But I have such a better idea than this. Simply, you create a special tool that make runs before executing the compiler or linker. This special tool reads in your source file and basically places each and every function in a separate translation unit. These are compiled into object files. Any given game will have thousands of different functions in it, so you'll get thousands of object files. Now you set up your linker to link these objects together a few hundred thousands of times (this will require a grid if you're in a hurry), each time giving you a unique executable that is a unique permutation of the order of the object files. Each permutation will have to be associated with a number in a database. The game is ONLY sold online. You have to download it. When you do, you receive a unique executable image that NOBODY ELSE HAS. Your name, billing address, and credit card information are then associated with the ID number of that executable in the database. The game producer monitors all the warez sites for images of their games. When they find them, they know exactly from which of their customers each copy originated. Knowledge that this is the case will prevent MOST people from copying the game. Only hard-core pirates will try. As an added benefit, the fact that each executable is unique will prevent (or make it extremely difficult) to distribute patches that modify the behavior of the game. Once purchased and downloaded, you NEVER have to activate, you NEVER have to be online, you NEVER have to do anything. Pay, download, back it up to a CD or something, and enjoy.

I have a way you can fix DRM. In a game executable, you will have thousands of functions. All you have to do is come up with a system where each person who buys a copy of the game receives a completely unique executable image where the functions come in a certain specific order. That order can be tied somewhat to your name and the credit card you use to buy the game. All of this gets compressed and stored in a database. Then the game developer monitors the w4rez sites and downloads every copy of the game that shows up on them. The executable will identify the culprit who allowed the game to be copied. Busted! An additional benefit is that patches for the executable cannot be distributed.

This will be true only until players begin supporting the lossless format.

Agreed. This is not an adult suspected of illegal drug trafficking while crossing an international border. This is a 13 year old girl. THIRTEEN! And she was not suspected of trafficking in illegal drugs. Ibuprofen is a common medication in widespread use and is perfectly legal. The fact that something like this takes place in the United States of America is proof that this country is corrupt.

This is the year of the netbook, the cheap car, and next thing you know, they'll be selling houses made out of cardboard for dirt cheap, too.

I feel the same way. I loved BeOS back in its heyday. Maybe you should check out Haiku. It is supposed to be an open-source re-implementation of BeOS in such a way that provides source and binary compatibility with the last commercial version of BeOS, and then to proceed from there with new research. It finally has GCC 4, as of January, which means that it's not stuck in the "classic" 2.95 days of GCC anymore. This will help speed along development considerably. I hope to see a great comeback!

You know what's incredibly funny? If they did use an evil tool to uncover every exploit in open source code, to make the FOSS community look bad, they'd be shooting themselves in the foot because the bugs would get fixed at warp speed. Beyond the initial "bad" publicity they'd generate for FOSS (there's no such thing as bad publicity), the joke would be on them because they'd still be stuck with their bugs but we'd be free of ours. :-)

Let me modify that suicide joke for the GP:

Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Friends do assist M$ addicted friends in upgrading to Ubuntu.

Heh heh... my favorite Linux distro. :-)

SVN runs under Windows. GCC runs under Windows. Gimp runs under Windows. Apache runs under Windows. Hell, just about any project with a configure script will either compile for Windows as-is, or will after slight modifications. FOSS has nothing to do with whether it runs under Windows or not.

Yes, it has merit. That is, it has merit if you're the one who somehow convinced the government (or other rich organization) to give you millions of dollars in research grants. You get a nice house, a nice car, send your kids to a nice private school, take a glance at the sky, and tell us that you're getting closer by the day to finding a twin planet. :-)

Mod parent up. This is a very good description of the issues affecting the possibility of locating a twin Earth. I, too, believe that you won't find a planet to match the conditions here on Earth. Maybe you can find something with a similar gravity and a similar atmosphere, so you'll be able to walk around on it without wearing a space uniform and your body won't get all messed up from being too light or too heavy. But then again, I doubt you'll have a similar enough climate. Or 24-hour days. Or the right temperature. In short, there are so many issues that you need to take into consideration. I know someone will find fault with what I'm about to say, but the general order of things here on Earth suggests that the whole system was created by God to operate in this manner. There are just too many variables, where any one of them being off by 1% would screw up the whole system, that you can't just write it off as being pure luck. And the parent is totally right about the moon, now that I think of it. If it didn't "chase" the sun at just the right speed, and if the Earth didn't spin at the right speed, then the phase of the moon would change throughout the night, and we as a civilization would have no concept of a calendar, except to the extent that we have the concept of the day and the repeating cycle of seasons.

You're right that 7 is leaner because Vista was a market flop. However I disagree that it flopped because it tried to do things people aren't ready for. People are ready for everything it was supposed to do. No. It flopped because of two reasons. First, it did not work properly. Second, it was painfully slow even on bad ass hardware. Vista flopped for these two reasons so 7 is a big focus shift to making things actually work and making the OS as a whole make more efficient use of resources. Nobody wants to sit around and wait endlessly while their Core 9 Septuagint with 50 exabytes of RAM chugs away to repaint a window because you had the audacity to move the mouse while it was processing something. That is why Vista flopped. That is why 7 is being made leaner. Netbooks have something to do with it, but not a whole hell of a lot.

Dude, you totally miss the point. In the Christian and Jewish religions, human life is THE most sacred and holy thing and when human life is in danger, whether from old age or from some other danger, you are supposed to do everything in your power to try to save that life. It has nothing to do with how much you really believe or don't believe, and everything to do with a deep-down-inside knowledge that life is so holy that every effort must be made to create life, hence religious families with many children and the aversion to abortion, and to prolong life as much as possible. Yes, when your time comes, it comes, but you're supposed to fight for your life to the very end. There is another factor: In both religions, there is the saying that God helps those who help themselves. If you're told you don't have too much longer to live and you say, "Oh well, I'm done for," then you can expect to die pretty soon because you've given up. It's like being in a race and giving up just because the odds are against you. But if you fight to the very end, then with your strong will to live and your strong belief that God will help you because you help yourself, you MIGHT get to live, but you DEFINITELY get the knowledge that if you die anyway, at least you tried. At least you don't die a coward. No such religious person will lie on their death bed and suddenly think, "Oh my God, maybe there's no God." On the contrary. As you get older, you'll have a tendency to believe in God, unless you're just plain dumb.

There's a billboard next to a highway nearby that reads, "ATHEIST: Someone who believes that nothing made everything. A scientific impossibility!"

You think about that now.

Sir, do not underestimate my knowledge of the Star Wars universe.

...

Oh, wait.

Just look at how DAMN long it takes people to get out of the plane when you've landed safely at the airport. If you're back in seat 34C, you can expect to wait for what seems like forever before the jerks in front of you finally move out of your way. Now imagine doing this when the plane is flying straight down with flames shooting out of the engines, with the screaming, yelling, parents, children, confusion, jerks, and all the other stuff the parent posted.