Way back in the day, I had a 45 of "Another Brick in the Wall II" with "One of my Turns" on the B side.

I did not say it was MS specific at all. I stated that MS's incentive to support DRM is for their benefit, just as it is for Apples and Sonys benefit to support it as well. If you buy a TV episode from iTunes and it has DRM, you will only be watching that show on a device that Apple approves of. If you buy hundreds of them over a two year period, you will always have to watch them on an Apple approved device. If I buy a movie from the Sony store, I will only be able to watch that on a device that Sony approves of like my PSP. If I buy a video with DRM from iTunes, can I and play it on my PSP, Zune, Evo, N800, or my Linux netbook or what ever other cool device that has not come to market yet? The choices you are using obviously have no DRM mechanism, therefore you are not locked in. What part of that is confusing?

You really don't know? With DRM, the media companies get on board because it provides a relative sense of security that their media is protected from unauthorized and uncontrolled use (through technical AND legal measures), win for them. Using MS DRM gets to lock you in to the MS suite of licensed proprietary codecs, software, and hardware. The more MS codecs, software, and hardware you are using, the harder it is for you to take your media to a non MS licensed software and/or hardware solution, win for them. The system is marketed as everyone wins with DRM! The flaw.. Although you are winning as well because you have limited access to the media, you are definitely winning a lot less then they are because of the DRM restrictions and the lock-in. Repeat the same reasons for Apple.

The prosecution can and does use anything and everything they can against you. But.. giving information to the police or an investigating officer of the law is not the same as being in court and testifying and providing information in front of a jury and/or judge.

This was posted to /. in the past and worth watching.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4097602514885833865#
     

Not quite. MS did not have an OS at a price point that made sense for makers of netbooks. MS saw Linux catching on in the netbooks and released a scaled down version of XP and more recently Win7 starter at a reduced price and artificial limitations put on what hardware it could run on (amount of memory limited to 1GB, screen size at 10.2, HD size etc..). This was a version specifically created for only netbooks. There was pressure on the hardware vendors to include this as an option to the Linux versions and the deals were sweet. Shortly there after, Linux is rarely an option on netbooks any more and you wont find any at most retailers. Basically, Linux had an inroad, MS saw it, sweetened the deal for hardware companies and Linux netbooks went away. The netbook market could be more robust now but with MS's standards for what hardware can be used to run their cheap version of the OS, the hardware netbook market is 100% defined and lives and dies by MS's requirements of there OS. The "consumer" demand had little to do the process because the Linux netbooks were doing fine before MS got involved and if netbooks could evolve without MS's limitations, it would be better for everyone involved except MS.

Yes, consumer demand pushed up sales of MS netbooks but the demand was driven by a strategic effort to give the consumers less to choose from.

If you're connecting an air hose to an IV, there is something really wrong. Any nurse who does something like this is purely incompetent. I know several RNs and talk to a few on a daily basis. It is a somewhat stressful and fast-paced job, but you cannot ethically exceed your working pace.

I understand your position on this but realistically, people make mistakes. If the mistake is common, why not reduce the non human part of the problem. The air conditioning system in your car has a high pressure and a low pressure access port. They are standardized and two different sizes to prevent someone from attaching a refrigerant charging apparatus to the high side which could blow something up. Not only that but the old R12 A/C systems have two completely different sized ports than the newer R134A systems. That prevents someone from putting the wrong refrigerant in the system. Sure, anyone can follow the lines back to the compressor and see if they are working on the low or high side but the "human" fix of using different port sizes helps prevent mistakes.

Mine is Time Machine from Data East. A close second was Funhouse, Black Knight, T2, or Rollergames. I guess I liked just about all of them except for one machine circa mid 80's which had a wavy no flat glass play field, a magnetic hole, and a lot of proximity sensors but I don't remember the name.

That's an inevitable and unfortunate side effect of basing public policy on extreme visceral emotions, like the loss of a loved one. The idea that someone you care about is hurt, maimed, or killed because of the completely preventable, blatant irresponsibility and disregard for life of a drunk driver is quite naturally an extreme and very emotional position.

DUI is only an issue BECAUSE there is a loss of life, if no one was dying or getting hurt from it, no one would care and it would be perfectly legal. If you ignore the emotional impact of the loss of life then DUI doesn't look to bad but in reality, that loss of live is there what you are trying to prevent. Using the emotions makes sense to show the impact and the real danger. That being said, using DUI as a soap box to push prohibition is taking it to far.

Not only the tires but the I've noticed a trend of car makers using smaller thinner rotors as well. The rotors on some cars are basically throw away and on some cars wear to the point that they should probably be replaced when the pads wear out. For the DIY car guy, that's not a big deal in cost but for someone that has to pay $400-500 to have a "full" brake job (pads and rotors replaced), it could offset the saving in gas the lighter rotors create.

I have a cover over mine that is painted to look like some light green bushes so I think I'm safe. I did notice a strange white van from some flower shop I never heard of before (Irene's Flowers maybe) parked across the street recently.. Maybe they are on to my pool.

Interesting, I use Ubuntu mainly because I get the desktop and layout like I want to see it. I've been pretty happy using screenlets, hiding or unloading the panels, and using Compiz (I like the "simple compizconfig setting manager" which is much friendlier than the standard compizsettings manager), Emerald, and Avant. It took be about an hour or so and some Google searches to get it all going and another few hours playing with the options to get it the way I liked it the first time but now it only takes me a 20 or so minutes to recreate "my setup" on a new machine.

I don't have to have all of those things running and configured and I don't mind the standard Ubuntu layout with Gnome (like on my Mini that is cpu/graphics challenged) but that's why I chose to use a Linux desktop, because I CAN configure it to how I want it to "look and feel".

Look into an umbrella policy. It is a policy that sits on top of your car and homeowners insurance and can provide multi-million dollar coverage for a relatively low fixed cost per year. It is not for everyone but those with assets (even just a home with equity) should at least consider it.

State minimums are exactly that, the minimum. Many people jump on them to save money but like your example above with $25K max in property damage. That would suck to rear end and total someones $40K car. That $15K might be coming out of your pocket.