The US isn't worried about maximizing the return on the SOR. The whole point of the Strategic Oil Reserve is that there are some very critical components of our country that completely dependent on oil right now to work. The SOR is the US' contingency plan for when oil does run out. Access to the public will be cut off far, far quicker then anyone realizes. The bulk of the reserve will be used for running planes, tanks, and anything else considered to be "vital to the interests of the United States."

The general population, IE you and me, are NOT very high on that list for some strange reason.. A government "by the people, for the people" vanished long ago.

The reason Apple killed the clones is that the clones were killing Apple. Apple spent millions of dollars in R&D, and the clone makers were licensing the software from Apple for pennies on the dollar spent in R&D. Apple was going under, slowly but surly.

It wasn't until they went back to designing the software to sell only their hardware that they became viable again. This is precisely the reason they are going after Psystar. Apple doesn't make beans from selling software licenses. The *only* reason they have been developing OS X is to help sell hardware. THEIR hardware. They recoup the software development costs by selling the hardware. The margins on the hardware are far, far better then they are on software, and Apple knows this. From experience.

People wonder why they are going after Psystar tooth and nail? It's simple. They have to. Apple has no desire whatsoever of going back to the days where they spend millions of dollars developing the software to have some no-name, piece of shit company like Psystar steal their development time and slap it on a $300 PC Beige box and pay apple $5 in licensing fees, and then field the support calls from people who are mad that OS X also crashes when you run it on the same piece of shit hardware that makes windows crash all of the time.

Get it now?

I'm not saying an XML file is the same as an application.

What I am saying, and let me be very clear on this, is that Palm needs to write their own software to sync their media player, and not be too lazy or incompetent to write their own software. Let me say it again, because apparently I haven't made my point clear:

PALM IS EITHER TOO LAZY OR INCOMPETENT TO WRITE THEIR OWN (COMPLETELY ITUNES COMPATIBLE) SOFTWARE TO SYNC THEIR OWN DAMN MEDIA PLAYER LIKE EVERY OTHER COMPANY OUT THERE.

Apple was not required to write their own XML file that gets updated right along with their binary file database. They could have said screw you to their competitors, and actually locked people into iTunes using a binary file that no one else could read without reverse engineering Apple's software. Instead, they made an easy way for someone to pull all of the information out of iTunes, and sync it to their own device instead of using iTunes.

Instead of Palm doing the right thing, and not being a bunch of slimy, incompetent, lazy fucks, they instead are stealing Apple's code, and using it to pretend they are an iPod, violating the USB specs that Palm already agreed to obey.

Instead of writing their own syncing software (and gee, let me digress for a moment. Palm has a history of writing really, really, really crappy syncing software. Its no wonder they want to use iTunes), they need to piggy back on someone elses work, because they are either too incompetent or too lazy to write their own software. Every other media player out there was capable of doing it. Every other media player allows people to sync their iTunes content directly to their player.

Why isn't palm? Right. Because they can't be bothered too. Because they are idiots. Because they are incompetent. Because putting that much development and Q&A work into an application takes money they can't afford to spend right now. Because they are getting trounced by Apple who finally made an easy to use application that works for most people, and can't afford to compete with Apple on a level playing field.

So, instead of putting their own resources into Q&A and testing and support, they need to pull this kind of bullshit, and when it stops working, they blame Apple, because Apple "broke" syncing with something that was never designed to support palm's piece of junk hardware to begin with.

Kidding? You're the one that's got to be kidding.

Reading the XML file doesn't support playlists? Really?

There sure is lots of information under the following headings in my XML file for some reason (brackets have been altered to get past the HTML tag filter):

        (key)Playlists(/key)
        (array)
                (dict)
                        (key)Name(/key)(string)Library(/string)
                        (key)Master(/key)(true/)
                        (key)Playlist ID(/key)(integer)8378(/integer)
                        (key)Playlist Persistent ID(/key)(string)F71331C9D57061AB(/string)
                        (key)Visible(/key)(false/)
                        (key)All Items(/key)(true/)
                        (key)Playlist Items(/key) ...

Please be quiet if you don't know what you are talking about. There really is no excuse for palm being too lazy or incompetent to develop their own syncing software.

For starters, how about we repeal that idiotic, asinine "No child left behind" act, that does absolutely nothing of the sort. The only reason this passed is because of the name. Everyone thought, "Oh, that sounds like a good idea!".

Know what this thing really did? It penalizes those schools with the lowest test scores. If your students can't make the grades, it means you lose some of your funding.

My ex girlfriend teaches at a school that serves the lowest income demographic in my area. She had recently graduated from college and this was the only teaching job she could get anything remotely in the local area, and she still had to beat lots of other applicants. Kids come into the school not knowing how to read basic words or do any arithmetic from families with parents that are spending more time selling drugs in the evenings then they are with their kids. The school, surprisingly enough, was already one of the lowest funded schools in the area, and had some of the lowest scores in the area before it passed.

When "No child left behind" passed, know what it did? It cut the schools funding even further, when they already didn't have enough money for books and other things. The school is so overcrowded that several classrooms are actually "temporary" buildings that have been present for years. The principal started yelling more at teachers about bringing test scores up and having less money to do it with, upsetting the faculty. They didn't have enough money for school supplies. My ex started having to buy (some) of her own paper to use for class projects and other things because funding was so short. Some of the few decent teachers the school had left decided on early retirement or other career changes because they became so fed up with it.

The net result, of course, is that the students scores have not improved, they are losing good faculty left and right because everyone is tired of the crap, and their funding isn't getting any better because neither are the scores. Nice, big, circular cluster-****. Last I had heard, morale was at an all time low and things aren't getting any better.

"No child left behind". Right. As one semi-famous teacher would put it, "Crack is bad, mmmmm'k?"

But what would be the point of that? More work doesn't always equal better learning, and can get negative aswell. It's off from your personal, off-the-school learning and if school had given me too much hassle, I would had just taken it off from homeworks done (or skipped school).

Another thing is that the days would be put into summer. I remember it was getting difficult to have the learning mentality even in may already, when it was getting all nice outside and lots of things in school we're getting to the holiday mood. Granted, it would probably shift a bit later, but the summer mentality is there already. It's no surprising that the huge holiday is on summer instead of winter.

The Canon lens-to-camera communication protocol has been reverse-engineered for a while. Manufacturers like Sigma and Tamron are making (very good) lenses compatible with Canon (and everyone else's) bodies.

Because an open source phone would most likely have open source, easily upgradable circuits so you could add the devices yourself and KNOW they will work. You could even make your OWN devices and hook them up to it, then write your own driver and have them configurable just like everything else built into the camera.

Dear Activision,

I just found out you are one of the companies that are using massive's massively annoying advertising technology to deliver ads in game. This is unacceptable, I'm not going to pay $100 for a game where I am going to constantly have advertisements thrown at me.

I've just cancelled my guitar hero 5 pre order (which was going to ship out tomorrow). Glad I found out about this now. Just how many in game ads does it take to equal that $100? I don't know myself, but i bet you do. And its probably not a trivial number.

Here's a news flash. WE DO NOT WANT THIS CRAP, AND WE ESPECIALLY DONT WANT TO PAY FOR IT.

Dear Blizzard,

Between the DRM, the fact that I will need to buy this game *3* times to fully enjoy it, and, oh yes, you're getting rid of one of the things that made Starcraft so much fun (LAN Play), there's no way in hell I'm going to support this game as it has been announced. Take the extra time, get your act in order, and convert all of these pissed off customers into paying customers and change these things that are infuriating so many people.

Thanks,

A potential customer (one of many).

Depending on how poorly designed the ATM is, it may not know it is out of cash until some poor slob tries to withdraw $40 and it realizes it only had $20 left. It technically wasn't out of cash before (the last transaction 20 minutes ago for $40 may have gone through fine), but now it is out and knows it, and so now the warning is displayed.

Simple answer: Don't.

When a company does nothing but to give lies, damn lies, and then more lies when they are queried on this kind of thing, stop trusting anything that they say. Comcast is about as transparent as a brick. I think most Slashdot users know better then to take in the swine that Comcast regularly spews out of their corporate mouths in the name of customer retention. I'm sorry, but some random person making a new Slashdot account and posting an "official" response doesn't do it for me.

Their LAWYERS went to CONGRESS and LIED. They went to their entire customer base AND LIED. And then changed their policies with nothing more then a "Who, us?" reaction. "Reasonable network management" MY ASS. Don't trust anything these idiots say.

With that being said, seeing how no one has been able to reproduce so far, I think they are in the clear.

This time.