Yeah but really who uses them?

95% of .NET is in c#. All the VB jobs are still for legacy 5.x and 6.x code that I see. Take it back 85% c# and 10% c++. Just because it can be done COBOL doesn't mean people use it other than to see if they can write a hello world program.

In essence it is a c# based environment.

I welcome it if it is more open and cheaper. 100k to start a website for unlimited licenses is freaking nuts.

But that was a few years ago.

MS is changing because they have lost and can no longer use leverage like they once did. Witness IE and visual studio where lots of free competition exists?

I welcome an alternative to java and hopes it encourages python and php to get their acts together. More competition the better for everyone

The old gray beards today might say the same with IBM or Digital but once market forces correct a monopoly the company either whithers or adapts.

Doesn't mean MS is no different than any other corporation even if that opinion is unpopular here on slashdot. Timewarner/AT&T/Comcast are far more evil and God forbid what Jobs would have in store if Apple won the Pc wars in the 1980s and achieved 90% marketshare! MS would be tame in comparison.

Under a free market people play nice or loose out.

Today I like Microsoft even though I hated them hence my name 13 years ago. Here are the facts in late 2014
1. IE is not a bad browser anymore. It used to be both feared and loathed in the old days as it was a threat to win32 applications. Today they no longer will ever have the control they did in 2004 when you needed to go to a library to use IE 6 if you used a mac or linux to fill out job apps. Yes I remember doing that. Monster.com was optimized for IE 6 quirks back then.IE 11 is modern and has great debugging tools and behaves like a real browser behaves and has the best security with sandboxing. IE 12 will even have an add-on framework ala Chrome/Firefox. I use adblock on IE today
2. Visual Studio 2015 supports Android and Linux Xiarmin development?? No I am lying. Go google it as emulators are included including CLANG support.
3. Office is available for Android and IOS. Full suite is coming soon
4. MS more liberal with pricing for non corporations. Google VS Community edition. It is pro and free!
5. MS is opening sourcing .NET and lots of frameworks
6. Azure supports non win32 operating systems.
7. MS is putting more effort in security and stabilizing and fixing bugs now that competition exists.

Am I a fanboy? No. I am agnostic this day but I find MS getting much better and if it were not for Metro I would be a fan even of their desktop products. Windows 7 is a very stable desktop oriented OS. It is not and I repeat not the POS slashdotters who have not run Windows in 15 years remember.

MS woke up and realized oh shoot. IOS and Android are eating our lunch! Eclipse will eat our lunch! Amazon will eat our lunch! Firefox and now I should say Chrome has eating our lunch! Ms has so much competition today on so many fronts it can't go back and use leverage of a monopoly in one area for another. Blocking Android on Windows? Who cares about Windows blah. Block W3C standards iwth IE? Fine I will use another browser etc.

This was unthinkable in 1999. So Linux did not win the desktop wars like we hoped but open source software did win everything else. Browsers are competitive. Mobile operating systems competitive. Development environments are competitive. Clouds and virtual services for legacy win32 apps scare the crap out of them so soon if mega corps want to leave they can.

MS is done. I welcome the new MS. As some (I did not say all folks) products are fairly decent and play well with others.

...how many of those ships are US-registered? A quick guess would be way less than 10%, if even that. Hell, much (if not most) US-owned ships are often flagged in Liberia (or some similar country) for tax/inspection/regulation purposes.

We may yet find out... most of the smarter escapees tend to wait until their deathbed to let something like that slip out.

I suspect that prison makes you learn a few things rather quickly...

They'd have to have kept those crimes to extremely petty ones at the most. Even though the 1960's didn't have facial recognition, the TSA (for what that's worth), instant background checks, widespread Social Security Number checking mechanisms, or any of the stuff we have today? They definitely had fingerprinting, and at least some semblance of a national fingerprint database of sorts to check against (the FBI would have had these guys' fingerprints after the break.)

They could have eventually slipped through the cracks even if they re-offended (e.g. it wasn't uncommon for, say, truck drivers to have multiple drivers' licenses from multiple states), but any crime beyond a misdemeanor would have had the local PD looking at some stranger (stranger in their town that is) and doing at least a cursory check, if only to build a rap sheet for the prosecution.

IMHO, if they made it, they likely hoofed it to Canada or Mexico (or perhaps further South) and built an assumed identity from which to live out the rest of their lives in as obscure a manner as possible. Over time, that new identity would become reinforced.

It wouldn't be the first time either... I recall a few instances in the '80s and even the '90s where some schlub or other escaped prison in that era (or before), got himself a new identity, and decades later did something stupid (IIRC, in one case the dumbass ran for a local public office, and a local reporter researching his background found the inconsistencies).

But it works in IE 6?!!

So, does this suggest a reasonable upper temperature for superconductivity?

You do know that all the blocks have already been bought up, right?
Of course you don't. Hell, you probably don't even know what I mean.

Some of us care about other human beings. If you can't get that, then please take a long walk off a short pier.

WTF are you tlaking about? What 'evil'? What 'therapy'?

Clearly you know NOTING about Cuba, so stop saying idiotic things.

The Goal we have for Russia is different then the one we have for Cuba, you simpleton.

here you go:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L...

FInally?
Everything is better by any measure.
To quote Chris Rock:
Only President Obama could get gas to $2.50, end 2 wars, get bin Laden, bring unemployment below 8%, then be told he's failing as president.

You're funding my search, right?
Oh you're not putting you money were your mouth is? shocking.