My biggest problem with IE is not speed, resource usage, the tabs system, or anything like that.

I use firefox for one reason and one reason only. It has some excellent addons for it because there is a very well-defined place to GET addons, and anyone can submit one easily.

Not to mention that FireFox isn't worrying about trying to ensure people don't compete with them on their other products.

My five essential addons for FireFox are:
- AdBlock Plus (of which the more important part is the filters that are auto-updated)
- NoScript
- FoxyProxy (specifically for selecting a proxy by the URL automatically)
- User Agent Switcher
- Download Helper

I've not personally seen a nice central site like FF's addons page to manage addons - and without something like this, upgrading has to be done manually for each, and you are responsible for checking for updates and such. A pain in the arse.

The problem with all this is you need a good piping and plumbing system in place, complete with quick release valves to ensure you can disconnect or connect hardware without having to do a whole bunch piping and water routing in the process. Part of the beauty of racks is you just slide in the computer, screw it in, and plug in the plugs at the back and you're done.

I'm not saying it's impossible, but just building a new case, or blade, or whatever isn't going to do it - you need a new rack system with built in pipes and pumps, and probably a data center with even more plumbing with outlets at the appropriate places to supply each rack with water. This is no small task for trying to retrofit an existing data center.

Not to mention that you have to make sure you have enough pressure to ensure each server is supplied water from the 'source', you cannot just daisy chain computers because the water would get hotter and hotter the further down the chain you go. This means a dual piping system (one for 'cool or room temperature' water and one for 'hot' water). And it means adjusting the pressure to each rack depending on how many computers are in it and such.

The issues of water cooling a data center go WAY beyond the case, which is why nobody has really done it yet - sure, the cost savings are potentially huge, but it's a LOT more complicated that sticking a bunch of servers with fans in racks that can move around and such, and then turning on the A/C. And there is a lot less room for error (as someone else mentioned, what if a leak occurs? or a plumbing joint fails, or whatever. Hell, if a pump fails you could be out a whole rack!).

They do - why do you think big companies use their patent portfolios as a THREAT rather than use them? If the examiner had done their job I am betting nowhere NEAR as many software patents would be granted as have been.

ala. http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/11/11/2055226

I don't know, but I know who to ask. Darl? where are you? What were we supposed to get for our $699 again?

We need a new moderation ... 'Groan'.

Why bother when they just need 1 mod. TO change the faces on all zombies to those of the members of the ratings board.

They already glow with the batteries they have now! But at least that is a pink/red glow, I'm pretty sure an iPod glowing green would be a Bad Thing (tm).

That said, having the black/white iPod commercials change to black/green would be interesting. Kind of bring back the black/green monochrome monitor nostalga.

Funnily enough, 50 years is half a century in ... you know, the ENGLISH LANGUAGE (and I'm sure it's also half of the foreign equivalents to the word century. Except in Russia, of course).

This is typical protectionist crap. Sorry, but you may be right about businesses thinking short term, but if America starts banning foreign nationals from its schools, and slapping tariffs on foreign imports, how does that make America any better than China?

And for the record, America DOES still slap tariffs on foreign imports into this country. Usually at the behest of the powerful lobbies. Ever look at things like sugar and wheat imports? Both have either rather large tariffs, or just subsidies for the domestic industry. Why? Because the industry lobbies for those products demanded it. And it has caused a lot of friction with America's trading partners.

Hell, I remember a 'free trade' agreement a few years ago with Australia where not only did America put tariffs on Australian wheat imports (because of pressure from the US wheat lobby), they also insisted as part of their free trade deal that Australia adopt something similar to the DMCA as part of the deal - at the behest of the RIAA/MPAA. So if you really believe America has been doing other countries a favor in it's trading practices (Food for Oil anyone? Or how about withholding aid money, which is supposed to be completely unrelated to trade), then you're deluded.

In short, protectionism is bad no matter what. Now whether China is banning these exports because it truly doesn't have enough to satisfy domestic demand, and thus can't afford to supply foreign demand, or they're trying to use this threat to gain more concessions from the international community is irrelevant. Instituting protectionist policies won't help Sino-American relations, and considering, as you have said, America relies so heavily on China for it's manufacturing of almost everything we buy, America just can't afford to ruin it's relationship with yet another country, especially one it relies so heavily on.

America used to be able to take the high moral ground, and used to be viewed in a generally favorable light in the world. It's America's own greed and arrogance (not to mention going around the world like a bull in a china shop sticking it's nose in everyone else's business) that has tarnished this reputation. The election of Obama has actually started to repair this a little, but only when America starts playing fair with the rest of the world again (ie. treating other countries as equals, as opposed to approaching each trade deal as a "we want this, give it to us or else you're not our friend anymore!" deal) will it actually gain respect again. You seem quick to cry 'foul!' when another country starts using the same tactics America has been using for decades against America. You (ie. America) wrote these new trading rules, don't be surprised when someone else plays by them.

Even that's wrong. Quite a number of fortune 500 companies rely on Linux heavily. Almost every investment bank certainly, but I'd wager a number of others too. Maybe not on the desktops of the employees, but still, Linux is certainly a viable and well-used platform in fortune 500s.

You forget, Apathy/Procrastination is a virtue. Just look at some common idioms such as "We'll cross that bridge when we come to it" and "Why do today what you can put off until tomorrow". Or my personal favorite ... "Fuck it!"

Tell me, how did you fix your shift of caps lock key for a single word? Or are you just making a statement against the imperialistic capital .. uhh .. letters.

There is a difference. Your photograph was still within it's copyright period.

Copyright extends to 70 years past the author's death (in the UK). Since you are still alive, any photograph you take is obviously still within it's copyright - with one caveat.

The caveat is exactly what is at issue. You cannot claim copyright on a direct copy of someone else's work. You CAN claim copyright on a DERIVATIVE work. So the question here is was the photograph of the painting a derivative work?

The goal of the photograph was to reproduce the painting in digital form exactly as it was meant to be viewed in the gallery. No changes were made, and the painting was not used as the basis for a new work (even a person standing next to it within the shot is a 'derivative' work). Which would mean the photographs in question were NOT derivative works, but merely digital copies of the original, and not copyrightable in and of themselves (they would piggy back on the original copyright).

Which means any digital image of a painting that is in the public domain, is also public domain - as it is not a derivative artwork. And you cannot steal something that is public domain.

In your case, yes, someone stole your art work, because it IS within it's copyright. And regardless of whether they stole a print, the digital image, or any other faithful reproduction of your photograph, it would still be counted as illegally copying of your work. But 70 years after you die, anyone and their dog can take your image with impunity. They can even take the image of someone else's photograph of your image on a screen (as long as it's not altered in any way).

So as someone else said, yes, it might take a lot of technical expertise to faithfully capture these images to do them justice, but that does not suddenly give the person taking them copyright on what is, essentially, a faithful reproduction of the original artwork not a derivative.

By way of example, how about we take the works of Shakespear. Originally released in manuscript form. Someone took that manuscript and typed it into computer text files. Does that mean that person now has copyright on the resulting text file? It certainly took a lot of effort to transcribe the text - but it doesn't matter. Just because it took a lot of effort to do something (it takes a lot of effort to paint a forgery, too) does not infer copyright - if the text is identical to the original shakespear, then it is just a faithful reproduction on another medium and still int he public domain.

To be honest, I think this is exactly the way he would want to be remembered. He had a larger than life personality/persona - he would not want people moping around 'boo hoo, Billy Mays is dead.'

Billy was not above poking fun at himself either, and it was an image he cultivated. The fact that he, and his pitch style was so recognizable speaks volumes. So no, I don't think it's too soon, I see the above as a celebration of Billy, not a satire of him.

The big problem with being an exit node is a legal one. Specifically the Cease and Desist notices from the RIAA/MPAA.

I had an exit node with 2mbps bandwidth DEDICATED to TOR. Not too long later, my service provider started getting the copyright infringement emails. Even though I handled them all myself, and sent replies, called people, showed my service provider the TOR page about legal threats, and even promised to cover any legal costs *IF* it did ever get that that, eventually my service provider just got sick of receiving and forwarding the emails.

Now I don't specifically blame my service provider for this - it IS a potential legal exposure/battle they just don't need. Now you could blame the people using TOR for P2P, but they're doing it for exactly the reason TOR was created - to avoid detection of who they really are. Now you can't tell people TOR cannot be used for illegal activity, because the very reason TOR was CREATED was to facilitate illegal activity (eg. dissident speech in China). So what is illegal or not is a judgement call.

Therefore the blame ends up being on the RIAA/MPAA - but even there, they are legitimately trying to protect their rights. As unpopular as it sounds, and annoying and ineffective as it may be, there IS a reason they are sending out emails of the like. It's cheap for them to do it, and the threat of legal action is usually enough for ISP's to yank someone's pipe.

So my TOR node was, in the end, turned into a non-exit node. Until this kind of problem is solved (for which I don't know what the solution would be), then exit nodes on TOR will be a rare commodity, and as such, bandwidth on the TOR network will be limited because it is being constrained to very few eligible pipes.