...because one of the primary reasons for remote start up is to warm up your car in cold conditions, thereby making it easier to scrape ice off one's windshield?

I prefer to think it was along the lines of "What werewolf?" but he was only able to get "What were" before being mauled.

Just out of curiosity, what is the best way to really remove data from a hard drive? Well, I guess maybe incinerating the whole thing, but I'm talking more along the lines of something "simple" for the average user. It's not really a big concern, but my brother is starting a company, and it got me thinking on security, for things like their accounting, employee and customer info and things along those lines. Now, they're not dealing with trade or governmental secrets or anything like that, and the company will be more in the service industry, but I was still thinking about security, and this story made me think about a few things when it comes to deleting data.

If I understand things correctly, normally when you delete a file, it isn't actually removed from the HD, but rather the parts of the disk containing the deleted the files are marked as available, then overwritten when the time comes. So short of a format that actually writes all 0's (or whatever), is there a way to actually delete a file, and have the bits actually overwritten, either with random bits or all 0's or 1's (or what have you)? Basically, something easy for the average user, so if they merely need to delete a few files, and want to make absolutely sure that the data is relatively safely destroyed.

And another "noobish" question: When you do actually delete something, and then overwrite the bits, is there any "residual data" left "underneath" the newly written data? Hard to explain, but I guess the best analogy would be to picture when you use a pencil, and you make a mistake and erase part of it, and then overwrite it, and you can often still partially see the erased pencil markings. Given the right tools and resources, is it possible for someone to recover this kind of data?

(And for what it is worth, I'm referring to standard hard drives, as opposed to solid state drives.

Using a mouse today isn't exactly clumsy in terms of 3D modeling. In fact, I'd venture a guess that today's software + input methods is a lot less clumsy than all those dials.. I'm a modeler (and texture artist/sometimes generalist) by trade, and it's pretty damn efficient and easy - and in no way clumsy. I think I'd much rather use a mouse and keyboard (and tablet for sculpting) than all those dials and knobs. The mouse gives you a central control tool, and the keyboard can let you quickly and easily apply tools, modifiers, etc, for how and what the mouse is used for. (Or of course, you can use the mouse to click on an icon instead of using hotkeys).

Yep, even the Romans knew this. Their pila (javelins made of a wooden shaft with an iron tip extending out) were designed so that when they struck the ground (or a shield), the iron tip would bend and prevent the pilum from being picked up and hurled back at the Roman lines. Quite ingenious really, as this also meant that if the tip pierced a shield, and bent, it could be rather hard to remove, thus making the shield rather unwieldy, which could also make it rather hard for the soldier to charge the Roman lines with a shield with a long wooden shaft sticking out towards the ground.

Disclaimer: This is purely anecdotal evidence based on my experience, and so I understand everyone is different.

I've been using Vista since I built this machine about ~10 months ago. Not a single problem. It has been absolutely rock solid in terms of stability. I reboot only to install updates and such, so my uptime is measured in days, weeks, and at times, months. I never experienced the typical Windows rot I got with XP. I use this computer for 3D and other graphics work, as well as a little bit of gaming here and there. It's often pushed "to the max" in terms of resources, lots of large files being loaded into memory, lots of heavy processing, etc. Everything from stuff that stresses more say, memory and the GPU (3D viewports in modo, Maya, etc, previewing stuff in Photoshop, and all that), to stuff that is more CPU intensive such as rendering and image adjustments in PS. Again, no Window rot. I've even benchmarked renders after a fresh reboot, and after uptimes of 30+ days just to see. Also, and this is totally based on my non scientific observation, I haven't noticed any slow down/rot when it comes to using the OS and apps in general.

As for performance, it flies on this machine, but I understand that my system has a bit more power than a standard user would have (well, it is 10 months old, but still no slouch, i7 920, 12gb RAM, tho my video card is a weak link, a Radeon 4850 1gb card, but that doesn't really affect Vista's performance, more so 3D stuffs). Anyway, every app I use is fast and responsive. Some benchmark tests in modo show a 5x increase in rendering speed on average, and that was still with a 32 bit app. Photoshop handles everything I throw at it without trouble. Again, I know that's more due to the hardware than the OS, but the OS isn't hindering me at all. Naturally, a more efficient OS would be even faster, but I don't think I'd actually notice it that much. Even if I had a wider variety of apps that had Linux clients, and Linux could indeed make more efficient use of my system's resources, I don't think it'd be worth it to have to dual boot in and out of Linux just to use a specific app for a slight, probably barely perceptible increase in performance. That's not to say that MS gets a pass for bloat though, of which I don't doubt Vista has. Again, maybe due to my system that I don't really notice much bloat, but I have to think that Vista isn't quite as bloated as the most rabid anti-MS zealots would have you believe.

Anyway, I'll still upgrade to Win7 soon, just because everyone I know who liked Vista likes 7 even more. And even those who didn't like Vista still seem to like 7. Everyone is pretty much telling me that 7 takes all the best of Vista, and either keeps it or improves upon on it, and it tosses out a lot of the garbage from Vista. Anyway, all that said, I still think people rag on Vista just because it's the "cool" thing to do. And yes, it has teething problems, and MS shouldn't be excused for rushing it out the door, but even people who hated and had trouble with the early Vista OS have told me that it's currently a different beast in terms of fixing all those problems that plagued it early on. I'm sure there's still a few problems with it, but I haven't really encountered any. Even though I prefaced this comment with "this is just my experience", I still have to believe that a lot of the Vista hate is just carried over from earlier on, and because it's the cool thing to do. I have no idea why anyone could continue to claim so many problems when I have had absolutely none (that is to say, I can't see why, but that's not to say that it's not possible). Again, I understand everyone's setup and experience is different, but I refuse to believe that *everyone* is on the level when bashing Vista. I know for a fact that I've seen people bash Vista by claiming to still suffer from problems that have been fixed for a long time. The other thing that annoys me is when people bitch and moan about features in Vista that they can easily disable. I know one of the first things I did was attempt to "streamline" Vista by cutting down on all the fancy UI graphics related stuff, and make it look and behave more like XP. That was more about me setting it up so that I was comfortable and working in a more familiar environment than anything else though. Even with all the fancy bells and whistles turned on, my system ran just fine, and all those bells and whistles actually barely made a dent in performance to the point of me not really being able to tell the difference in terms of performance with them on, as opposed to off. Again, it was more of a preference thing than a necessity for performance.

Finally, so I can provide a bit of objectivity here instead of coming off like a fanboy, while I think Vista is great for those who have systems that can handle it really well, that shouldn't be construed as saying it's a great OS for everyone. And Vista was marketed as just that. We saw how MS got in trouble with their "Vista Ready" or whatever marketing they had on systems that could barely handle it.

And honestly, it's so much better than the music in your sig. "Girls say they like my complexion - I got it from your descendants, god bless them" That doesn't even make any fucking sense. Or maybe it does, but how does that work? Your offspring and future generations develop time travel to go back in time and give you a better complexion?

The article does say:

"The two economists examined birth-certificate data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for 52 million children born between 1989 and 2001, which represents virtually all of the births in the U.S. during those years. The same pattern kept turning up: The percentage of children born to unwed mothers, teenage mothers and mothers who hadn't completed high school kept peaking in January every year. Over the 13-year period, for example, 13.2% of January births were to teen mothers, compared with 12% in May -- a small but statistically significant difference, they say."

So it seems they used data from babies born in the US. On the other hand, the article also says: "Other researchers have suggested other reasons for season-of-birth differences. Maybe vitamin D was playing a role, for example, because children born in the winter were getting less sunshine in early life" - which if this were true, would apply to babies born in winter for both hemispheres.

Yeah, the Civil War only became a war to "free the blacks" after support for the war was wavering. Lincoln saw an opportunity to take the "moral high ground" and used it as a way to try and boost support for the war. As you said, the North wanted control, and as the war dragged on, people started questioning whether it was worth it. Lincoln then tried turning it into a war to free the slaves to garner more public support, and to re-purpose the war with a more worthy and lofty cause. While slavery was part of the issue for the start of the war, the South seceded because they wanted more say over the way things were run, which while that included slavery, it wasn't the main or only cause.

As for the economic collapse theory, like I said, I have no idea if it could have worked. I think you're absolutely correct about them not grovelling and coming back to the union though. I obviously wasn't alive at the time, so I can't say, but it does seem the North underestimated the South's resolve and stubbornness. I think that as you say, they might have lived out a life as an "underdeveloped country" for awhile, but I'd have to imagine that after awhile, they'd rebuild their infrastructure to better support their country.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't the Nazi flag have been flown for 12 years, from 1933 to 1945? (Or rather, wouldn't it have been the national flag for those 12 years, though having been around longer, since the inception of the Nazi party?)

One of my teachers proposed an interesting theory, something I hadn't really thought of much till now. Now, he was actually relaying what he had come across as sort of a "what if" scenario as an alternative to war, and I was also absent from school for the first half of our Civil War studies with a bout of mono. Furthermore, this was 16-17 years ago when I was in 5th grade, so I may be a bit fuzzy on it as well.

He suggested that had the North not gone to war with the CSA, they would have still initiated a blockade of the South. The North would have then "offered" to buy the CSA's goods at drastically reduced prices, as they would not have the ability to sell to anyone else. We already saw how one of the contributing factors to the South losing was that they simply couldn't sell enough of their goods such as cotton, while Europe was in need of grain supplies from the North. I believe that even when Britain was in need of cotton, they simply looked to either Egypt or maybe it was India for their cotton. I also recall reading that the blockade caused prices of cotton and other goods to skyrocket, which made finding other sources an economic necessity in addition to being a political necessity. Other nations were also afraid of defying the blockade, as the USA threatened war with any country who recognized the CSA as an independent country. Anyway, the ultimate goal would have been to basically cause an economic collapse of the South, in an attempt to get them to rejoin the Union.

Whether or not this is true, or would have been a viable option, I have no idea. I'm fascinated by the Civil War, but most of my study has revolved around battles themselves. I should really look into the greater scheme of things though, for which I ask if you can suggest any recommended reading on the subject matter?

You joke, but the red eye remover tool was essential in gathering this image. You see, this is actually an image taken of a carbon atom in someone's eye. The guys over at CSI first used the red eye remover tool, and then they used "image enhance" 65,403 times to generate this image.

Yeah, something seems amiss here. I also installed Win 2K Pro on at least 10 different occasions, on both higher end hardware and also older, lower end hardware, and never had had any trouble. No boot disks, no excessively long installs, no trouble at all.

I remember reading an article a few years ago about the design of slaughterhouses. Apparently, it seems that recently some places have been trying to reduce the amount of stress experienced by the animals as they make their way through the "factory floor" on the way to the chopping block. I think one of the leading researchers was actually doing it for more compassionate (reducing the mental stress of the animals) reasons, and that the companies', though I could be TOTALLY wrong on this, were doing it for better quality meat. Something about the hormones and other chemicals released by the cows when they're under stress leads to meat that isn't as tasty as cows that are killed under less mentally straining conditions. Maybe someone can elaborate on this, and either confirm or correct this, as I don't remember if I read it in the actual article, or if I'm just remembering anecdotal evidence from hunters who have said that say, the meat of deer, tastes better when the animal dies quickly.

But.... how can you have any pudding if you don't eat your meat?!