This is exactly right.

I used to work at a video duplicating plant where we controlled our source machines (Beta, DigiBeta, C1s, D2s, etc.) via a central computer. We had about 20 source machines providing movies, commercials, logos, and trailers to over 4000 VHS recorders divided into 14 racks.

Until we got the centralized computer management thingie, we used manual switchboards and our skills to start, synchronize, and switch between, different source machines providing logos, trailers, commercials, and features, making sure each "item" was properly synchronized after each other.

This was not so difficult with just trailers before a film, but if you had two source reels that needed to be switched in the middle of a movie, you had to make damn sure you didn't switch sources more than a couple of frames out of sync, or you'd get a really bad copy. It was a fun little game, but the computerized system, of course, made the whole thing much easier and much more accurate.

But of course, this accuracy depended on the accuracy of the OS the system ran on. A running video player controlled via RF over BNC cables doesn't provide interrupts, the entire thing had to be timed to the frame from within the application itself. And not for one source and one target, but for M sources and M targets. So you needed an OS which absolutely guaranteed a time slice from the kernel at an absolutely non-negotiable point in time.

That, at the time, would be Windows 3.11 :) And the time (when I left) was 1998. We were wondering at the time why the hell they'd use Windows 3.11 for that task, but I'm pretty sure they're still using that old thing, at least I don't see any reason why they wouldn't ;)

I take it then, that you have never voted. Ballots ARE anonymous in the United States. They are guaranteed to be anonymous. It is NO ONE'S business how anyone marks a ballot. I'm not even permitted into the booth to watch how someone marks their ballot. The wife and I are not even permitted to occupy the same booth at the same time. Your understanding of the American voting system is seriously incomplete.

Now, I happen to be proud of my vote. I TELL people how I voted. Interested? I voted against Bill Clinton every chance I had. I voted for Bush the first time, and voted against him the second time. I voted for Obama. I'm proud of my votes, though I'm less proud of my Bush vote than my other votes.

But, anonymity at the ballot box is guaranteed for a reason. I could presumably bully my wife into voting my way, or punish her for not voting my way. She's a little bitty woman, it would be no problem to smack her around until she sees reason.

Do you see the reason for anonymity, now?

Actually, Microsoft Office isn't all that compatible with Microsoft Office, when you are talking about different versions. In my 6-7 years running Linux at work, I used OpenOffice exclusively to write and edit documents, and to create and modify spreadsheets. I never had a problem exchanging documents with others. Of course, I was careful to save documents in the Microsoft Word "DOC" format, and spreadsheets in the Microsoft Excel "XLS" format.

It's true that sometimes Word will fail to render a document properly. But it's not the fault of OpenOffice - sometimes, Microsoft Word fails to properly display other Microsoft Word files. An example I wrote about a few months ago:

Last night, one of the attendees sent out some notes for us to read before the meeting. We all dutifully printed out our copy of the document, and brought it with us to the meeting.

Despite the fact that the document was created with Microsoft Office, and that we all run Microsoft Office, there were 3 different versions of the printed document at the meeting. You could tell by looking around the table that one version of the notes (printed from Microsoft Office for Macintosh) arranged the text around a table in a weird way. Another version (printed by Microsoft Office 2007) put a page break in a different place and put an extra blank line between a table and its caption. The original version (Microsoft Office 2003) was formatted as intended.

This was a simple 3-page document in "DOC" format, with an enumerated list of paragraphs, so it didn't take long for us to realize our copies printed out differently, and to figure out the correlation between versions of Word and how the document printed out.

I think it just goes to show: if you have a document that absolutely must preserve formatting, send it as a PDF.

If it's more fossil fuels, then it's not being green; it's cutting diesel costs

As someone pointed out (hopefully in another thread), the diesel produces more CO2 than the electricity needed, even if the electricity is generated by the dirtiest generation plant on the planet.

In addition to this post, with EDF algorithm if you meet some given conditions, you have the guaranty that your deadlines will be met.

Who would decide whose marriages are "in the best interest of society" and what criteria would be used?

It would be hard to nail down fair, clear criteria unless it was something very simple like couples can only be married if they are currently raising minor children. Study after study (http://www.apa.org/pi/parent.html) has shown that kids raised by 2 gay parents fare about as well as those raised by 2 straight parents. The more significant component seems to be having two actively involved parents raising a child, rather than their specific gender or sexual orientation. Even then, there are plenty of single parents who do a much better job of raising their children than many couples, even married couples who are the biological parents of the child.

Most importantly though, it's undeniable that people (straight, gay, single, coupled) are going to continue having children regardless of their ability to marry. Don't those children deserve the protections conferred by the parents raising them being able to marry?

Even taking children out of the equation, there is a clear case to be made for supporting marriage. I mean, nobody's ever worked hard to ban or dissolve the marriages of people who either could not have or chose not to have children, right? Married people tend to fare better than those who are single with regard to happiness, longevity and health.