WHO...DOES... NUMBER...2... WORK... FOR..?!! (Comcast, probably...)

Then this is what I call a poor design, done on purpose, no doubt. Any reasonable person would assume it's removable. Either make it integrated as a soldered chip, or make it removable without bricking the device. What MS is doing is asinine. But, as stated numerous times, they're doing this to market proprietary, MS-branded SD cards and proprietary methods to transfer data to other, larger SD cards or some other such crap.

We realize it's "not supposed to be a removable piece of the device". That's exactly why everyone hates it.

It says right in the summary that he landed with a parachute.

While this was comedy, it just goes to illustrate what people think is true isn't always the case. Turkeys can, in fact, fly. It's more like the Wright brothers' flight: not really sustainable over long distances, but enough to be called flight.

Still.. funny, nonetheless!

Or by restricting those rights until they're basically useless. Gun laws are the biggest examples, where the restrictions on who can own them and where, what types can be owned, permits, bans on certain types of guns ("assault weapons" anyone..?), and other restrictions can make gun ownership or carry difficult. But there are plenty of restrictions on other rights, too.

Perhaps we should get off your lawn and stop tinkering with this "science" garbage, too? Your name isn't Red Foreman, is it..?

That was my own reading failure... thought you said "most systems" and not "most of MY systems"... can I mod myself down..?

Seriously..? Are you smoking crack? Plenty of motherboards still have one or two PCI slots on them to make use of some older hardware.

Here are a few examples for you... as in, nearly 200 examples: Motherboards w/ PCI slots

Everything you said basically says you don't agree with what they did. That by refusing to do service with this guy they were denying them their rights. They're not denying anyone their rights. So your whole post is contradictory. You say they have the right to refuse business, but then you say you wouldn't do business with them because they don't want to do business with a giant a-hole.

You don't seem to get it. A private company can refuse to do business with someone, especially if the other party doesn't follow the rules (contract) that they agreed to. That's not denying free speech. The guy can still go out on a street corner and piss people off. But Rackspace has no obligation to continue hosting his page to facilitate his right to free speech. Just as no publisher is required to publish someone's book just because no one else will in order for that person to exercise free speech. They could just as easily print it out themselves and have it bound at Kinkos and sell it on their own. They're not preventing him from exercising free speech. They just don't want to facilitate it for him.

So, this guy can go burn his books if he wants to. But Rackspace doesn't need to continue doing business with him. He violated the contract they agreed to when the church began putting their site up on Rackspace's servers. Therefore, Rackspace can exit without concern of breaking the contract. This church already broke it.

Just as the customer can go elsewhere, Rackspace can, too. It goes both ways. They could even refuse to renew their contract with this church, if they felt like it. It's the right of private companies to refuse to do business, just as it's this jackass's right to go burn books and get blown up by impending jihad over this.

Why's that..? People still buy the gas, they jack up prices (claiming short supply), and reduced production means they don't need to pay their workers as much. Of course, on the other hand, if they jack up prices and sell MORE gas, well... that helps their cause, too. Greedy bastards...

The person may not be a criminal, but they may not have implemented good security practices. So it's good to look over what they've put in place anyway. There may be accounts they forgot about lingering, awaiting deletion. Extra equipment that could be put to use. Extra equipment you don't need. And changing passwords is just plain common sense.

It depends on why they've been canned. But we're assuming it was "under duress", so it's not a happy parting. If their relationship with the company was going south for some time, it's good to investigate a bit to ensure they didn't leave anything behind that might be a problem.

Considering many IT staff have full control over your infrastructure, it's good to take the cautious route of assuming they've planted a back door or some other problem. After all, they likely had the root passwords to your systems. Better get those changed ASAP!

It may seem strange, but think about it... The oil companies are all about making record profits, and don't really seem to function by standard economics principles. So, if people begin buying fewer petroleum products or less gasoline, they'll probably start reducing production and jacking up prices to keep making a ton of money. It's just what they do.

Doesn't mean it SHOULDN'T be the case. Most of us understand that DRM and other restrictions put on personal use are a load of crap. Unfortunately for all of us, you're correct. But the gov't isn't going to come charging into my house for applying a crack to my game to play without a CD. So he can likely get away with doing what he wants (short of distributing copies).