I doubt that the measly license fees that you pay to license your vehicle are close the to extra taxes I pay on my outdoor gear and fishing/hunting licemses. I don't think that ATV's should be banned just that the people that ride them need to gain some respect. I'm not anywhere close to rich or politically connected, you have as much right to use public land as I do, you also have the responsibility to respect that land. My experience shows most motorized recreators lack this respect.
My generlized statement comes from lots of practical experience. Most of the abuse that I have experienced from ATV's/Snowmobiles are on public land where its illegal to go offtrail. I don't own any private land to speak of, I spend most of my time on BLM/Forest Service/National Parks land. Most of these lands are thank god off-limits to ORV's unfortunately that doesn't seem to stop people from riding there.
Most of you "clueless aassholes" ride too fast, and are inconsiderate of the rest of us that prefer non-motorized activities. Maybe if the participants of your "sport" were less obnoxious and more respectful than those of us that engage in non-motorized activities would be more friendly to your type.
My dog wasn't chasing the snomobile, he was on a groomed cross-country ski trail and popped over the hill and smoked my dog, he was speeding, and intoxicated... I got his license number off his vehicle and sued him and he got fined $50 and didn't even have to pay restitution to pay for my vet bills. Those kind of negative experiences are why some of us who are environmental moderates can get pretty vehemently anti-ORV.
I really doubt I will do more damage to the environment that you will in my lifetime, your argument about me owning 2 or 3 cars is inanane, you'll pbly own as many cars as I will, I don't engage in the use of Off Road Vehicles, I drive a fuel efficient car, not a gas-guzzling SUV like most ATV riders, and I respect the earth.
I've never slashed tires, or done any real damage to anyone's private property, I ust leave nifty little notes on people's windshields.
So please if you feel the need to drive an ATV/ORV stay on the damn trails and respect the laws... whats more American than that.
Yer right that walking, or hiking can cause some adverse effects on trails/ecology, but the point I was making (less than eloquently @ 3AM) was that overall my outdoor activities are much less damaging than motorized outdoor pursuits.
Overall ATV/Snomobile/Jeep/jetski use is a much more "consumeristic" outdoor pursuit. It is much easier to disrespect someone els's space, and tear up the environment when engaging in one of these outdoor activities than when engaging in the type of non-motorized activities that I prefer. If people just stay on the roads and and trails and respect no-wake zones than we can all peacefully co-exist. Unfortunatly in my experience motorized "outdoorsmen" can't seem to do this. When people disrepect the outdoors, my friends and I sometimes disrespect their machines.
My original post (anonymously to preserve karma)was just to throw out the idea to people discovering the outdoors that respecting the space you occupy is important. Respecting other people and their space is generally not what I have experienced from the motorized outdoor community.
I'm not some mangy hippie, and you just showed your true colors and made all those snowmobiling ATV riding morons look like the clueless assholes they are. If you'd get yer lard ass off yer machine and look at the desert you'd see how amazing and beautiful it is. Sit in the woods/desert/grass/field for 20 minutes and don't move and you'll see how amazing and alive the natural world (especially the desert) is.
My hiking and skiing and other forms of outdoor recreation doesn't impinge on other people's space but yer fucking loud machines do. Thank god we still have wilderness, so there is some peace and quiet.
I'm going to keep putting sugar/sand/karo syrup in gas tanks and cutting spark plug wires till all you fucking obnoxious assholes grow up and learn to respect other people's space.
I'm not a green fascist, I drive a car, I enjoy automobiles, but I don't drive a fucking gas guzzling, road hazardous SUV. I'm pretty happy with the size of my penis and don't feel the need to compensate. I also respect other people's space.
I just wish the ATV'ers and snowmobilers would learn some respect and stay in there confined spaces, they don't understand the effect their machines have.... look up cryptobiotic crust, and see what an ATV can do to the desert environment. Your riding can ruin an eco system for 100 years, and all so you can get your jollies. Fucking rude people piss me off. I respect your right to ride your machine, as long as your respect the place you are riding, but take your ATV off the trail and ruin my forest, and dude its on!
If you want to try disc golf, do yourself a favor spend the ten bucks and get a real golf disc. If there is anywind at all you will thank yourself, plus you'll drive better, enjoy the game more and score better with a real golf disc.
Word of advice, leave the pot and beer at home, drink water you'll enjoy the game more and avoid the wrath of other players...
As an avid outdoorsman, (I rock climb, mountainbike, kayak (tour and whitewater), backpack, and love to take outdoor photographs) my biggest bitch is people who bring radios, laptops, cell phones and shit outdoors. Most of us who spent lots of time outdoors do it to escape and get away from the damn call phone and people in general. Please, when you are out enjoying the outdoors leave your friggin electronics and shit at home and try roughing it.
If you feel the need to bring a radio or something have the decency to keep it turned down and stay the F*ck away from other people.
I recently went on a 70 mile river flaot trip and the experience was lessened by some damn collge kids with a radio and the audacity to camp like 100 feet from us. We had a hell of a good time sneaking up to their camp site at laughing as they made dinner... what a riot
Please leave your toys at home or figure out how to keep them from being noisy, I go to the wwods to get away not listen to your damn electronics... and I am a serious geek during the week.
Am I the only one who laughs hysterically when they hear the words ODBC and Mac in the same sentence. ODBC on the Mac-in-Trash is so broken its amusing. Mac ODBC doens't work unless you aren't actually using it...
What models were you using? I don't want to order any of those. I usually use 2100's or 4100's. Dell tech support has already been great to me. I buy only Dell workstations (with flat panels now!) and Compaq servers. Its been a killer combination for me for a very long time!
I admin for a company that does management for Medical Offices. We have several offices that run windows 2000 server with Terminal Services loaded. I have been very very happy with these sites.
We also have several sites that are running in a pure Windows 2000 network environment. (All Win2K CLient workstations, and servers.. nothing else) Either option is pretty close to the same cost. We use ternimal services in offices that have a lot of semi-decent hardware onsite or are planning on purchasing new computers. If a site has a bunch of skanky hardware sitting around then Terminal Server is the way to go.
Rememeber to audit your software before you consider this. EVERY SINGLE APPLICATION you want to use has to work under Terminal Services to get this to work. I built a server and test drove all my apps before I bid out the server. Lots and lots or RAM is a MUST to do Terminal Services, and I have two processors and RAID 5 in all my servers (Compaq Proliants).
The other great thing about Terminal Services is remote Administration. You get a free terminal access license with every Windows2000 server license for administrative purposes. I have a WAN link to all my servers and I can do 90% of my admin tasks from my office.... no more onsite.
I doubt a thin client option will be any cheaper unless you have a ton of skanky boxen with about 128MB of RAM and decent video cards, but TCO is borderline.
Stay away from Citrix unless you need its expanded capabilites (X-tra clients, some better mapping (serial ports and such), and some better file system stuff). Citrix is a buggy add-on that can be very expensive very quickly. For MS Office, Internet Explorer, Outlook and most basic Apps, Windows Terminal Services is probably adequate. Watch for License issues, we use an SCO terminal access client for accessing our SCO based Practice Management System that is a bit funky in the way it is licensed on a Terminal Server.
Good luck and if you want to see my whitepaper and TCO comparisons (3 2000 Sites) (3 Terminal Server Sites) with 18 months of installed base time, drop me an e-mail!
I use Dell for all my Windows 2000 workstations. What problems are you havinf with them. I support 350-400 workstations, all Dell, all runnning windows 2000, and I have only one other person in my shop. What do you mean by Dell Machines can't run NT?
Norton Corporate also works well in the stand alone mode as well. I send a copy home with all my Physicians at home. The licensing is pretty flexible and its quite cheap. I also like the fact that Norton Corporate can be set to check for update automagically. It is absolutly the best product for business applications or personal use.
I bough an Auditron and needed a 10BT bridge. I just bought two Linksys WAP11's and upgraded the firmware on them. There is a point to point bridging mode with the most current firmware. I also used WAP11's with an external antenna to link up my garage to my network (internet appliance and downloading MP3's to my car). e-mail me if yah need info. I'll send yah a bunch of info.
You can easily disable the ability of a standard user to write to a USB device by using Group Policies. I'll have to go look it up, but there is an entry in the templates to disable seperate hardware devices. Just shut off the USB ports.
Gentlemen... I know how to manually remove them, but some users get different icons when they log in. We have roaming profiles and Group Policies enforced on my network, you pbly misunderstood what I mean here...
For Christmas I am getting both sets of Grandparents and Compaq IA-1 w/ USB ethernet adaptor and a DSL connection. This way they get e-mail and the ability to surf the web without calling me 2 to 11 times a day for tech support like with a PC. I picked the boxen up for $99 a pop from Tiger Direct last weekend. Just got then yesterday. They are sweet little instant on devices. Get one if you can.... or e-mail me I'll sell yah my last 2.
I consult for a group of medical facilities that has an uber-paranoid security model. We run an completely win2k office, I tried an XP client on my test network and 1/2 of my group policies failed to work. Friggin Internet Explorer always loads, I can't remove the icon from the desktop like in Win2K (these machines are not and never will be connected to he internet), and roaming profiles and dekstop redirection are broken. SO I will not be upgrading till about 2006 or so.
Join Americorps -- Help Domestically
on
Volunteer Work Abroad?
·
· Score: 4, Informative
Rather than looking abroad may I suggest joing a domestic (USA) organization. Americorps is a national civilian service organization that send people to different locations around the US where strong minds and bodies are needed.
A great friend of mine joined for a year and work with inner city kids in Las Vegas, worked at a soup kitchen in Denver, fight fires in the Sierra Nevadas, built trails and did eco-rehab in the Sierras and many other fun projects.
I looked at joining six months ago when I was between jobs, and deciding if I wanted to return to college. The people I talked to were enthusiastic about having a geek who was interested in joing (I'm also a hardcore outdoor enthusiast, so that was a plus side for them as well.)
Americorp is a great deal, you commit to work for a year, you get trianed, then while working get a small monthly per diem and at the end of your service are eligible for a decent amount of $$$ for college. I would highly reccomend it to anyone who is interested in helping people. When my current contract with my employer expires I'm joing for a year.
Lets smoke some crack then post to slashdot....excelletn idea. As a Native South Dakotan I am pretty offended that this gets 4 insightful. The Battle of the Little Big Horn was not in SOuth Dakota was Not about Native determination to hold onto the Black Hills and the Arapaho were not involved (I took a college course at the University of Wyomingwhere we did 3 lectures on the Battle of The Little Bighorn. That battle was actually about Custer trying to show off how big hisnuts were and to go hunting for scalps. if you need some suggested reading on this subject I'll FedEx you one of my textbooks, highlighted with my class notes.
Actually William Hearst was NOT the original owner of Homestake, he bought the claim form the origianl discoverers, I'll find their names in a book and repost it.
The Lakota, Nakota, Dakota and othe tribes (Sioux means "Snake in The Grass" and is actually a deragatory term for these tribes that was originated by the Arapaho) held the Black Hills as sacred and would not camp or live there, the Black Hills were used as a holy place and a hunting grounds by the Native Tribes that lived on the high plains. And IF we are going to give the Black Hills back, lets give the Adriadacks, the Smokies, the Whites, The Rockies.... etc. back to the Native Americans, hell lets just all move the Hell out of the US since wee are all immigrants.
As for your other ingrate comments about Mt Rushmore, the Rally and such. I have spent 3 years filming for the Sturgis Rally, and I can honestly say that Bikers are some of the most polite, nicestest, most real group of people I have spent time around, I would rather hang with bikers than egotistical geeks.
Most of us who live here in SD think the Physics lab is a great thing. If the federal government takes responsibility for the Homestake open pit at least it won't turn in to a giant acid leaching SuperFund site like many of the other gold mines in the Hills. Check the EPA Website and read about all the mines that are Superfund Sites. The other caveat of making Homestake a Physics lab is the fact that it brings needed employment for the 250 citizens of Lead SD that would otherwise have to move. Please read and understand a topic before spout of as an AC on Slashdot, and get some better crack that stuff your smoking is obviously some bad shit.
Depending on the software you burn with you can copy a DVD and make it region less, but @ $14 for a Movie compatible blank.... buy a regionless DVD player.
DVD-RW doesn't necesarily mean that the drive reads DVD-RAM. There are two drives that handle DVD-R and DVD-RAM, the MAtsishita I posted about is decent the other one is Bloody Crap.
I consult for a video production company that has 2 DVD-R(W) drives. We test drove 5 different drives and settled on 2. We have a Pioneer DVR-103 (thats the "superdrive" thats in the new Apples) and a Matsushita LF-D310.
We use the drives for a couple of different things, permament archiving of Data, outputting video when it won't fit on a CD, and we have one in house production that we sell on DVD which we burn in house (1-2 copies a month).
I like the Pioneer because it burns at 2 speed, and reads and writes DVD-RW. It however is finicky about firmware versions, and doens't like to do more than 3 or 4 multiple copies.
The Matsushita accepts DVD-RAM and DVD-R (Both formats) and I really like that feature. It however only burns and 1 speed and I always have to do a test burn. I would recomend the Pioneer over the Matsushita for the average person, because DVD-RAM media is so expensive.
Shop around when looking for DVD-R media, if you buy in bulk (more than 10 units) you can often get media for $6 a piece. E-mail me if you need a link to buy the media.
Slashdot Mirror
Dude,
I doubt that the measly license fees that you pay to license your vehicle are close the to extra taxes I pay on my outdoor gear and fishing/hunting licemses. I don't think that ATV's should be banned just that the people that ride them need to gain some respect. I'm not anywhere close to rich or politically connected, you have as much right to use public land as I do, you also have the responsibility to respect that land. My experience shows most motorized recreators lack this respect.
My generlized statement comes from lots of practical experience. Most of the abuse that I have experienced from ATV's/Snowmobiles are on public land where its illegal to go offtrail. I don't own any private land to speak of, I spend most of my time on BLM/Forest Service/National Parks land. Most of these lands are thank god off-limits to ORV's unfortunately that doesn't seem to stop people from riding there.
Most of you "clueless aassholes" ride too fast, and are inconsiderate of the rest of us that prefer non-motorized activities. Maybe if the participants of your "sport" were less obnoxious and more respectful than those of us that engage in non-motorized activities would be more friendly to your type.
My dog wasn't chasing the snomobile, he was on a groomed cross-country ski trail and popped over the hill and smoked my dog, he was speeding, and intoxicated... I got his license number off his vehicle and sued him and he got fined $50 and didn't even have to pay restitution to pay for my vet bills. Those kind of negative experiences are why some of us who are environmental moderates can get pretty vehemently anti-ORV.
I really doubt I will do more damage to the environment that you will in my lifetime, your argument about me owning 2 or 3 cars is inanane, you'll pbly own as many cars as I will, I don't engage in the use of Off Road Vehicles, I drive a fuel efficient car, not a gas-guzzling SUV like most ATV riders, and I respect the earth.
I've never slashed tires, or done any real damage to anyone's private property, I ust leave nifty little notes on people's windshields.
So please if you feel the need to drive an ATV/ORV stay on the damn trails and respect the laws... whats more American than that.
Yer right that walking, or hiking can cause some adverse effects on trails/ecology, but the point I was making (less than eloquently @ 3AM) was that overall my outdoor activities are much less damaging than motorized outdoor pursuits.
Overall ATV/Snomobile/Jeep/jetski use is a much more "consumeristic" outdoor pursuit. It is much easier to disrespect someone els's space, and tear up the environment when engaging in one of these outdoor activities than when engaging in the type of non-motorized activities that I prefer. If people just stay on the roads and and trails and respect no-wake zones than we can all peacefully co-exist. Unfortunatly in my experience motorized "outdoorsmen" can't seem to do this. When people disrepect the outdoors, my friends and I sometimes disrespect their machines.
My original post (anonymously to preserve karma)was just to throw out the idea to people discovering the outdoors that respecting the space you occupy is important. Respecting other people and their space is generally not what I have experienced from the motorized outdoor community.
Fuck you back ingrate,
I'm not some mangy hippie, and you just showed your true colors and made all those snowmobiling ATV riding morons look like the clueless assholes they are. If you'd get yer lard ass off yer machine and look at the desert you'd see how amazing and beautiful it is. Sit in the woods/desert/grass/field for 20 minutes and don't move and you'll see how amazing and alive the natural world (especially the desert) is.
My hiking and skiing and other forms of outdoor recreation doesn't impinge on other people's space but yer fucking loud machines do. Thank god we still have wilderness, so there is some peace and quiet.
I'm going to keep putting sugar/sand/karo syrup in gas tanks and cutting spark plug wires till all you fucking obnoxious assholes grow up and learn to respect other people's space.
I'm not a green fascist, I drive a car, I enjoy automobiles, but I don't drive a fucking gas guzzling, road hazardous SUV. I'm pretty happy with the size of my penis and don't feel the need to compensate. I also respect other people's space.
I just wish the ATV'ers and snowmobilers would learn some respect and stay in there confined spaces, they don't understand the effect their machines have.... look up cryptobiotic crust, and see what an ATV can do to the desert environment. Your riding can ruin an eco system for 100 years, and all so you can get your jollies. Fucking rude people piss me off. I respect your right to ride your machine, as long as your respect the place you are riding, but take your ATV off the trail and ruin my forest, and dude its on!
If you want to try disc golf, do yourself a favor spend the ten bucks and get a real golf disc. If there is anywind at all you will thank yourself, plus you'll drive better, enjoy the game more and score better with a real golf disc.
Word of advice, leave the pot and beer at home, drink water you'll enjoy the game more and avoid the wrath of other players...
As an avid outdoorsman, (I rock climb, mountainbike, kayak (tour and whitewater), backpack, and love to take outdoor photographs) my biggest bitch is people who bring radios, laptops, cell phones and shit outdoors. Most of us who spent lots of time outdoors do it to escape and get away from the damn call phone and people in general. Please, when you are out enjoying the outdoors leave your friggin electronics and shit at home and try roughing it.
If you feel the need to bring a radio or something have the decency to keep it turned down and stay the F*ck away from other people.
I recently went on a 70 mile river flaot trip and the experience was lessened by some damn collge kids with a radio and the audacity to camp like 100 feet from us. We had a hell of a good time sneaking up to their camp site at laughing as they made dinner... what a riot
Please leave your toys at home or figure out how to keep them from being noisy, I go to the wwods to get away not listen to your damn electronics... and I am a serious geek during the week.
Am I the only one who laughs hysterically when they hear the words ODBC and Mac in the same sentence. ODBC on the Mac-in-Trash is so broken its amusing. Mac ODBC doens't work unless you aren't actually using it...
What models were you using? I don't want to order any of those. I usually use 2100's or 4100's. Dell tech support has already been great to me. I buy only Dell workstations (with flat panels now!) and Compaq servers. Its been a killer combination for me for a very long time!
Howdy,
I admin for a company that does management for Medical Offices. We have several offices that run windows 2000 server with Terminal Services loaded. I have been very very happy with these sites.
We also have several sites that are running in a pure Windows 2000 network environment. (All Win2K CLient workstations, and servers.. nothing else) Either option is pretty close to the same cost. We use ternimal services in offices that have a lot of semi-decent hardware onsite or are planning on purchasing new computers. If a site has a bunch of skanky hardware sitting around then Terminal Server is the way to go.
Rememeber to audit your software before you consider this. EVERY SINGLE APPLICATION you want to use has to work under Terminal Services to get this to work. I built a server and test drove all my apps before I bid out the server. Lots and lots or RAM is a MUST to do Terminal Services, and I have two processors and RAID 5 in all my servers (Compaq Proliants).
The other great thing about Terminal Services is remote Administration. You get a free terminal access license with every Windows2000 server license for administrative purposes. I have a WAN link to all my servers and I can do 90% of my admin tasks from my office.... no more onsite.
I doubt a thin client option will be any cheaper unless you have a ton of skanky boxen with about 128MB of RAM and decent video cards, but TCO is borderline.
Stay away from Citrix unless you need its expanded capabilites (X-tra clients, some better mapping (serial ports and such), and some better file system stuff). Citrix is a buggy add-on that can be very expensive very quickly. For MS Office, Internet Explorer, Outlook and most basic Apps, Windows Terminal Services is probably adequate. Watch for License issues, we use an SCO terminal access client for accessing our SCO based Practice Management System that is a bit funky in the way it is licensed on a Terminal Server.
Good luck and if you want to see my whitepaper and TCO comparisons (3 2000 Sites) (3 Terminal Server Sites) with 18 months of installed base time, drop me an e-mail!
I use Dell for all my Windows 2000 workstations. What problems are you havinf with them. I support 350-400 workstations, all Dell, all runnning windows 2000, and I have only one other person in my shop. What do you mean by Dell Machines can't run NT?
I'm just curious.
Norton Corporate also works well in the stand alone mode as well. I send a copy home with all my Physicians at home. The licensing is pretty flexible and its quite cheap. I also like the fact that Norton Corporate can be set to check for update automagically. It is absolutly the best product for business applications or personal use.
I bough an Auditron and needed a 10BT bridge. I just bought two Linksys WAP11's and upgraded the firmware on them. There is a point to point bridging mode with the most current firmware. I also used WAP11's with an external antenna to link up my garage to my network (internet appliance and downloading MP3's to my car). e-mail me if yah need info. I'll send yah a bunch of info.
LLAMA
Dude,
You Rule... My new quote of the week. "and YES, this is a flame, so bite me" can I purchase rights to this or is it Open Source?
Happy Kwanza!
You can easily disable the ability of a standard user to write to a USB device by using Group Policies. I'll have to go look it up, but there is an entry in the templates to disable seperate hardware devices. Just shut off the USB ports.
That's because Win98 doesn't support the USB mass-storage standard. Win2K, XP, and most BSD's do... Microsoft laggin behind... who'd a thunk it?
Look Mom its my MP3 collection on my keychain... DOH I dropped it in the crapper.... well whats $900 between friends anyway.
Gentlemen... I know how to manually remove them, but some users get different icons when they log in. We have roaming profiles and Group Policies enforced on my network, you pbly misunderstood what I mean here...
For Christmas I am getting both sets of Grandparents and Compaq IA-1 w/ USB ethernet adaptor and a DSL connection. This way they get e-mail and the ability to surf the web without calling me 2 to 11 times a day for tech support like with a PC. I picked the boxen up for $99 a pop from Tiger Direct last weekend. Just got then yesterday. They are sweet little instant on devices. Get one if you can.... or e-mail me I'll sell yah my last 2.
LLAMA
I consult for a group of medical facilities that has an uber-paranoid security model. We run an completely win2k office, I tried an XP client on my test network and 1/2 of my group policies failed to work. Friggin Internet Explorer always loads, I can't remove the icon from the desktop like in Win2K (these machines are not and never will be connected to he internet), and roaming profiles and dekstop redirection are broken. SO I will not be upgrading till about 2006 or so.
Rather than looking abroad may I suggest joing a domestic (USA) organization. Americorps is a national civilian service organization that send people to different locations around the US where strong minds and bodies are needed.
A great friend of mine joined for a year and work with inner city kids in Las Vegas, worked at a soup kitchen in Denver, fight fires in the Sierra Nevadas, built trails and did eco-rehab in the Sierras and many other fun projects.
I looked at joining six months ago when I was between jobs, and deciding if I wanted to return to college. The people I talked to were enthusiastic about having a geek who was interested in joing (I'm also a hardcore outdoor enthusiast, so that was a plus side for them as well.)
Americorp is a great deal, you commit to work for a year, you get trianed, then while working get a small monthly per diem and at the end of your service are eligible for a decent amount of $$$ for college. I would highly reccomend it to anyone who is interested in helping people. When my current contract with my employer expires I'm joing for a year.
Mod this dude down, he is clueless
Lets smoke some crack then post to slashdot....excelletn idea. As a Native South Dakotan I am pretty offended that this gets 4 insightful. The Battle of the Little Big Horn was not in SOuth Dakota was Not about Native determination to hold onto the Black Hills and the Arapaho were not involved (I took a college course at the University of Wyomingwhere we did 3 lectures on the Battle of The Little Bighorn. That battle was actually about Custer trying to show off how big hisnuts were and to go hunting for scalps. if you need some suggested reading on this subject I'll FedEx you one of my textbooks, highlighted with my class notes.
Actually William Hearst was NOT the original owner of Homestake, he bought the claim form the origianl discoverers, I'll find their names in a book and repost it.
The Lakota, Nakota, Dakota and othe tribes (Sioux means "Snake in The Grass" and is actually a deragatory term for these tribes that was originated by the Arapaho) held the Black Hills as sacred and would not camp or live there, the Black Hills were used as a holy place and a hunting grounds by the Native Tribes that lived on the high plains. And IF we are going to give the Black Hills back, lets give the Adriadacks, the Smokies, the Whites, The Rockies.... etc. back to the Native Americans, hell lets just all move the Hell out of the US since wee are all immigrants.
As for your other ingrate comments about Mt Rushmore, the Rally and such. I have spent 3 years filming for the Sturgis Rally, and I can honestly say that Bikers are some of the most polite, nicestest, most real group of people I have spent time around, I would rather hang with bikers than egotistical geeks.
Most of us who live here in SD think the Physics lab is a great thing. If the federal government takes responsibility for the Homestake open pit at least it won't turn in to a giant acid leaching SuperFund site like many of the other gold mines in the Hills. Check the EPA Website and read about all the mines that are Superfund Sites. The other caveat of making Homestake a Physics lab is the fact that it brings needed employment for the 250 citizens of Lead SD that would otherwise have to move. Please read and understand a topic before spout of as an AC on Slashdot, and get some better crack that stuff your smoking is obviously some bad shit.
Depending on the software you burn with you can copy a DVD and make it region less, but @ $14 for a Movie compatible blank.... buy a regionless DVD player.
DVD-RW doesn't necesarily mean that the drive reads DVD-RAM. There are two drives that handle DVD-R and DVD-RAM, the MAtsishita I posted about is decent the other one is Bloody Crap.
LLAMA
I consult for a video production company that has 2 DVD-R(W) drives. We test drove 5 different drives and settled on 2. We have a Pioneer DVR-103 (thats the "superdrive" thats in the new Apples) and a Matsushita LF-D310.
We use the drives for a couple of different things, permament archiving of Data, outputting video when it won't fit on a CD, and we have one in house production that we sell on DVD which we burn in house (1-2 copies a month).
I like the Pioneer because it burns at 2 speed, and reads and writes DVD-RW. It however is finicky about firmware versions, and doens't like to do more than 3 or 4 multiple copies.
The Matsushita accepts DVD-RAM and DVD-R (Both formats) and I really like that feature. It however only burns and 1 speed and I always have to do a test burn. I would recomend the Pioneer over the Matsushita for the average person, because DVD-RAM media is so expensive.
Shop around when looking for DVD-R media, if you buy in bulk (more than 10 units) you can often get media for $6 a piece. E-mail me if you need a link to buy the media.