That's unfortunate because, as others have noted, the hosts file "feature" is indeed a relic of a bygone era that should be laid permanently to rest rather than being broken for certain use cases. There seem to be two camps here; the ones that say "leave our beloved feature intact!" and those who say "kill it for the sake of the enterprise!" They are both right -- What MS should do is not break the hosts file or make it behave inconsistently, but replace it with something better.

A Windows service that allows DNS names to be overridden by user request is what is called for here. It could be added as a supported feature ...something that is controlled by group policy and managed through Windows RM to satisfy the enterprise IT folks ...something with a nice UI and possibly new features like pattern matching for the ad-blocking/web-developing user base.

Practically speaking that probably won't happen, as it's always easier to shoot a piece of software in the head than actually improve or replace it...

...post a lenghty rant about miscoceptions of Android users, and quote the OP too. Unfortunately, I'm posting from an Android device and do not posess such skills.

...after the gubernment takes them away you'll be glad you did! Just in time for the epochalyse too!

In a former position, I designed and maintained a recurring billing system for a monthly subscription product that had difficulty retaining customers through each billing cycle. Every March, I would look forward to the inevitable calls from upper management asking why our billing numbers for 3/29, 3/30 and 3/31 were so much lower than the projections on their spreadsheets. It got to the point where I had prepared canned email responses to be automatically sent to remind people of the number of days in February. Leap years were nice (fewer accusations coming my way) considering that only two anniversary dates were missed for first-time billings (3/30 and 3/31) instead of three.

...is how these sprites being sold to us. Yet it wasn't what Sputnik did while in orbit that made it such a marvel, but the ingenuity that got it there. This is a neat idea, but sorry, geek cred can't be bought for $300 or any other amount. For the same money I could build a rocket that would not make it a fraction of the distance (assuming it didn't blow up on the launch pad), but it would be uniquely mine, as would be whatever "cred" that came with it.

All of them! :D

(Good luck with that)

It's been a while since I looked at Xen so I decided to do some searching to see what additional value XenServer adds to it. I found this document, which says:

...and not much else. They took an open-source project, "bought" it for $500 million, did nothing more than put a GUI on it, and were then shocked to discover that no one wanted to buy it. Corporate incompetence never ceases to amaze.

That wasn't always the case. I suspect someone came along and informed them that their software is open-source.

Ahem...I hate to nitpick, but Diffie-Hellman does not belong in the same category as RSA and DSA. It is an algorithm for symmetric key exchange. Public key cryptosystems, by definition, use asymmetric keys...not to mention that they can be used to encrypt and/or sign data, which Diffie-Hellman does not do.

The "proof" of the quadratic formula is completing the square. It is a simple method that does not require rote-learning, and can be applied to many other problems. I guess this all depends on how you define "useful". If "useful" means improving your skills in BASIC coding at the expense of learning a simple mathematical technique (which is quite elegant, btw) in a fraction of the time, then yes, writing your pseudo-rootkit was useful. To many, math is a means to an end, but to others it is high art. It is unfortunate that you stand on the the side of the former.

I started reading this thread thinking, "Hey, wouldn't it be cool to get some practical insight into how to deploy a microwave link across hundreds of miles of open air, under the pressure of being in a war zone, no less". But what I have read instead are lame excuses for why they should use something else. Hell, I guess they could even use dial-up with AOL if they still have working telephone lines. I hate to be the insensitive, semi-autistic brat in the crowd, but can someone with experience setting up these kind of connections please get the spotlight?

No, GNU-slash-Linux is not a distinction...it is a moniker he asks people to use because he rightfully wants the GNU Project to get the recognition it deserves. When people colloquially refer to "Linux", they are referring to a complete operating system (i.e. GNU-slash-Linux). The entire concept of a free-as-in-speech operating system was pioneered by Stallman. The GPL was created by Stallman. Linux (the kernel) would not have been free if the GPL hadn't come first. People (except the Debian folks) drop the GNU/ because it doesn't roll off the tounge quite so well as just saying "Linux". And others, such as our friends at Canonical, drop the word "Linux" altogether. None of this changes the reality of what Stallman created.

Many (nay, most) native English speakers would be stumped by:

That's why doctors say "high blood pressure" and "irregular heartbeat". And those who have trouble understanding terms like these will have trouble with more than just ordering sandwiches. You can't, for instance, just point to a driver's license application and say, "I want this".

English & Spanish != 170 languages

Let's be practical here...move 170 multilingual people to another country and you can make the exact same claim. This really seems like overkill for any practical purpose.

I often call to complain that my neighbor's DSL isn't set up correctly...oh, wait.