Don't get me wrong, there are some things that Lotus 1-2-3 will always be used for,

Realize how silly that sounds now?

If you don't need the event input stuff (which, to be honest, you do; it's really nice), you can use toydispatch, which is a reimplementation that I wrote of the core workqueue model using just portable pthread stuff.

Can you provide a link for this? A Google search for "linux toydispatch" yields 3 hits, one of which is your post above:

Results 1 - 3 of 3 for linux toydispatch. (0.31 seconds)

Selection no longer matters, customer service doesn't matter, just price.

How can you say that? If I scan something and I find out no store in a 15-mile radius has that product, won't I buy it immediately?

Seems to me this barcode scanning phenomenon would be better for consumers all around. Stores will have to compete not just on price, but on whatever consumers demand. If you want selection, then choose on selection.

Not that there's anything wrong with that!

I'm not one to shun a history lesson, but I think the important thing here is that acknowledgment that the work of brilliant people should be free to all.

Keep charging for Hollywood crap, I don't care. But if you're truly bright, you'll want the world to know what you think.

It would also behoove Hollywood et al. to adopt this model, as it substantially augments the agent's influence in the given domain, but hey, they'll learn that the hard way, I guess.

Yeah, you're right. I remember how much I loved to post my mother photographs of cats with goofy captions on them. I used to make the captions from letters I cut out of magazines.

Say, that word, nazi, what does it mean again ? Oh right ... it translates to "socialist".

I hate to nitpick, but it actually would translate to "National." The party name was the Nationalsozialisten, which translates, obviously, as "national socialists."

in France, while on business trips, you assume you are being bugged and information will go to your local competition

Not flaming, but can I have a source for such practices, or are you speaking purely anecdotally? I find it very interesting. I've spent a considerable amount of time in Germany (as an American) and never experienced this.