There are lots of files available on Usenet binary servers these days, that's probably why they're throttling it back.

Yeah, because a Windows repository wouldn't be spammed with a million bogus/useless/downright harmful applications from the very instant it was created. And if Microsoft were to verify applications to be added to the repos (as well they should), how many employees would have to waste their time running antivirus scans and making sure these apps actually deserve placement?

I guess just going up to 11 isn't enough for you folks. Kids these days... *shakes head*

Call them up and ask for the IP address, subnet mask, default gateway, and possibly DNS servers to plug into your network settings. Don't know how to do this? It's not surprising, but it should be. Why aren't students and new users in general taught basic things like network configuration, in this era of ubiquitous Internet?

It's annoying as hell sometimes, but I'd rather have a bunch of clueless morons behind full-fledged PCs if it gets me decent pricing on my own full-fledged PC. Imagine paying $100 for that magical e-mail/Internet/Word computer and $1500 for a baseline "real" machine?

They can be trained to like the repeal of Prop 8, just like they were trained to like Prop 8 in the first place. All it takes is a little money, some scare-tactic pamphlets, and a TV commercial or three.

Look, I'm not a strict vegan, or even a vegan at all, but technically it's "a diet and lifestyle that seeks to exclude the use of animals for food, clothing, or any other purpose. Vegans endeavor not to use or consume animal products of any kind." (Wikipedia) So while some make those exceptions, lots of more technical vegans wouldn't, and might even consider it a fairly important moral issue.

The only problem with that is that a lot of vegans, by very definition, would take issue with animal-sourced supplements.

Seven years is hardly too soon.

That's the right thing to do, but unfortunately, lots of people are conditioned to take all the other trash as the actual "news" and disregard the important stuff as not being entertaining enough. I hope that much of the media will continue to produce and improve traditional reporting, despite the fact that that isn't what gets them pageviews and high circulation counts at present, and hopefully recondition people to seek out what they really should care about.

On that note, I'm moving to a teletype hooked up to a Unix server somewhere running Lynx...

Luckily for me, my old manual typewriter costs only as much as the ink and paper I put in it. :)

I have about 400 8-tracks at home, most of which probably sound just as good as the day they were taken out of the shrink wrap. My oldest is probably 40 or close to it (that's around when they superseded 4-tracks, which I also have a few of). With a little care and preliminary maintenance (if you've just bought one from a thrift store or whatnot), 8-tracks will not only play today, but remain playable for years to come. 8-tracks, like VHS, are big both in cartridge and tape; have mechanisms (internal in 8-tracks, external in VHS) that would seem to get finicky over the years; but are respectively proven and poised for longevity. CDs and DVDs might rot or get scratched and the digital data is irrecoverably gone, but analog tape can be spliced, have its playback tweaked to give the highest fidelity possible, and almost always still be *somewhat* playable, period. I'm just asking to be flamebait, but this old analog equipment is made to last, even though 8-tracks were implicitly conceived as a true throwaway format. A few of us cultists will be listening to our 8-tracks, records, and cassettes, and watching VHS movies, for years to come. :)

What kind of stuff do you use it for? Just novelty poking around, or something practical? I must admit, I only bring up my O2 to play the Tron light-cycle demo game. :P

My SGI O2 has you beat. :)