I willingly spent 12 years in the military, knowing that I could at any time be placed in a situation where I would need to give my life in defense of my country. Ok, so I didn't always expect to die, but there were times where it was close, and I fully expected to die momentarily.

My point is that there are some objectives/principles for which it is worth sacrificing a long life. Being able to participate in establishing an outpost on Mars is much more useful than the soldier's traditional sacrifice of "he threw himself on a grenade to save the rest of his team." Now that I am middle-aged and without spouse/children, it seems quite reasonable. Am I qualified? Heck no (unless they need someone to run their nuclear power plant, and can provide some remedial training). Would I volunteer? Certainly!

There is no reason that a search of the US (or for that international flavor, search the world) for volunteers wouldn't find a qualified crew for such a mission.

Yeah, that works good with Duracell batteries, but what about the folks who bought batteries on Ebay that were manufactured in some unknown country, and the brand existed only long enough to print a few thousand labels? Good luck identifying the manufacturer, much less getting them to replace/repair your expensive equipment.

The chinese have a phrase (ShanZai) which means cheap knockoff. The warranty lasts exactly until you purchase the item. Once you have your purchase in hand, you find that there is no warranty. Any incidental damages (such as a battery exploding in your equipment, burning in your pocket, etc) is purely your own responsibility.

Silly me, I just didn't find the button the first time... It's on the left side of the page at the URL in your sig, scroll down aways.

http://tinyurl.com/az7bw (I don't need to remind slashdotters to use Ray's sig rather than click on my link when you're planning to give money, right? No-one would ever click on a link in slashdot and put in financial info, right? Right.)

Thanks again Ray, for being a voice of reason in this ongoing RIAA fiasco. My money should already be in your Paypal account.

For the rest of you slashdotters, Where's Your Donation? Go ahead, you know you want to help...

Thanks Ray,
Do you have a link to a page where you accept donations for future expenses (such as the previously mentioned transcript)? As an interested observer, I would be willing to toss $15.00 into the kitty. I trust you to put it to good use.

I wish I had mod points... the last two words from the classic book 'Adolescence of P1'. Made me grin.

Phone numbers may behave this way, but prices always tend to prefer 9's and 5's. Granted there may be leading 1's (in fact, that's quite popular), but the ending numbers... 9's or 5's. Not including shipping and handling, call now.

Um, are those the only two choices I have?

Well it's obvious that you don't need to fully immerse the rabbit... just lower him until the water is about belly height. Of course as each rabbit foot enters the water, the probability experimental success increases by 25%. After all, it's rabbits feet we're putting in the tank...

No, because everyone knows that cameras running BSD are DYING!!

Sorry, but when I think of the BSD mascot I immediately think of Ceren Ercen . Now there's a mascot that typical slashdot readers can (or would like to) relate to!

I can't believe that a First Post that includes references to Frosty Piss got modded informative!

Support the automotive industry bailout!

Won't somebody just think of the children!

Years ago, I read a book called "The Adolescence of P1," which included mention of how to teach matchboxes to play tic-tac-toe. The protagonist ran with this, and ended up developing an artificial intelligence.

Anyway, the idea of teaching matchboxes to play tic-tac-toe was in an article in Scientific American.

article describing how it's done

Well, a comparative study conducted between October 1997 and May 2001 agrees that overall results for the two procedures are roughly equivalent, so you're in good company.

Anterior Modification of Delorme Procedure Provides Equivalent Results to Delorme Procedure in Treatment of Rectal Outlet Obstruction . Current Surgery , Volume 62 , Issue 6 , Pages 609 - 612 A . Dippolito , S . Esser , J . Reed III