But there is one gem at least- more respect for Mark Cuban.

I have to think this is a joke.

Running a serious business server using a Microsoft product means you will HAVE to have a full time staff and multiple redundant systems to even approach a decent availability of service number.

Sounds to me like you would do better with GoDaddy or some other simple, easy webhost to avoid straining yourself.

Nowhere did I say that believing in God, a God or even many Gods made it impossible to understand math.
There have been and are now many people who are both religious and intelligent.

Creationists are another matter entirely.
They are a completely different discussion.

Anything that helps put creationism back in its place- as a fairy story told to and by those who have a hard time with the scientific process...
Or anything much more advanced than 2+2 (which equals 4 for any Creationists reading this.)

Getting kids excited about actual science and rational though processes is a good thing. And needed to help counter what some "people" (note the loose use of the term) try to pass off as science- creationism, "Intelligent Design" and the Flat Earth Society.

Hell, maybe they can get some adults interested in rational thought too!

This world will end a long time after humankind has rendered it unsuitable for life as we know it.

It was here before us and likely will be here long after us.

As for when WE (humankind) end- we seem determined to go away at some point in the next few centuries....

What would you prefer the definition of "habitable" to be? "Capable of supporting life that we do not know of or conceive."?

It is only logical to define habitable as capable of supporting life as we KNOW it and therefore earth-like.
A non earth-like planet isn't habitable by life as we KNOW it..

No single "alternative" energy source can replace what we have now.
ALL of them need further work- hydro, wind and tidal energy generation all can have massive impact on the environment they are located in.
Geothermal has only been really successful in specific, limited areas due to efficiencies needing certain circumstances as well.
Solar is inefficient and only works well in limited areas.
Nuclear power SHOULD be safer than it has proven but cost-cutting and politics has wreaked havoc.

Fortunately development continues on all of the alternatives energy sources and major achievements have occurred in solar and tidal in the very recent past, and the others are also getting much better.

Storage methods are also being worked on which is very important- traditional electrical batteries are inefficient and simply not up to the task (for performance, rare metals required and disposal reasons). Molten salts, pressurization and other technologies under development look promising though.

"Alternative" energy sources still do not account for a big portion of worldwide power usage, but it IS growing. Without government subsidies however, it wouldn't be cost effective in most places still: fossil fuels are cheaper and easier in the short term.

I voted for Hamsters.
Might as well get something useful out of rodents, and they would work better as an engine than electric cars!

lol.

Yeah, I know.

My only excuse for hoping for such a thing is this:

The CM Team has created the best version of Android for every device I have been able to use it on.
They fix things that Google get wrong, increase stability and improve the capabilities of both the devices and Android.

It would be good for ME and for Android if such a thing happened. Not necessarily good for the CM Team folks. ;)

I run gingerbread on a hacked Nook Color and it runs great, albeit with some phone crap that is useless since it isn't a phone.
I tried the hacked up version of Honeycomb Preview (not quite the real deal) and saw nothing that was all that compelling; I did have a lot of force closes and crashes though.

Gingerbread is SOLID on the tablet.

Reading this does lead me to think the problems with the hacked release of Honeycomb Preview are not due to the community so much as the screwed up original code. Which is why the source isn't to be released.

While I could wish many things- like having the CyanogenMod team be hired by Google!- I think this decision may actually be the right thing to do. Google says the code is flawed still so they don't want to release it.

I am sure that those more knowledgeable about the legal ramifications will deal with the situation and I hope that whatever accommodations should be made to satisfy the licensing (if any) WILL be made.
I don't expect Google to not be "evil"- they are a big company, so some amount of that is to be expected.
I do hope that they never forget what helped get them into their position and FOSS code was a pretty big part of that.
Do the ad-based stuff you need to, evil though it may be, but honor the code licenses, Google.

If there was such a channel available in the US.
The closest we have, unfortunately, is BBC-America although that is pretty good.

There used to be a SciFi channel in the US but it went out of business or something.
Now there is one that tried to capitalize on that large albeit niche market by calling themselves SyFy (pronounced "siffy" I think. I basically look at that as the syphilis channel. There are a couple of decent programs on it accidentally but most of the programming seems oriented towards the same lowest common denominator types who watch "American Idol" and such shows.
Wrestling??
GHOST HUNTERS???
You have got to be kidding me.

If that is the channel you mean- hell, I would pay a couple of bucks to have it removed from my channel listing!

There IS good SciFi around and when you include the Fantasy genre as is most commonly done, even more.
Plenty of content for a 24/7 channel with some new stuff and the classics.
I wish we had one.

That 23,000 people downloaded that movie intentionally.

I feel sorry for the poor folk who wasted drive space on that piece of crap.

It is not a matter of finding people qualified to write a textbook but a matter of finding a publisher who is willing to PUBLISH one.

Printing costs money and as public school textbooks have a limited market it is difficult to recoup the cost and make a profit.
As big as Texas is it provides a fairly large market with a single set of criteria to meet which means that a book that can be sold successfully to Texas schools is more likely to make money.

Is it the only state with a lot of public schools? No. But it is probably the largest that maintains close control of educational materials at a state level.
Which is why the publishers who work with textbooks for public schools tend to publish material that is acceptable to that school system.

It is not a matter of who can write the book but finding a publishing house willing to float a boatload of money to PRINT the book.

The sad thing is that US textbooks are generally written to follow the guidelines of the largest single purchaser in order to gain the best financial return.
That means Texas.

This gives them more power than they should have but is a reality in the market.
If US schools need to replace textbooks the new ones are likely to be based on the Texas guidelines, or else extremely expensive.

So it is ok to gain and try to force the honoring of invalid patents?

Basically the B&N arguments seem to me to indicate that the patents SCO.. err, I mean Microsoft, are trying to have "protect" are invalid due to prior art.
Microsoft is trying to say "We have a patent on creating fire using heat, oxygen and a combustible material. If you create fire using these materials you must pay us for a license."

If others have used the same methods before you than your patent should not have been granted and it should be rendered invalid. It looks to me like that is where B&N is going with the case, and hopefully they will prevail.

Valid patents are one thing. Invalid patents gained due to a patent office that is royally screwed up are another thing entirely.

Become a customer of Barnes and Noble.
The company deserves support- their e-readers are top-notch and their resistance to the MS Borg (You WILL be assimilated.) is good to see.

Microsoft's premiere expertise in recent years has become the generation of FUD about competitors products instead of the actual creation of anything new.
Stifling innovation is NOT supposed to be a "business model" but that really seems to be what they are about.

Anyone remember when MS used to be a software company? Yeah, I know- it was a long time ago....