this would prevent the prize from becoming a watered down version of what they want it to be.
The thing about Google and all this stuff they are doing...with exceptions being the Street Level Photos, Insides of Public Buildings, and (when it comes to authors) this Google Books fiasco...you don't have to participate in. You can use a different search Engine. You can block Google from crawling your site. You can use hotmail, yahoo, your ISP E-Mail, or some other free or pay service. You do not need to use Google Docs, Google Calender, Google Whatevertheycallmedical, or Google whatevertheycallfinancials. There are alternatives to the Google Phone and Google Groups. There are crappy video clips other places than YouTube. In essence, Google is pretty much Opt-In.
"But Google is the best search engine!", "Gmail is the best free mail system", "YouTube has the most videos!". Yup. And guess what? You can use all of these services as often as you want, free of monetary charge to you. To provide these services Google does need something in return. That something is your privacy.
I think at times people forget the reality that Google is a For-Profit Corporation employing people who expect a paycheck in return for their work. It seems some have this idea that Google has always been a version of Linus Torvalds and the thousands of volunteers that have produced an impressive array of software for free. They never were that. They've been "violating your privacy" to some degree since day 1. It is just now, that they have grown so much and have access to that much more of your personal information, that you have stood up and took notice.