In order for "we" to rewrite the tax codes, better people need to be elected to Congress and state legislatures. Today, to a great extent, that means PACs, because PACs raise the money for campaigns that make the difference between someone wanting to get elected and someone having a real chance of getting elected.

The weak link of democracy is... democracy. First, the voting public needs to know who you are, and second, the voting public needs to get off their asses and vote. Seriously. There's a mid-term election coming up... pay attention to the turn-out.

"We" will continue to elect puppets and pawns, owned by and obligated to the "secret" donors to the PACs (and who will continue to twist the tax code for their benefit), until "we" start coming out in sufficient numbers and elect other people, and thus embarrass all the "secret" donors who sent money to the PACs but got no return on their "investment".

The machines. Fine black slabs (NeXTstations), cubes with giant NeXT Dimension monitors, and matching black 400dpi laser printers... Sun made some fine-looking Sparc pizza boxes back in the day with cute purple feet, but the NeXTs were a joy to use for anything from research to productivity. I recall Mathematica, Webster's Dictionary, and WriteNow were bundled for free!

As to OS X, I appreciate the underlying NeXTStep framework, which is particularly evident from Xcode. But the display is something new (not Display Postscript), and ever since version 1 "cheetah" I have wondered why the performance seemed so poor, when NeXTStep ran just fine on Motorola 68030's and 68040's and 16 MBytes RAM.

I mean, OS X performs fine now, but it's running on Intel hardware that's not even in the same sport as what NeXTStep was running on in the early 90's. In view of that, I would expect something based on NeXTStep to be absolutely stunning quick on modern Mac Intel hardware, but it's just ok.
 

X11 was available, both commercial and free (e.g. CoXist), as an app that ran on NeXT's Display Postscript. I miss NeXT computers, looked good, performed well, easy to service, easy to program, good networking, good documentation, sported floppies that could write DOS disks which came in handy so many many times in those days before thumb drives. And I remember Display Postscript having some X-like network capability (but I didn't use it much). Besides, both the WWW and Doom, and who knows what else, started life on a NeXT. I wish them well, wherever they be.

True.

Easy, there, big fella. Posting a link to a datasheet would have sufficed. Ain't right to call a man incompetent for asking a question. Truly, an incompetent is one who don't never ask the question assuming he already knows. Credit is due for seeking to learn something.

Any experience with M-discs as archival media? Newer cd and dvd burners are compatible with them, but do they deliver?

Are dark, sparkling Foldger's Crystals rich enough to keep these patients alive and well?

Spokesman: How do you feel?

Patient #1: Fine, thank you.

Spokesman: Did you know that we've replaced all of your blood with Foldger's Crystals?

Patient #1: An instant?

Spokesman: That's right.

Patient #1: I can't believe it. I feel great. I'm full of Foldger's Crystals, really?

Spokesman: Yes, and so are all the other patients in this intensive care unit. How do you all feel?

[ The other patients show reactions of approval ]

That sounds about right. I refused to upgrade from Windows 2000 until XP had made it past SP1, because XP had so many problems on release. These days, we think of patches to fix security issues. But with XP, most patches just fixed things that were plain broken. The years before SP2, and probably SP3, really shouldn't count in XP's lifespan.

Stop it? They'd promote it! ...after hacking it to send keystrokes and user-data to their own intelligence servers.
Windows CN, coming to a torrent near you.

Lawyer speak. They are trying to make it difficult for investigators to find incriminating or "smoking gun" evidence through a word-search on their electronic documents (such as when they are forced to hand them over on discovery or under subpoena, or else leaked by a whistleblower or hacker).

This. Wise words and true. I have no mod points left :\

That's dedication, my friend. It runs fine with Windows 7, too, if you ever find yourself forced out of XP.

The article suggests there's a lot of room for improvement, but the first problem is that our Congress can't be bothered to do the (admittedly) hard, tedious work of improving it. Seems like all they care about lately is grand-standing to attract more money to buy more TV ads to get re-elected... to do the same thing over again.

Howabout we actually show up to the polls in decent numbers this year and vote them all out. It don't matter who they are or who the opponent is, even if it's a chimpanzee, we all pull the other switch and send the incumbent home to do whatever he's gonna do. Let the star-chamber campaign gods of both parties scratch their heads why the pricey attack ads didn't work. Then do it again two years later, and again after that, until we get a Congress that actually takes the people's business seriously (the "people", you know, being all of us).

Yeah, I know. But don't they say something about democracies getting exactly the government they deserve?

Yes. Yes. and Yes.

Yes! These maps were great! I used to hide out in a drain in the sink (there was a redeemer hidden in there) or take a sniper position on top a piece of crown molding. 2 inches high in a kitchen with a super shock rifle? and the TV actually worked!

This. It's ancient, but there's something about UT 99 and it's great maps and mods that's un-matched for quick, dirty, mad crazy carnage.

I would love nothing more than re-creating the feel of that game with a few modern updates (maybe modern, smoother graphics for better eye-candy, destructible map elements (leave a crater where a redeemer went off, drop a wall on an enemy), rockets that actually fly fast like real rockets, blast waves, simulated vertigo/shock on impact, more useable gadgets in maps). It'd also be great to skin yourself as anything you want. Deathmatch with Bart Simpson, Teletubbies, Ronald MacDonald comin' at ya with a flak cannon. Game so good you quit your job and leave your wife. Mayhem!