Uh when I think vampire I think Busty women in corsets. I think the vampire vote is based on the "which will get me laid...forever?" decision tree which means that 71% didn't use it...

For the males in the audience, maybe. For the females, vampire is really the only option on the survey with any draw at all... who wants body hair, or to spend their time lumbering around trying to suck on the flesh of the living? gak. At least there's romanticism in vampires.

I would have chosen yuki-onna if it was on the list, but seeing as /. is a mostly male crowd, I don't think there's a lot of guys here who'd pick a female ghost spirit as their monster.... as it is, I chose vampire. Not because of Ms. Meyer's books (which I really can't stand), but because of the romanticism that surrounds the mythology. The other choices don't really have any romance about them at all. (and yes, there are female vampires... don't you watch Buffy?)

That sounds a little militant... are you thinking of joining the other side?

Either that or put in an author check that automatically spits out an A+ if it detects that the author of the code was himself....

mm... I would point out that most Euro race tracks have other hazards to worry about, though. Hills, sharp turns, left/right turns in a mix, and longer tracks than you find in NASCAR.

I'm not saying that NASCAR drivers aren't good drivers. They are. But I am saying that European Touring Car racing tends to be a better test of an individual driver's skill than a trip around most NASCAR tracks.

It's a good explanation of why Finns are disproportionally represented in motorsport. Certainly better than assuming that having k as a third of the letters in your name makes you good at driving.

I think it has more to do with the 3-year process that the Finns go through to get their license, which includes manditory skid school, snow driving school, and training on loose surfaces.

Not really that crazy, when you think about it.... If you're driving down the middle of a windy unpaved country road, then you have more space to react if you hit a pothole and veer off to the side. You've also got space to react on both sides in case some wayward wildlife steps out in front of you. In my driving experience, I've had to avoid small animals like cats/dogs/racoons, medium-sized animals like deer, and large animals like moose and one bear. (the joys of living in Ontario....)

Now, I'm not saying that the tristate area is exactly Moose Country, but there are certainly deer in KY, and there could be some logic to driving down the middle of the road. People do it up here, too.

Do what my parents did, then... the first time I had an accident, even though the cause was attributed to the weather, I was judged at fault and charged with careless driving (the cop said he had no choice, as I had admitted to hitting the other driver, but strongly recommended I fight it in court... I did and plea bargained to Pass On Right, Not In Safety). My parents told me that I'd have to get my own car insurance from then on. I paid $3000/year until I was 22, and haven't had a single accident or ticket since that one, when I was 17.

It's not a female thing. Some of us are bad drivers. Some are good drivers. The same could be said for people of the XY variant... There's a few guys whose driving terrified me so much I'll *never* get in a car with them again. It's an individual thing, and IMO, it has more to do with the amount of responsibility you accept when you get behind the wheel of the car. Teach your daughter the consequences for her actions, and she'll not grow up to be one of those idiots who puts on makeup while driving on the freeway.

(when I think about it, I did get away with murder... my parents didn't make me pay for the repairs on the car, so their insurance took a hit... when my older brother got a speeding ticket --admittedly, it was for going 160km/h in a 60 zone--, they cut him off their insurance and made him pay the fine)

Why are you suggesting a Firefox addon for a complaint about MSIE 6.0 in an environment where you can be fired for using anything other than MSIE?

If I could use Firefox, I'd be using AdBlock Plus, which blocks flash ads, but doesn't block things like YT.

The free version advertises at you (but it's non-intrusive, just a small box on the far end of the toolbar, no popups, no annoying sound, no shaking the screen).

The trial version of the pay-for version may have bundled stuff, but I've never bothered to install it. :)

They assume that you want them by default, but will charge you for the privilege if you lose them and need to reorder them at a later date. (unless you talk nicely to tech. support, who usually forget to check that box in their call tracking software to bill the end user for the OS discs, but will hit it every time if they hate you)

You missed the part where he said:

Windows 7 magically appeared later

right? That means that at some later point, after he blew away Vista (note, blew it away, not upgraded), the system booted to Windows 7.

The outlet sells open box and returned systems, too. The way their system works, if a system is undeliverable or refused, and the client can't be contacted to arrange delivery, it also gets returned to the outlet for sale. Even though it's never been in the hands of an actual consumer, and you and I would both consider such a system "new", Dell can't actually sell it as a new built-to-order system legally.

Obligatory disclaimer: I used to work for Dell Canada, and it was my job to manage those distressed shipments, ideally getting them to the customer, but if not, getting them to the DFS Direct folks for resale.

Dell's business computers can be ordered plain vanilla or without the OS loaded, if you wish. I always recommend their business line, whether the person asking is a business or home user.

Dell's consumer offerings also come with 3 discs for reinstall... Operating System (which is a clean, unbranded Windows disc), Drivers, and Applications and Utilities. If you want a clean system, stop after disc 2.

Compare the performance of something like FoxIt PDF Reader ( http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/reader/ ) against Adobe Reader, and then tell me with a straight face that Adobe's version is better. And if you leave Windows-land and get to Linux, then there's options like evince which are also significantly better than Adobe's offering.

And honestly, the only reason that Flash is installed on my computer at all is for YouTube. If I had a choice in the matter, I wouldn't have that load of crap at all... more often than not, it's used for intrusive ads on websites, not anything of actual value. (gawd, I hate surfing at work, where I am in serious hock if I'm caught using anything other than MSIE 6.0... *shudder*)