It's pretty much the quality of repositories that have guided which distro I've used. As a casual user (that is, I mostly use it on secondary computers for servers or MythTV,rather then my main desktop, nor am I a developer) compiling myself and dealing with dependencies is a huge pain. So to me, the quality of a distro is how easily I can add software without breaking things or finding it broken with a distro upgrade. So far, Apt seems to be best at that, and Canonical seems to best maintain their repository.

Redhat (starting 5.2) > SuSE > Open SuSE > Debian > Ubuntu

Compelling reasons: well, for starters, that colony would be insurance against an extinction-level asteroid impact here on Earth. So there's that.

I think wanting Mars-tronauts to be "productive" and whinging about the cost and the "enormous expense of keeping them alive" somewhat disqualifies you from this conversation.

I believe that we absolutely should and must continue exploring the universe, continue with probes, satellites and occasionally maned space flight. However the idea of manifest destiny is purely ego. The universe doesn't need us. It won't miss us when we are gone whether we populated one planet or a trillion.

Our advancement and betterment is for our benefit alone. I can't really see how throwing ourselves off the planet on chemical rockets to live in tin cans leads to the betterment of anybody. It takes time, resources and energy from sciences that could have vastly greater long term benefits. Yes, it might help us get a head start on future engineering hurdles, and helps improve public interest, but frankly, the really interesting stuff is going to be happening down here on earth for a good while longer. If we bite it as a race, so what? If we don't, then we have only the benefits of our long-term investments to reap.

Besides the independence that people below have noted, I also think it's a big difference between being state-run and party-run. Having connections to the state isn't a bad thing, having direct connections with just one party is. The powerful, one party countries like China blur that distinction, and so a lot of people have come to think of them as one of the same, but they are not.

There are numerous examples of decent state owned media outlets with as even of a slant as any other outlet, if not more so. On the flip side, there are several news outlets right here in the States even that though privately owned, have heavy ties to one party that are more political platform and awful new sources.

I realized this about game and movie music a while ago. It's specifically written -not- to be distracting. It's supposed to highlight action or stir an emotion without taking away the attention of the viewer so it really works great for that kind of work.

Really though, it's just as often that i want a little distracted doing work. If I'm doing something repetitive or a bit mind-numbing, I want something that is going to be just distracting enough that my mind doesn't wander without interfering with my other work. Or if it's late afternoon and my productivity is at a low anyway, music that takes some of my attention but keeps me awake is better then silence. I guess the point being is sometimes a little distraction is a good thing, and music is probably a better distraction then Slashdot as far as productivity goes.

A pretty decent bit at least. They used to own Grass Vally and Thompson Broadcast, two big players in broadcast and cable video, as well as still being apart of cinema both digital and analog. So it's not just some holding company using a once familiar brand-name, they've been a relevant company. Of course, they have sold off a lot of that stuff now so maybe this is another sign of their decline.

I would say in this case that it's satirizing something so stupid sincerity is indistinguishable from satire. I've read marketing materials that read pretty much like this.

I'm usually not one to complain about article selection, even political ones, but his one is just silly. Ron Paul's solution for -everything- is to just pull the plug.

So you think that the US constitution should be up for re-confirmation every 10 years?

Well firstly, your power company obviously knows who it is buying from and of course what it is producing itself. Here in San Diego, SDG&E gets (off the top of my head) about %50 of it's power from the San Onfre Nuclear Power plant, the next biggest portion from the two natural gas plants it operates locally, and the rest from two interconnects to the North and to the East as well as occasionally from Mexico from the south. Those outside links are a mix of hydro (hoover dam), natural gas, coal and a small amount of solar and wind. There is a break down on my power bill that pretty much lays it out just like that. So by the largest part, I picked nuclear.

Secondly though, it doesn't really matter exactly where the electromotive force coming into my house really comes from exactly. Of course it all goes into a big pool, but you are still paying the producer to add to the pool an amount equal to that I consumed.

I don't think that chart means what you think it does with "highways" listed as zero substitutes. Where do you think highways come from?

I actually did exactly that to an actor once at my community college, opps.

It's very easy to forget to mute a channel on an audio mixer when you often have dozens of them.