True. That processor is, alas, a bit blind to syntax errors and prone to semantic errors... Apart from that, yes, you are totally right.

Edsger W. Dijkstra was stupid?

You can do computer science just with paper and pen. That is entirely feasible and totally common in any computer science curriculum at any halfway decent university. Oh, you thought that computer science = programming. Well, yeah, no... it isn't and technically you can program without a computer too. You just can't run your programs.

Why? It's a temporary promotion that expires 31th July. After that they're most likely going to ask money for it again. Their game, their rules.

The promotion also ends 31st July, from what I read. After that they'll charge money again, I must presume.

Look to play it, you must run Windows, to run Windows means that you almost certainly have malware already. To me that makes it a non issue. Want to game? Have a Windows partition for that specifically and consider it "nukable-from-orbit". Do important stuff on sane platforms. That's how I see it, and as such, SecuROM is no big deal, even with the rather overblown claims of it being malware. It might be, and if it is, it's still no big deal as you isolate it from important things. At least slashdotters should, and normal people have malware regardless.

Yes, I don't get this. They give a game away for free and instead of saying "Fun! Thank you EA" many people are complaining about the DRM. Yes, there is DRM, but you're running Windows to play it, so that really is the least of your problems. I grabbed it. I don't even have Windows in active use, but should I ever have tons of free spare time and want to play a game, I can now install it on a Games-Dedicated-Windows partition.

I say "Thank you EA".

Why would you think that? I use it here for internal web apps, I don't care about their youporn visits and I don't want that on my network. So, if they're at home, let them connect to the VPN, access the internal apps and do their work and wank on the side using their own Internet connection.

Yeah, as long as you ignore "NVidia Optimus". I have a AMD-A6 based desktop, it works fine with the occasional glitches, but the only thing that is truly stable and works for everything is called "Intel". There simply is no contest.

Have you checked out VueScan? Works with an amazing range of scanners.

Others, because it still works and they have no reason to waste money on a new machine. I know at least two such people. Me? I have WinXP Pro in a Xen DomU, just in case I need something windowsy. It's always on, and I connect to it using RDP over an SSH tunnel. Sure, I rarely use it, but it's there should I need it and it's a better solution than having a XP VM on each of my Linux machines.

At work I have a Win7 VM in VirtualBox, it is horribly, horribly slow. The XP VM on the same VirtualBox host, is snappy and quick.

XP might be dead, but it's makes a rather well preserved zombie.

You can have all the laws of physics explain how things move etc, but how will they ever explain this consciousness?

May I introduce you to the concept of "argument from ignorance". It might be well that it can be perfectly explained by natural laws, just you and me are not (yet) able to.

I can't even prove beyond all doubt that others experience this phenomenon and are conscious. And I can't prove my consciousness to others. I just have to take it by faith that these "imaginary friends" called "you" and "I" exist.

If you go the solipsism route, nothing is certain any more. Even those physical laws you say explain how things move (etc), become totally uncertain in a solipsistic worldview. After all, it could all be just your mind and nothing truly exists.

That's a fake video.

I suggested that. Cumbersome when working on big machines, apparently.