So long ago I got tired of all the crap that companies try to pull "just because it is digital"... Yep, "just because it is digital" cuts also the other way: I have not bought any DRM'd crap in at least 5 years and I get all my stuff from either rental (netflix) or from the bay (not the e- but the p-). Most problems hence solved.

You are saying complete BS. For example, Carter was one of the few US presidents who put pressure on latin America's dictatorships to try to alleviate the human rights abuses. He put an arms embargo on Argentina's dictatorship (later rescinded by Reagan, a factor that eventually lead to the Argentina-UK war in 1982).

Indeed, mod parent up. I can see only one really bad thing Carter did: loosing to Reagan. That started the fast decline of US democracy, along with turning the US into a banana republic (where the top 1% get everything, pay for nothing and get the lower 40% to fight wars and die in the interest of the top 1%).

But I already got all the artifacts in my last two trips there.

This is EXACTLY the point of this lesson (and many others). Simply NEVER TALK TO THE POLICE. It will NEVER do you any good. Americans are decades behind the rest of the world in learning this lesson. Simply put: you can't trust them. Lesson learned in decades of living in the 3rd world, which the US has joined about 10 years ago (at least).

What temperature water freezes (quite important, e.g., for road conditions, plants, etc)? Was it 34? :)

Who's foot?

Which are really 1.5x3.5 and 3.5x7.5.... You can't even get that one right!

Why is that tax-exempt status is granted to organizations that then turn around an pay handsomely to their CEOs et al.? And avoid corporate taxes at that? Why am *I* forced to subsidize someone else's choices when they donate $$ to a tax-exempt organization (be it a church, or tea party nut-bag)? Yes, I am subsidizing your nut-choice because you reduce your taxes (hence increase the proportion of my burden) by donating to that nut-bag organization. IT IS TIME TO END ALL TAX-EXEMPT STATUS, and TO END TAX REBATES TO DONATIONS.

You would still do a lot better getting an imac for your regular software and a linux machine for the computation. X11 makes all transparent too. And still spend less... See my post above.

???? Why do you need a mac for that? I run mac laptops and even imacs. Even have a mac pro from 2006 (at that time a good deal, 8 xeon 3GHz, not much more expensive than the equivalent Dell). Last month, a Dell Precision workstation with 2 hex core xeons (+ hyperthreading, making them effectively 24 cores--don't scream at me, I have benchmarked MY programs and for all practical purposes it acts as 24 CPUs) for just over $2k (including 32 GB ram, 3 TB disk). Runs linux nicely and the parallelism beats any bewoulf cluster due to the faster in-cpu or in-motherboard connection. The mac pro is about 2 cpu generations outdated, and 35% more expensive. Sigh!

The way people are plainly stupid never ceases to amaze me!

I bet no... why would the US have a holiday on a chinese "special day"?

Apparantely not slow enough... for them to catch the problems.

YOU don't get the flu other than in winter because there is nobody to transmit it to you. On the other hand, you probably do not interact with anybody so it is a mystery how you get it... :)

First spam!

Oh, wait a sec... you meant a computer mouse... Never mind.