Senator Roark: Power don't come from a badge or a gun. Power comes from lying. Lying big, and gettin' the whole damn world to play along with you. Once you got everybody agreeing with what they know in their hearts ain't true, you've got 'em by the balls.

I can't wait for this to be on JUDGE JUDY.

Bullshit. If you are posting something both false and with the intent to financially harm another individual or company, you should be accountable for your actions.

For example:
"Lincoln is a Natzi and should be shot in the head"

Is an example of something that one could be held liable for (if lincoln were alive today)

Or if a newspaper were to publish a review like "Apples iPhone is a peice of junk with a 1 inch screen and battery life of 10 minutes and cannot make a call"
They would be in the same boat.

-Now if the original Yelp poster had said "I had a very unpleasant experience and will not use their services again", that would have been fine. Or if she filed charges of theft and the company was found guilty, then she could post what happened.

What I dont get is that the contractor I beleive can remove bad posts if they sign up for Yelp. Maybe they didn't know. Maybe that is not true anymore.

I have seen quite a few old-school 14.4 and 28.8 modems still in use at customers sites.
These are mainly used for the fax capability and are quite reliable over analog lines.

I still have my US Robotics HST V.Everything modem that was the crown of my home system when I was in High School.
Great memories. The BBS's were sooo much faster and easier than the 'internet' back then. File transfers over HTTP were dog slow compare to Z-Modem protocol.

I have had more troubles with new 4-port fax cards that with the old reliables. In any case, I still need to use my old-school AT commands to configure the fax-modems from time to time.

Faxing is a real dinosaur. I believe it goes back to the 1930's when the newspapers used it to transfer images.
We need, need, need some method of standard, secure file/image delivery. It really cannot be that hard.

Mail server 1: Hey are you who I think you are?
Mail Server 2: Here is my card.
Mail Server 1: OK, I want to send this package to you.
Mail Server 2: I am sending you a lockbox.
Mail Server 1: OK, I put my package in and sent it to you. I cannot open it though.
Mail Server 2: Got it. I opened it up and looked at it. Is it 10 inches long and black?
Mail Server 1: Thats it. I will tell my user the package was delivered.
Mail Server 2: Bye!

SMTP is another one of those things that is antiquated and needs update. But one of the problems with updating standards everyone uses is actually getting everyone to change. (see ip4)

isnt there any way of designing parallel or serial interface to a USB disk drive, or a USB memory stick?

(its been a long, long time since i've had my apple iie, so i dont even remember if it had what is considered a serial interface. But I do remember connecting a printer to it.)

Voting machines should work the same way slot machines do: By paying out exactly as the casino owners program them to!

Seriously, check out "Electorial Dysfunction" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3QGtIrLIpk
Toward the end there is a good description of the varied and archaic voting systems that are in use in different states.
BTW I fully agree on these points:
"A valid audit trail, such as a printed ballot the voter can verify; A mechanism for recounting the printed ballots on a machine made by another vendor so the results can be compared; and An audit of the software by an independent third party to insure that the software accurately records and tabulates the voter's true intent."

Mod up! -I especially like the part about Fox news

..If he had run as an independent. Changing his views on many subjects in order to please the right-wing extremists cost him many votes. I like the chap. I think he could have won and been a good and moderate president. But being under the weight of the republican party broke him.

Was his midi-chlorians level off the chart as well?

Thanks everyone for the heads-up.
I have an older HTC smartphone and I really like it. An HTC Hero now way outdated and underpowered. Its small when everyone was going big. It has been very reliable, it uses a pretty standard USB connector that ive never had any problems with.

Compare this to my wife's Samsung Moment, we have had to replace the power adapter 5 times because the little conenctor is just too thin to take the abuse of regular use.

I had been looking at buying another HTC but now I probably wont. It's too bad because I really like my phone and the new HTC's look good.

Wow that was fast. Some of you out there really are smart.
About half way down the wikkipedia article for e was exactly the function I was thinking of.
heres the graph:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Xth_root_of_x.svg&page=1

It is extremely difficult to use the legal system to force a domain squatter to give up the domain.
All the good to almost shitty .coms are taken.

Buy it from them or pick a different name. $2000 sounds reasonable for the .com.au

Six figures for a .com... well thats just silly when you can buy a TLD for $180,000
But they are probably hoping some large company will put out a technopurse and gladly pay the ransom for technopurse.com

" They're so used to living in a theocracy, that they presume that if a film is released in the United States, the United States Government must be behind it! How could it be otherwise?"

-It doesnt help that the news, even our local news, headlined it as a "US-made" video when actually it was just some random guy.