KDE 4, when it first came out, was horrid. I delayed upgrade as long as I could.

Today, however, I don't think that's still true. If your hardware doesn't have 3D you might think otherwise, but I find current KDE 4 useful and functional. I even enable some of the actual effects. There are a few of them (highlight active window, magic lamp minimize) actually contribute to my intuition of what's going on.

Not everything is perfect, but the only feature I still miss from KDE 3 is the different color for the active window's title bar. It is possible, but not worth the trouble, to achieve that effect on KDE 4, but it's not the same. Turns out you can make do without (but, as I said, it's better with).

Shachar

The Novel narrative is this:
Microsoft shared the interface with Novel during the beta, encouraging it to rely on it. Then, a few months before release, and after WordPerfect was already dependent on those interfaces, Microsoft changed them and declined to share the new ones with Novel. When Windows 95 finally came out, MS did, in fact, publish those interfaces, but by then it was too late for Novel to ship WordPerfect with Windows 95's launch.

Had MS not shared those interfaces to begin with, Novel could have worked with an internal implementation.

Shachar

Picture seems to suggest half of that. Four ports (+ external) and one estata.

Shachar

I've read the Samson option, and don't recall that particular strategy ever coming up there. Would you care to give a page number?

It is true (at least according to said book) that Israel let US spy satellites take photos of missiles ready for launch in 1973, to push the US to lift the weapons embargo on Israel, and again in 1991, to nudge the US to start doing something about Saddam firing ground to ground missiles at civilians. In both cases, however, I don't think anyone thought the missiles were aimed at European cities. It certainly doesn't say so in the book you refer to.

The threat of Israel nuking an Arab nation was enough to do the trick in both cases.

Shachar

I actually think Jules Verne got a surprising number of things quite accurately. In fact, I seem to recall that his depiction of mid 20th century as less personal and more polluted got him into trouble with his publisher. He did not get all of the inventions 100% accurate, but he did have some pretty impressive hits as far as tone and atmosphere go.

Shachar

As opposed to... ?

Shachar

Huh?

Don't get me wrong. If that's what gets you through the night, go right ahead in thinking that. Otherwise, my profile page has previous comments I've written on many subjects.

Click with care, however.. That link might prove you wrong.

Shachar

What I meant, and I'm fairly sure it wasn't as hard to understand as you make it out to be, is that you do not refrain from raising a true point merely because it seems to weaken your case.

If you do so, your best case is that you will be ignored, and your worst case is that you will be no more right than the people you are arguing with. Constraint yourself to making any and all relevant true points, and then pick up your opinion so that it is still correct. Otherwise, how do you know you are right?

Shachar

The longer you spend arguing with an idiot, the higher the chances he's doing the same thing.

TL;DR.

Seriously, though, I agree with your objectives, but not with your suggested methods.

I think the trend of never conceding anything for the sake of winning the argument is one that hurts our ability to conduct actual conversations. I also think that, when the numbers are tallied, it is a counter-productive one. People will see you as a zealot and disregard you. I refuse to participate in it.

Shachar

Nobody in their right mind would insist on reading it literally (and, yes, I am suggesting that people who read it literally are not in their right minds). It was not written that way, and was not interpreted that way until fairly recently.

Shachar

The bible does not disagree with reality. Certain religious interpretation of religious concepts disagree with reality. It has been over two decades since the Vatican officially apologized for that particular incident, without the Pope renouncing God or the bible.

Rather than claim there is a fundemental conflict between religion and science, it would be more correct to say that there are some assholes who find modern times too confusing to keep up, and thus try to bring everyone back.

At least, that's the case for creationism. In this particular case, it might just be attention whoring.

Shachar

Can you please provides citations to the "agreed to stop" claim?

Shachar

But this just means one thing. Google aren't within their safe harbor during the entire first stage of the process.

If, instead or in addition to disputing, you also file claim against both for smeering your name, Google can't claim that the DMCA gives them immunity.

Shachar

A contract is binding once two things happen:
One party makes an offer
and
The other party accepts it.

There is no requirement for anything to be signed. As long as the registrar can prove that the you accepted their offer (say, by paying), and that you knew what the terms were (say, because they were posted on the web site, and linked to from the page in which you paid), you have a contract.

Now, obviously, in this case the terms were not available to you. Also, the advertisement is part of the registrar's offer, and is, therefor, as binding to it as the terms in the agreement. This entire thing is unethical, and at least seems to be illegal. Still, this is not because there is no contract.

And, again, IANAL.

Shachar

At least here (Israel, but it inherited most of its laws from English law), there are, broadly (IANAL) two kinds of contracts. Time limited contracts, where both sides are bound by it for the duration of the contract, and unlimited contracts. For the second type, each side may terminate the contract at any point, for whatever reason, resulting in no more sanctions than the other side not being bound by the contract any more.

Since a domain registration contract is time bound, automatic exit is not guaranteed by law.

Shachar

P.s.
Obviously, this is not a complete list. For example, there are also sales contracts, which fall under neither category. Like I said, IANAL. For services, however, the above two are what you get.

Sh.