So I'm reading all these heated DRM posts and do something incredibly silly: before posting, I did a little research.

Calling this "DRM" is simply wrong headed. It doesn't meet any definition of "DRM". Not even remotely. And lockin? How can it possibly be lockin if anyone who wants to can manufacturer them?

If you don't trust them enough to show you everything they're sending back, then I'm left wondering why you'd trust them enough to install their software.

Having learned ruby first and python second, I'd say there's not much difference between the two except a bit of philosophy.

The one thing that ruby provides over python would be unconstrained anonymous functions and a greater emphasis on flexibility for the developer. It also has better package management.

Lastly, it has a cleaner designed feel. By this I mean, once you learn the basic classes in ruby you can easily find other packages since they tend to occur where you'd naturally expect them. In python, there's often quirks of the language on finding what you're looking for. For example, path functions are found in two different modules (sys and os) and if one considered the path to a file as an attribute of the file one could say that attributes and methods relating to files are spread across several modules.

I think this is more of a sign of ruby's relative newness to python and Python 3.0 has attempted to eliminate some of these inconsistencies and oddities that have accumulated over time of the language.

Where python shines is libraries and maturity. The interpreter is very mature and Python has a much deeper library than ruby. If you went with ruby for all your tasks, you'd quickly find yourself becoming a ruby contributor as you likely won't be able to find the library suited for your task. . . especially if your programming in the math and sciences.

Actually, you are incorrect. The initial account in OSX is a member of the admin group. The admin group has an elevated level of permissions compared to a normal account which is a member of the staff group (and not the admin). According to Apple Security recommendations (available on their site along with other reference docs), all day to day activities should be done with a non-admin user.

We'll see how it pans out, but at least they're off to a better start. As far as the data recovery, I'm sure it only applies to data that can be shown to result in money loss. Unfortunately, those photos of Uncle Joe getting drunk and making a fool of himself at our cousins wedding is not worth anything to anyone but our own sentimentality.

Why? Simple. During the DeathStar fiasco almost a decade ago, IBM refused to acknowledge the issue. Leaving small businesses to clean up their mess and cover the costs of replacing prematurely failed drives and lost customer data.

Seagate, on the other hand, has readily acknowledged the issue and pledged to replace drives and pay for possible data recovery?

That's absolutely amazing. No vendor is perfect, shit like this happens occasionally. The true test of a good supplier, vendor, manufacturer, etc. is not what they do when everything's going right. It's what they do when it goes all wrong.

I've seen the argument that software students learn "will only have a minor correlation" to what they use a few years from now. This is utterly and completely wrong. A student starting High School in 2001 very likely may have received his first introduction to Windows XP, coming from '98 of course. The difference between these two (from a beginning user perspective) is negligible.

Most businesses skipped Vista and Win 7 is likely to come around in 2010. So That 2001 student, especially as far as work (job/school/lab/etc) is concerned, has used XP for 9 years. That's 4 years of high school, 4 years of college, and 1 year in the work force.

It might not last forever, but seriously a 9 year run of staring at the exact same desktop. This is assuming people pick up Win 7 out of the blocks and with a vengeance too. There's no reason to doubt that XP will be on plenty desktops years after Win 7 is released.

Yes. Any folder placed in the doc effectively becomes a "Menu" of items contained in that directory. So the Applications directory becomes the applications menu.

Because everyone knows, no matter how obsessed a man becomes he'll still sleep with the enemy.

surely the fact that THE STUDENTS ARE ALREADY PAYING FOR USE OF THESE RESOURCES should mean that they owe the university nothing

I don't have a problem with this policy. Here's why:

• I consider it part of my payment. I signed a contract, the terms were clear and unambiguous. I've been to two major campuses and in each not only was the contract I signed clear, but I was reminded of the fact numerous times in numerous classes and by my PI's. This wasn't much the case in Liberal Arts, probably because of the lack of marketable goods that come out of that department. In the sciences though, I was informed from day one (literally, the "welcome new engineers" seminar).
• In practice, I find the universities I've worked with to be extremely generous in defining "significant contribution". I've participated in about 3 or 4 patentable projects, one of which is being picked up by a development group (we needed extra funding and support due to class III FDA approval costs).
• A significant portion of the students at a university receive financial aid (from 55-75% or more). Tuition can't be the sole source of funding.
• Though occasionally you see a student's senior project that is just amazingly patentable. But most of these patents (that don't come from faculty) come from Graduate students or students working on special projects outside the immediate scope of their education. They also receive significant support from university staff, access to extremely expensive equipment otherwise not available to them, and a smorgasbord of other people's ideas to launch off of. The policy in this case is no different then if one was to "volunteer" at their local engineering shop.

With all this, generally it is only if the student's idea is based on an existing body of research (say a refinement of an area of his PI's work) or if he received significant faculty/university support in development of the idea/product. The "slice" that the university takes is quite reasonable at the universities I've worked with/at. It's far less than a VC would take (typically 80-95% or more).

And finally, the summary (no surprise here) is grossly inflammatory. It makes it sound like this guy was drinking Mountain Dew and chilling at the house when all of a sudden bam! He comes up with this amazing algorithm all by his lonesome. Please, this work was shared by many researchers from several institutions with a fair amount of start up capital to get going (50,000 from a competition and developed at the NASA research center). Patent owners include 4 other individuals as well as NASA, Harvard, and UC San Diego in addition to MIT. It was developed specifically to treat loss of balance in astronauts and later Lieberman decided to investigate its viability in the private sector.

"Eureka moments" don't exist, at least not the way popular media/literature portrays it. Any decent eureka! is preceded by years and years of training and diligence or followed by the same. Having an idea is not the same as making an idea happen.

Far from a patent apologist, but this one's a stretch.

Perhaps a non-profit should step in or be formed to provide resources to students to develop their ideas, and only ask for the student to pay back expenses + 1-5% if their idea strikes gold.

Organizations like this exist all over the place. Both community and privately affiliated.

Times have changed. My parents made more than 27k, however I received a decent amount of assistance including maximum allowable Pell Grants each year (the vast majority of my tuition came from scholarship though). I would wager if you're not receiving anything when your parents have such a low income (12k for a single man is poverty level, 21, 200 for a family of 4) then the school you're attending must be very, very affordable.

I'd wager from your description you're attending a small university or community college with a sub 5k tuition.

If your grades and testing were over the top, you'd have received a full ride so I'd guess you're average (no shame in that, hard work can make up for more IQ pts then you'd think).

With the above assumptions, I can clearly line up your advantage for you:

• If not for socialized/subsidized education and government programs you wouldn't even have this opportunity. The college you attend would likely not be in operation and your level of academic excellence would not have gained you admittance into education systems still available. Your advantage is that you even have the opportunity to break your forefather's patterns of low income/large families through access to a public education.

Enjoy!

oh, and I'm not saying your being dishonest don't interpret it that way. But if you haven't found any assistance at that income level you may wish to dig deeper. Also, if you can demonstrate that you are independent from your parent's income you can apply as an individual for aid. I did this myself due to my parents having a gross income which through financial mismanagement and debt was of no assistance to myself. A family of 4 @ 27k is only a hair above full on poverty level. If someone tells you that's not enough for aid, they're yanking your chain or your going to a 2k per year school (shit, you can make 2k at burger king let alone at a real job).

You contradict your own premise.

Life is not meant to be fair, live with it.

There are three tiers to a successful nation:

• A healthy national economy
• A healthy and skilled labor force
• A healthy military

Extreme right view points ignore the need for a healthy and skilled labor force and its impact on the other two. You protest that no one person has "the right" to be compensated for a disadvantage. However, the entire notion of society is built upon just this right. The right for a collaborative of individuals to work toward a common end despite relatively minor inconveniences to an individual.

So you ask, why should I have to pay out of pocket to send some poor kid to school who could not otherwise afford it? Why should I spend money to improve education and decrease negative social pressures in low income neighborhoods when I live in a nice suburb seemingly unconnected?

The response is simple, it costs more to imprison a man then to educate him. . . and the education also benefits society by producing a skilled member of the worked force. Society receives a net gain when it assists an out of work man in finding employment then if it ignores his plight.

If you don't like the system, then so be it. Walden it up if you wish, but be a man of principle and shirk all the social welfare you enjoy on a daily basis such as socalized military, socialized police, socialized road and transport, subsidized agriculture, subsidized economies. And when you take off to the hills for a life of solitude unburdened by the unfair demands for good health, equal opportunities, and pursuit of a decent life of your fellow man please don't drive on our roads, our airways, or purchase any of our subsidized foods on your way out.

I get this, and variations of it, so commonly it nigh drives me insane.

The file mentioned is invariably an input file the user had to designate, such as "someprog --input /foo/bar/bah". So I pause, waiting for the glow of realization to descend upon them .....when it never comes.

Another pause.

This happens so often I have to count to 10 in my head and focus on not letting the irritation enter my voice. Did I mention that the majority of people I support are 2 and 3rd year Neuroscience PhD students and PhD researchers/professors?

When you are pretty much describing to a T, a classic, ancient, and oft disproven logical fallacy....you might want to consider rethinking your argument.
Continuum Fallacy