You mean like a *receipt*?

I don't remember the time I last purchased something either over the web or counter that didn't come with printable receipt. Same goes with bills and online payment.

I'd also doubt that my bank would change the amount between me authorizing a payment and having the receipt available electronically, as their risks would most certainly outweigh the benefits.

Perhaps in countries where there's a history of banks systematically screwing with their customers and the justice system not helping that would be an issue, but at least here in Finland I would be worrying about alien abductions and government conspiracies against me personally as well, if I felt that checks would be the only way to have security.

And, I'm actually quite certain that checks can be forged more easily than you can build a banking system that automatically screws its customers, yet is not detected on the long run.

If they have a standardized satellite template, it would be a rather clever "hoax" to just launch one ~5 pound satellite that would have enough horsepower to emulate all the 1 pound ones, so people would think that their very own satellite was launched, when actually there's just one with many antennas. It would make a great Slashdot meme:

• Offer to send a beowulf cluster of DIY satellites to space
• Charge for them
• Only send one virtualized satellite
• ... (this point was intentionally left blank)
• Profit!

I've often thought the same. However...

Even those "old skool" 80s and 90s demos had their own "graphics libraries", just on lower level - BIOS routines to switch graphics modes, and if there was music, it was usually done using MIDI or GUS, which had hardware mixing routines. Add all DOS interrupts on top of that and you had plenty of "libraries" also available back then.

So while there is difference (back then you had to do your own polygon filling routines), even old-timers had some help, and you could even argue that it was quite an equal amount when compared to yesterday's standards (flat shaded polygons were great back then).

Heck, I'd even go as far as to say, that 4kb, even with DirectX and whatnot, is even more amazing when you consider that even basic OS install requires 20 GB disk space. In the 90s, the days of Commodore 64 were pretty close, and 4kb was just few orders of magnitude smaller than "the usual stuff" those days.

I really hope the obituary says "Died in a blogging accident", too!

From Finnish viewpoint the news is very interesting, because these paper mill sites (Summa, Kemijarvi mill, and some others) have been continuously in the headlines for the last two years due to their closing down. Many of the cities these factories have resided in are in rather remote locations, and there aren't many companies who are interested in the facilities, meaning a significant share of the taxpayers suddenly become unemployed, without much hope for new companies appearing.

Now the headline where Google, a global superbrand, is buying an obscure paper mill and converting it to a datacenter truly raises eyebrows, I myself almost fell from my chair when a saw the headline. From US viewpoint and scale, it would equate to something like:

"Chinese government to acquire all car factories in Detroit and convert them for clothing production".

Except Google and paper mill makes up a somewhat more nerdy combination. But I agree, people not familiar with Summa paper mills and their history probably won't appreciate this getting to the Slashdot front page.

And to make sure you really encounter the right Laden along your path:

which laden