That's one heck of an audio editing machine*

Why in god's name would it be equipped with an Asus internal soundcard, then, rather than a Firewire-based external audio interface?

FTA
The approximately correct answer range for this question was defined as anything between 65% and 75%. Only 15% of respondents answered this question with the exactly correct answer of 70%.

I'm sorry, no. Seventy percent is not "exactly correct". At best it is an estimate, and one that is subject to natural fluctuations due to things like temperatures, tidal patterns, etc.

How much should a layperson actually know about the planet's water coverage? "More than half water" is probably a little lacking; "between two-thirds and three-quarters" is probably about right.

"Between 70% and 71%" is worthless nitpicking, a rote recitation of a rule of thumb learned in grade school, the same place they learned that the speed of light is 186,000 miles per second, there are 2,000 pounds in a ton, and 1 yard = 1 meter.

One might also note that the PS/2 port is electrically compatible with the old AT keyboard that debuted in 1984, on a system with a 6MHz 8086.

Additional things that one might note:
- the AT keyboard debuted in 1984 as part of the IBM PC/AT system, which was based on the 80286, though some 8086/8088-based PC- and XT- compatibles got BIOS updates that allowed the AT keyboard to be used on them
- with the advent of USB, fewer and fewer desktop PCs over the past decade have been including PS/2 ports, with inclusion on laptops now approaching zero

I thought if one is using 10secs (I'm unsure if there is a real number or duration) of any video, song, or literature it is not 'reproducing' or distributing IP or copyright, but Fair Use, and therefore not against a civil or criminal law.

Fair Use is about HOW a copyrighted work is used, not simply HOW MUCH of it is used.

If the source material is readily identifiable, and it is not clearly apparent that the re-user is engaging in a protected action like academic study, critical review, or parody, then the odds are pretty good that in the eyes of the law it will be considered a derivative work, and a copyright violation if not properly licensed.

Adding the video aspect of this work actually makes it MORE likely that the source material will be identifiable. You probably wouldn't be able to tell from 2-second audio-only snippet that a drum pattern was originally performed by Bernard Purdie, but when the audio is accompanied by the video footage of him actually playing it in one of his instructional videos, it gets a lot more identifiable.

The same could be said of the guy working at the QuikyMart. Do you treat them with the same 'respect' that you do the police?

'Respect', in sociological terms, is little more than acknowledgement of a power differential. It is irrefutable that at the moment when a police officer has stopped a citizen on suspicion, the police officer wields a lot more power.

The alleged drunk driver refused a breathalyzer test at the time, which some people consider an admission of guilt.

I dunno about "some people", but at least in the state I learned to drive in, it is written into law that refusing a breath test carries similar penalties as DWI.

Throw and equivalent amount of money at REAL RAM, such that your machine never swaps and everything will run much better.

This approach works, but only up to a point.

Sure, a system with a 64-bit address bus is theoretically capable of addressing 16 petabyes of RAM, but how many motherboards do you know of that have more than six or eight DIMM slots? I don't think they make 2-million-terabyte DDR3 sticks, yet...

This study would have carried more weight if it had included PostgreSQL and IBM's DB2. These two databases do more serious work than MySQL although many believe MySQL is more widely deployed.

"Study"? This is a book review.

Thanks for getting the "WHAT ABOUT POSTGRES" comment that must accompany every Slashdot story submission that mentions MySQL out of the way early, though.