Yes, but that wasn't MS-DOS. MS-DOS did not exist until Microsoft contracted with IBM to supply the OS for IBM's new PC (which Microsoft already had a contract to supply a Basic and a C compiler for). Microsoft bought the rights to what would become MS-DOS off of another company that had developed it as QDOS.
So, what you were using was something completely unrelated (except for the fact that it came from the same company) to what would later be MS-DOS. What Bill Gates was pissed about was people ripping off his (and Paul Allen's) Basic compiler. The original posters were correct and you are incorrect.

Well, this is all linked to economy...

• Supersonic flight costs a lot more than subsonic
• Flights to the moon cost a lot of money and you don't make a penny out of it

This is obvious that progress alone does not drive decisions. Money does.

As for your flying car, you'll start seeing it when we have drivers who can safely drive on 3 dimensional roads, and for that, you have to be able to do it safely on 2 dimensional roads first, which can be far, far away...

I bet Thatcher was the devil and destroyed the economy too eh?

No, Labour screwed up badly last time and have done it again. Much as I dislike their moral standpoints, the Tories at least have some business sense and some sort of idea of privacy and individual rights, unlike the current lot.

The current labour party got there today by being the opposition after over a decade of rule by a single party. The Tories are about to do the same. This is because the largest part of the electorate is voting the way it (and it's daddy) always voted (tribalism), and those that do change their vote are lacking in both imagination and ability to change anything other than which one of the big two gets in. From next year you have a decade or so of Tory rule to look forward to. Try to enjoy it.

I'm betting they won't institute ID cards or fellate the next republican president in the way Blair did. That man was a national disgrace.

No, the government is the party in parliament with the most seats. And we elect the people in the seats. It's not a perfect system, but to compare it to Iran is dangerous and ignorant.

You too!?! Hurray, I'm not the only one. When I was a kid I could never understand the mystery behind that koan - it was only once I'd grown up a bit that I realized almost no one else can clap with one hand.

Great fun indeed with Zen types.

Not to sound callus, but doesn't this happen every year around there?

I don't have much sympathy if you answer "yes", since its a normal occurrence, that for some reason people are shocked by yearly. Just like I felt a very bare minimum of sympathy for people after Katrina, or every time the Mississippi floods, or those morons who build houses on sandy cliffs in California, who then bitch about erosion, or all the morons here in AZ that will be washed away the next "100 year flood" when their houses in river beds get destroyed. There are some disasters that you can see coming...

If the answer is "no", of course its a terrible thing, especially if its man caused.

LA is in the DESERT, which is generally where wild fires happen, but never seems to realize this simple fact.

He had lung cancer AND prostate cancer. Late-stage lung cancer is horrible. My grandfather made use of the Death with Dignity Act in Oregon to request assisted suicide; we all supported his choice. It's hard not to when you see an intelligent, once-active man become delirious from pain, and bedridden due to having to be hooked up to machines that keep him from drowning to death (fluids in the lungs).

I'm one of the Oregon voters who voted twice for Death with Dignity, and am very glad that my grandfather was able to die at his own choosing, in a humane manner. (I don't think having to grab a shotgun and shoot yourself in the head, plus knowing others will find you and have to witness the scene, is humane - I say it not against Egan, but because I wish Egan had had a better choice.)

Don't forget that Apple charges for it's service packs, in the long run, even if you own the hardware compatible for the OS, you spend about the same after all service packs/updates are done.

There are people who like to say "I have A THOUSAND followers!!" much like Dr. Evil thought he was oh-so-impressive demanding "one MILLION dollars!!". On the surface it sounds good to have so many followers, and these sorts of people are probably boasting to non-twitterers (non-twits?) who won't know any better. Kind of like how some bloggers cite the number of hits they get -- not the number of unique visitors. Ego inflation pure and simple. Been around since the dawn of humanity ("hurrr me have bigger stick!!!") and will likely be around until its sunset.

I pay about a dollar to go to the doctor. Any doctor of my choice. Emergency procedures are covered at 100%, and our doctors are damned good. With my third-party private insurance that covers extras not covered by government insurance, I also get 100% free dental and eye coverage. I can get a free pair of eyeglasses every single year (so long as I have a prescription for them, and getting that prescription is free).

What is this non-mythical first-world country I live in?! Why, it's France!

Sure, life isn't fair. But sitting there barking "life isn't fair! get over it!" is pretty damned lazy when it IS possible to do something to help make it more fair. No one decides "oh hey, I think I'd like to get breast cancer today" or "damn! I'm so happy that guy ran a red light and turned me into a quadraplegic!" So why the hell should their lives be ruined, when all it takes is everyone pooling a bit of money? For eff's sake, I only pay 80 euros a month towards national health care and 20 a month for the private insurance. One hundred euros a month. That's it. And I get to choose my doctors, my hospitals, my laboratories, everything.

As for the inevitable cries of "omg socialism!!" Americans (I am one, so don't anyone take it the wrong way) seriously need to grow up and realize that in the case of European democracies, they are, um, you know, DEMOCRACIES. As in the people voted for governments that set up these programs, and continue to vote for them.

You're absolutely right about brick and stone roads keeping speeds down. I live in Nice (France) and they recently redid part of the city center roads after putting in the tramway. On a particularly wide road (the one that goes along Place Masséna) that practically everyone sped on, which of course caused pedestrian fatalities, they removed the asphalt and replaced it with cobblestone to slow down drivers. No one goes over the 50km/h speed limit any more! They do the same in Helsinki, where practically all the roads are cobblestone in the city center. It's not so much a sense of history (though that's certainly part of the reason) as it is a practical and aesthetic way to keep down driving speeds.

There are dirt roads in several rural areas and parcs départementaux (roughly equivalent to US county & state parks). The ones in my part of France -- the southeast (yes, the French Riviera, no, I'm not rich :) ) -- are a mix of packed dirt and "gravel" that's actually the ground-up naturally-occurring rock here. I go mountain biking on many of them. (The gravel isn't thin and slippery like in the US, but consists of larger chunks, and it doesn't cover the entire road surface, so it's quite all right to ride on.)

You are right that the French take very good care of their roads -- that would be the taxes that amount to 70% of the price of gas here, which is about four or five times more expensive per gallon than in the US, and, for autoroutes (highways), all the toll stations. (It's so expensive to have a car here that I don't have one. I take public transportation, which costs me a whopping [that's sarcasm] 40 euros a month total, and that does indeed include my commute to and from work.)

You're ignoring the fact that women were actively, wilfully, consistently kept out of higher academics and especially from publishing -- even fiction -- until quite recent history. How are there supposed to be women equivalents if women couldn't even study beyond high school, were laughed at if they wanted to publish anything (unless they used a male pseudonym and had a male friend present it) and were being pushed to get married and have babies ASAP? (Keep in mind there was no birth control, so they'd have several, with the attendant responsibilities. Oh and, their husbands weren't expected to help them beyond finances.)

And the Scientology page is protected (I just checked with my well-established Wikipedia account):

Editing Scientology
Note: This page has been semi-protected so that only established users can edit it.

They'll have to be a bit more devious.

Oh yes it does still happen. Because if your hard copy of XP is pre-SP2, you can no longer install SP2 from a downloaded .exe -- it won't let you. You *have* to connect to the internet to download it! Connect to the Internet with a pre-SP2 XP box!!

Mine was infected about ten seconds after plugging in the Ethernet cable. WITH a firewall running -- that's how I knew it had been compromised (forget which firewall, because that was last year and I said "#*@* this, I'm installing Ubuntu" and haven't looked back).