Data on a DVD/CD doesn't all crap out at once. In normal usage, scratches cause some data loss. However for long term storage significant loss would happen when the plastic reflective surface itself degrades. Still, when properly stored, a DVD/CD should last 30 years. To increase the odds of your data lasting, and to spend the least amount of cash, simply make multiple copies of your most precious data. That way, hopefully, each DVD/CD will retain SOME data and it can all be pieced back together from the multiple copies. The more precious the data, the more copies you should make. I think 5 copies stored in a climate controlled safe should last at least 100 years, if not, longer.

It is really easy to make a web crawler in Java. (Look at java.net.http or maybe java.awt.net.http) I made a decent one by myself in about a week. Okay, so my web crawler only does TEXT/HTML. No images, no Active X, no video. From experience, an average web page is about 10Kbytes. Now, anyone's specific application will probably be looking for key words, or else you are just re-creating Google. A key word data crawl would return a LOT less information, but would still require a lot of bandwidth and processing power to do the work. So bandwidth and processing time is what they are selling -- the place where this company's services would be most useful.

Wrong.

The houses in my neighborhood were built around 1980.

All have copper pipes in the slab.

All the houses are developing leaks IN THE SLAB and have to be completely re-plumbed through the attic. My house was re-plumbed about 5 years ago. Next door, they had it done last summer, only after extensive water damage.

Copper pipes in concrete slabs = bad idea.

It may or may not be electrolysis, but something IS damaging ALL the piping in ALL the houses in my neighborhood.

In cities with a lot of TV stations -- everyone bring an old analog TV to the party. Each TV gets tuned to a different station. As each station blinks out, everyone slams a drink. By midnight, all channels should be gone. By midnight, everyone should be snockered.

Switch to Ubuntu. Create a guest account and let them use that.

If you or the people you lend to really need Windows...

Install QEMU, on Ubuntu, it is a nice virtual machine. Take your old Windows CD and install as a FILE in your QEMU Virtual machine.

Keep a couple copies of the Virtual Windows FILE on your hard drive.

When someone wants to borrow your laptop, start up your Virtual Windows Machine in QEMU and lets them play. If the screw up that Windows copy (or if you just don't trust them), delete the FILE and use a new copy of the FILE on your Virtual Machine.

Applied Digital Solutions has had something like this for years.

I think it is in the "vapor ware" stage and always will be, the company seems to be going nowhere.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Applied_Digital_Solutions

When I first saw this about a decade ago, I thought, "That is diabolical, I want in." So I bought some stock watched it tank and sold it.

Yep, I went the long route. Tried college, tried the Military, tried college again.

Couple of guys from high school who struggled to get D's started a lawn care and snow removal business. While I was farting around in the Navy and in college, they were making a couple of hundred grand a year with a crew of workers under them.

Now I have a great job, and those guys are probably retired. Boo fricking hoo.

Education is a bunch of facts and ideas that can help you be more successful. Intelligence is the ability to cope and thrive in your environment. Neither concept is a complete subset of the other.

If you have graded more than 2 assignments in your life, and really read each and every paper, and provided good critical feedback, then it is really easy to spot a plagiarized paper.

Also, a grader usually knows the subject matter and has read many other good and bad works on the subject. You can get a feel for a person's writing style and depth of knowledge on a subject in just a few sentences. Then when you "smell something fishy", then it usually is.

So far, whenever I "smell something fishy" I try to find the best sentence near the fishiness and paste it into Google. Plagiarists are not going to rewrite every sentence, if they do, then they probably learned something anyway. No, plagiarists are just lazy and in a hurry and deep down they know they deserve to be caught.

The really hard problems are mulled over for days. Straight forward coding is easy.

My greatest inspiration comes in the shower or when sitting on the can. Once the solution appears, it really isn't too hard to remember it long enough to get to a computer and make it reality.

Have you ever tried to call Microsoft or Apple with a question?

Were they able to help you? Or was it easier to post your question to google and find someone else who had the same problem and found a fix?

I have been a Mac, a Microsoft AND and OS2. NEVER has customer service EVER helped with my problems. I guess easy problems that are easily solved are all the help lines are capable of. If it is an easy problem, heck, I have an Internet connection, I know how to type, and I know how to read.

Doesn't HTML mean "How To Mow the Lawn"?

First lets suppose these acts affected 10 million people.
Now, lets guess the odds of this stupidity actually killing someone is 1 in 2 million (hospitals affected, heart attack 911 calls, prescription refills, etc.)
So this disgruntled employee could have easily killed 5 people with his act of stupidity. This person should go to jail for depraved indifference for a real, real long time.

Oh yeah, 91.3% of all statistics are made up on the spot.

Before the French revolution, commoners were hanged and royalty was guillotined.

But the French revolutionists wanted everyone the be EQUAL, so they decided on "guillotines for everyone". I guess hanging Saddam was one last way to demean him in the eyes of his followers.

Interesting note, driving on the right-hand side of the road also came out of the French revolution (so Britain did the opposite).

Doesn't cotton have DNA?

I always think that when they take a swab on CSI.

CSI_Stokes - "Sir, I am afraid to tell you this, but, ... YOU are a COTTON plant."

Yes, Bart, you just have to wait a few months.

Scientists are almost ready with a pill that absorbs 98% of excess guilt.

- Lisa Simpson