We were using the PC Jr for Pascal in late 80s HS CS classes. They were completely adequate and had that distinctive higher end IBM look and feel. There were a bunch of terrible beige box PCs at the time and the IBMs actually looked ok and seemed to work fine for what we did.

My favorite though was the Compaq luggable beast. About 40lbs in a suitcase form factor, the thing was a beast! Dad splurged for dual 5.25" drives and we eventually got a 30 MB 1.5 slot HDD.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compaq_Portable

I have used MuseScore for a few simple things and I liked it a lot for making decent written scores. Plus, the community often has great stuff available to help get projects started.

We went down recently and got the Magic Bands. Disney uses them in five ways:

1. Ticket into the park
2. "Fast pass+" for some rides in the park
3. Purchases (with a pin, if your card is tied in)
4. Room access if staying on resort.
5. Photo pass (photos shot by in park employees)

In most cases, these are actions that for >95% of us would be tied to our credit card transaction. Even the old paper fast passes would have been tied to your park ticket (which is probably tied to your credit card).

The photo pass is one that previously was not tied to your credit card in any way. You would take pictures and get a code, if you never bought the code or tied the code to your online disney account they would not have your picture. But I am sure Disney has plenty of CCD in place and could tie in your entering the park to a picture if they wanted.

I really doubt they are tracking people in the park. Their RFID sensors stink! You have to orient the band just right to get the RFID close to the sensor. You have to hold it still and sometimes swipe two or three times. I doubt they are long range scanning your RFID in the park without your knowledge.

Also, you only get three of the new fast pass+ "experiences" in the park each day. So they really will only see you in three spots. For them, this stuff is probably more useful for load leveling than privacy invasion.

BTW, problems with the system have been all over the place. Disney invested almost a billion in it and they were considering dropping it, but it worked pretty well for us.

So in summary, if you are skeevy about this at Disney World, pay cash or use gift cards to buy your tickets.

Honestly, it has been years. The last time I checked all X apps ran in a single window on OSX. At least my Mac buddies claimed that was the best they could do. Maybe I will give it another shot?

"you know, the main technical drawback to mac osx, is the lack of x...."

One main reason I have never moved to max was the limited support for X the last time I checked.

So technically you are correct because I don't use a mac due to their technical limitations.

All that's missing is some mention of hosts files.

I just wanted to notify you, informally, that you've infringed upon my patent that details a process for complaining about patents. I'll make sure that my lawyers send you the appropriate notice paperwork by the end of next week.

Back in the day, a story wasn't a story until it hit slashdot at least three times, a trupe.

I still remember seeing a story duped on the front page just a couple of posts between the two, like the "editors" didn't even look at the site.

Maybe google should have selected users based on pretentiousness? This glasshole thing may limit their adoption long-term more than any technology issue.

Not sure what to blame the g+ failure on. I went to check that wasteland again today. After the reader debacle I have lost a lot of faith.

Maybe I start the bing? Does it work with the tubes?

Come tomorrow, I guess I should stop by the Department Chair's office and let him know that he should revoke my endowed scholar position, let alone the positions of my colleagues, as we're all apparently fools.

I chuckled heartily over this, especially considering that Autodesk hasn't released a native 3DS Max binary for OS X.

Private entities rarely, if at all, focus a majority of their efforts into pure research, unlike the national labs. Funding pure research, which is one of the few actions that the US Government at least does halfway correctly, is ultimately essential if we are to progress the state of the art and thus create new fields and products that are ripe for commercialization.

Don't you still have freedom to associate? They are just keeping tabs on whom you associate with.

I would stick with privacy (which is not in the constitution). Just unreasonable search and seizure AFAIK.

I just started playing around with scratch, which lets you get stuff running easily without hardware headaches.

Simple stuff like making a sprite move or make noise in response to keypresses is pretty cool for little kids. And me.

The other think I like about it is the format. "Code" still looks like code, with nested for/if statements.

It can be slow ans it breaks down for medium to complex stuff, but making crappy flash games is easy. And they apparently have a decent version for dealing with NXT robots...

Arctic is shrinking and Antarctic is growing. Global mean appears flat to me.

http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/global.daily.ice.area.withtrend.jpg/

I thought we were going to all be killed by global warming hurricanes? Or is that off topic?