Getting paid to drop out of college? These kids are going to need that $100,000 just to pay back the loans they've already taken, only now they'll have nothing to show for it. Now, if you're already about to fail out this is a great idea, but otherwise, I think it's really dumb. College is not just about learning, it's an experience in of itself, where we learn who we really are, what we really want to do in life, etc. Coming out of high school I thought I knew it all, I thought I could start my own company, I thought I wanted to be a doctor, blah blah blah. How wrong I was - I could not handle a company with the limited experience I had at that point in my life, and I ended up figuring out I really didn't want to be a doctor, but rather go into IT. And I'm much happier for it! Had I dropped out of college, and taken this guy's deal, I would've had no degree, and a failed company with a lot of debt. I'm not saying nobody can do it, there's many cases of those that did, but they are a vast minority - most people would fail miserably and then have no degree to fall back on, not to mention missing out on the whole college experience.

Only idiots would take this deal, and shame on this guy for offering it - unless his intent of course is to eliminate his future competition now :-)

One of the key selling points that entices a lot of novice users to buy an Apple over a PC is lack of malware/virii. The other key selling points being ease of use/reliability/stability. This latest outbreak, while not particularly damaging, and while not really a threat as the user still must "install it," is getting a ton of media attention and is thus removing the "cloak of invulnerability" that Macs have been advertised to have against malware and virii. So now when a novice user, who doesn't know any better, has to choose between the more expense Mac vs a cheaper PC, will the remaining key selling points be enough to entice them to pay the higher premium? Many people switch solely on the reason of not dealing with virii/malware, but now that they will have to deal with that (whether or not it's true is irrelevant as in many novices minds Macs are now vulnerable) they might just stick with their PC. Bottom line - this is going to really hurt Apple a lot more than most people realize, as they will no longer have the novice users switching just to avoid virii and malware. Apple's "cloak of invulnerability" has been removed...and whether the remaining key selling points will sustain them remains to be seen.

kiss my as...terisk! Asterisk is a key part of Skype's popularity and is where VOIP and video phone conferencing is trending towards these days. I wonder if this will be the death of Skype?

I can "see" why the blind would like this! (excuse the bad joke!) Then again, how would a blind person, who has never been able to see before, be able to function in a world where all of a sudden (s)he could see? (s)He would be overwhelmed, and would have to re-learn everything - walking, etc., as his/her balance and entire life to that point had been based upon their other senses...I wonder if anyone has taken into account if any blind people actually "want" to see? I mean I can't see in the 4th dimension, but if you told me I could, would I really want to? I'm guessing many people wouldn't want to (at least not permanently).

Why is it that more and more people are willing to give up freedoms and privacy for what "appears" to be increased safey? To me, if 10,000 more people "escape getting a deserved ticket" in order to maintain my freedom of driving (no black boxes in cars), I am fine with that! To take the point further, I would say if 10,000 more people (myself and family included) had to DIE to keep our right to privacy alive (no ridiculous procedures at the airport, no black boxes, no video cameras ANYWHERE, no big brother, period!) I would say it would be a welcome trade! Why don't more people think this way? What's the point of living if you aren't free and have no privacy? Instead, people say "if giving up my privacy/freedom/etc. would save even 1 life, it's worth it!" I *strongly* disagree...freedom first!!!

Stranger in Store: "Hey, can I borrow your cell phone real quick to call my wife?"

You: "Sure."

Stranger in Store (to cashier):"I love this plasma Hi-Def 1080p TV! *Swipe!* Nevermind, don't need your phone anymore, my wife isn't picking up.""

You:"OK, no problem."

10 minutes later...

You: "Oh, craaaaaaap!!!!"

Better idea - make all music/mp3s free - however - either add advertisements for like 5 seconds at the beginning of each song (annoying but doable), OR, somehow incorporate a url or a link or an option into mp3 players and computers so that if you "like" a song you've downloaded, you can choose to contribute $1 or some amount to the artist. I think artists would make much more money this way, I mean I would certainly contribute for songs I liked, and it would ALL go to the artist and not the stupid record companies. Plus it would encourage artists to make every song good, rather than coming up with "filler" songs to fill a CD. Then again, of course record companies would never do this, as they'd go out of business...but would they really be missed?

"I broke my neck because my GPS told me to turn left and I ran into a wall..."

"I didn't mean to pee on the wall, but my GPS told me it was a urinal..."

"I only ran through your sushi-kitchen because my GPS told me it was the quickest route to the bathroom..."

*sigh*

It absolutely doesn't matter, whom to blame, because all of those products come with "no warranty or guarantee, expressed or implied".

I checked my deo, but no aluminum so I googled around and apparently it's an ingredient in antiperspirant which is in some deodorants (mine's the plain kind). Interestingly this turned up some debate on the safety of aluminum use :

"A small study in 17 women with breast cancer was quite widely reported in the news in 2007. It found higher levels of aluminium in the part of the breast nearest the skin, and the authors speculated that aluminium in deodorants might cause breast cancer. But the design of this study was not strong enough to draw that conclusion." From cancerresearchuk

And from wikipedia : "Aluminium, present most often in antiperspirants, but not usually present in non-antiperspirant deodorants, has been established as a neurotoxin in very high doses."

From what I can tell smearing it on your skin is probably OK and ingesting it in more than trace amounts should probably be discouraged :-) Thanks for the tip.

Linux Kernel 2.6 Local Root Exploit - February 10 2008
New Linux Flaw Enables Null Pointer Exploits - July 17, 2009

Better?

My point was that the ISC was created in response to a virus that had an impact on Linux. More to the point, that "Linux" ( much like "Mac" ) does not mean "invulnerable". Any competent system admin will tell you that.

This has less to do with existence of exploits and more to do with competency doesn't it? Tell you what, if you can tell my mother-in-law how to apply this decade old fix to a Linux system correctly, without excusing yourself for a moment to go outside and bang your head against the wall, I'll concede.

What about Windows 98 is outdated? It has faster boot times, a simpler UI, and is not encumbered by active DRM. It's sometimes slow but a faster processor will still result in a instantaneous response times. I think the primary disadvantage of Windows 98 is that adding new industry-standard features would be so costly as to be impractical. It has security holes, and it tends to get bogged down over time, but in terms of OS quality Windows 98 is still extremely good.

Windows 98 is "outdated" because Microsoft wants to sell Windows 7. Lean and fast is sexy. And XP sold like crazy back when its stability was dramatically inferior to Windows 98, and it took them two service packs to catch up.

*** ... Now, obviously I'm being overly dramatic, but I think you can see my point. Yes, CRTs are useful, but they're not industry-standard anymore. You yourself pointed out one of the biggest reasons LCDs won out - high-resolution widescreen CRTs are impractically large.

But even if I were to concede that CRTs are inherently superior to LCDs, there have been many instances in recent history of apparently inferior technology being adopted as standard, while superior versions are left in the dust (e.g. VHS vs Beta).

The point is, you can't get mad at anyone for not supporting Beta tapes, even though you still have a Beta tape player at home; you can't get mad at Microsoft for not supporting Windows 98, even though you have a computer with Windows 98 running on it; and you can't get mad at someone for not supporting CRTs, even though you have a CRT at home.

Sure, CRTs have some inherently better qualities. LCDs have some too. Companies don't have infinite money, and guess what? They won't make money supporting CRTs, so they're not going to do it.