A bit like the hype that comes out for months (or years in the case of "longhorn") BEFORE the release of any new version of windows. I guess consumer computing likes to have a bit of balance.

Just in case anyone was wondering. It would be nice if editors would get into the habit of making sure that the front page summaries had a definition of these TLA's in at least 10% of the posted articles. TLS == three letter acronym, by the way.

Why was this comment labeled offtopic? "ping" is one of the most basic commands on Unix-like systems. It even works on a Mac. It's the first thing that came to mind when I read the title. It also has uses in online gaming. At the very least I could see some concern for potential trademark confusion (even if you'd have to be some sort of SCO to try an sue Apple over it.) Currently, if you plug "ping" into wikipedia search, it's the Unix command that comes up by default (though that will probably change soon).

Anyway "ping" already has some well established (and very specific) meaning in the computer world. I'm surprised Apple would choose that specific word for their newest gimmick. Especially since it is already loaded with such uncool, geeky history.

The difference between hydrogen being inert, flammable, or explosive is a matter of how much oxygen is mixed in with it. Here's a test you can try yourself: get two balloons, fill one with hydrogen only, and fill the other one with a stoicheometric mixture of oxygen and hydrogen. You will need less hydrogen for the second one since 1/3 of the volume is take up by oxygen. Now hold some ignition source up to each balloon. You'll get a relatively mild woosh from the pure hydrogen balloon as it has to mix with oxygen from the air before it can burn. If you're standing within about five meters of the premixed balloon you should have a doctor on hand to stop your ears from bleeding.

You can also put some pure hydrogen in a more solid container with not chance of a leak introducing oxygen, rig up a spark plug or something, and nomatter how hard you try, it won't go off unless there is a leak for air to get in.

Same thing goes for gasoline. Put some in a bowl and light it on fire and you get a nice slow flame. Get some gasoline vapors and mix them with stoicheometric amounts of oxygen and you will get an explosion.

There's more to combustion than just thermodynamics, kinetics matters too.

I agree with you about the hydrogen powered car having lots of issues though.

Could it be caused by whales with digestive ailments?

And how is that different from being forced to pay for closed source development? At least if you are force to pay for open source development, you won't have to pay again in order to reap the benefits of the development. If the stimulus money only goes to closed source, you'll have to pay again to buy the software before you see any immediate benefit. All the costs of socialism with none of the benefits. If you really are opposed to this on such idealistic grounds, then you should be opposed to the entire concept of a stimulus package.

Maybe it's just me, but the Roxanne version reminds me of the music that came out of the radio in Portal.

In addition to version control, another nice thing about LaTeX is the ability to leave comments in your document, just like in any other program. Comments like "this paragraph makes no sense, be sure to clarify it before sending to the editor", for example. Or point-form lists of what you want to get through in each section. It's a very handy programming tool to have access to when writing a large document. And just like when programming, the comments don't show up in the final "compiled" product.

There may be better tools out there if you have a big budget, but I'd have to agree. I got sick of word and its quirks when writing my thesis (sort of a technical book if you want to think of it like that). Emacs and LaTeX were a life-saving combination. Bibtex took some getting used to for the indexing, but that was the hardest thing to learn.

Formatting is easy. Large projects are easy. It copes with all the major image formats. And if using a text editor is not your thing, there are pseudo-wysiwyg gui's available.

On a side note, there are also (problematic) tools to convert your document to html and many other formats once you have it in tex.

If my Dad can use Slackware, anybody can. The real fun is when my step-mom can't get XP to recognize her camera so my dad had to DL the pictures and copy them to a USB stick.

Folks who haven't tried Slackware since the mid '90s really have no busness commenting about the distro. It's come just as far as all the rest, but somehow managed to stay true to the idea of being stable and reliable that has been there from day one.

If you want to be a point-and-click drone and only need to do email, then Slack will work just fine. On the other hand, I rarely have any problems compiling stuff either (haven't had to google for strange libs since I left redhat in the dust).

Actually, you will strike fear and awe into the hearts of all those redhat (linux equiv of gingers in southpark?) and ubuntu users. Telling people you use Slackware even makes gentoo users gasp in amazement. By using Slack, everyone around you will know that your kung-fu is the best kung-fu.

I know it's not "official" (in that it is not overseen by Pat) but slamd64 runs quite nicely. I've been running it for almost a year now on a core2 system with almost the same ease as official slackware on older systems. Just in case anyone is looking for 64 bit slack.

Now if only I could get an install that works easily on my PS3.