Reading glasses - they are cheap ($5) and available (Walgreens). Why everyone feels the need to solve easy problems with complex solutions, I will never know.

I'll second that. My gf and both parents are now full-time Linux users and the amount of support that I've had to do has dropped down to near zero. My gf doesn't even know that she's using Linux, just that it isn't Windows.

This still doesn't resolve a major problem in the chip industry and that is that these two companies have a duopoly on x86 and x86-64 chip designs due to patents. I'm not a patent lawyer, but I really don't see how Intel can possibly patent an instruction set (the implementation thereof, sure, but the instructions themselves?). Until these companies are forced to license to third-parties, we'll still see a real lack of competition.

Write your governor, state representatives, federal representatives, and your DMV to let them know how you feel.

Especially if you are a resident of NC. I for one would be pretty pissed off if I was forced to participate in a (virtual) line-up.

Recourse is in the eye of the beholder.

If player #2 and I are neck and neck for 1st place, I keep back a bit knowing full well that he will get blue shelled eventually.

If I'm in 1st, but have some people only a second or two behind me, I'll hit the brakes when I hear the blue shell warning sound, knowing that they'll get caught up in the explosion.

I think Mario Kart gets a bad reputation because people want it to be a pure racing game, when its really a racing-based brawler.

Good point: The amount of energy that needs to be dissapated is linear in mass and quadratic in velocity (KE = mv^2/2). The maximum static friction force is also linear in mass (F_fric = mu*m*g). The work (or energy) is the force times distance. Setting these equations equal to each other, you find that: d = v^2 / (2*mu*g) Stopping distance is independent of the mass of the vehicle. Speed, being quadratic, is a huge factor. And mu, which depends on the tires and the road is also important. (So is g, of course, but you stand little chance of modifying gravity.) This implies that decreasing your speed from 75mph to 65mph decreases your stopping distance by about 25%.

No, they are $29. Considering what a Windows license costs, I think its a hell of a deal.

I'm so glad I'm in the sciences. When I make a discovery, nobody cares if I'm a male or a female, or if I was on drugs when I did it, or if I have a rare gene that makes me smarter than everyone else. My accomplishments stand on their own and I like it that way.

Not the bug, but the fact that its in the firmware. Are we looking at a future where we not only have to download updates to fix bugs in our applications and operating systems, but our hardware as well? Even worse, having a bug in a storage device is absolutely unacceptable. It's one thing when my webcam doesn't work, but if I lose all of my data, that's another.

To Intel's credit though, unlike Seagate, at least they are admitting there's a problem.