If I didn't need that Windows boot to run Oracle and Sybase ASE, that box would have been reformatted and reinstalled with Debian or Ubuntu this afternoon.

FUCK Windows.

Recently I was having trouble with my Debian box, an old 3.8GHz single core creaker. So I shifted my emails, my personal data, and my development tasks over to run on my Windows 7 laptop.

That was two weeks ago to the *day*. Today I had to do a system restore because some drive by hit it (even with Adblock Plus running, as well as firewalls, anti-virus, and a hardware firewall.) My folk's Windows 8 system got hit twice, and the 8.1 upgrade has been hit once -- and they don't *do* surfing, other than a half dozen reputable websites, and their email and games. So they are *not* going to porn sites or anyplace else famous for infections.

Today I was so frosted over the drive-by forcing me to waste an hour recovering the machine that I took another stab at addressing the overheating CPU on my Linux creaker, and discovered I could unclip the fan from the CPU cooler so I could clean out the cooler fins *properly.* That box is over 10 years old now, and since I switched to Linux, it's been disabled exactly ONCE -- and that because Ubuntu's upgrade process couldn't deal with a running DB/2 UDB instance in the startup scripts and crapped out *horribly*, leaving the box corrupt (I've been on Debian since.)

Windows?

I don't give a rat's fat ass what version number MicroSquishy uses. Windows is CRAPWARE and there is no way on Earth I will EVER use a Windows box as a general surfing platform again. Running builds and compiles in a restricted environment? Playing music? Sure.

But let it loose on the Internet again? Never. Ever. EVER.

Note that the article and book discuss what educated theologians think, not what the followers think.

Philosophy and "what if" questioning are a big part of religious educations. The general public, not really.

So while the Pope and Dalai Llama might be willing to welcome ET with open arms, wingnuts like Westoboro Baptist are going to have apoplectic fits about "devils" and "demons."

Raise your hand if you honestly think that Mickey Mouse as a trademark will enter the public domain in 2023. ....

Me neither.

Yep, I know the conflict. I'm glad to have had that aspect of my education (dull as it was at the time), but I was already a compulsive reader, so they didn't discourage me. What happens with kids who aren't into reading in the first place?

My high school understood this -- the classes for remedial readers were so much fun that regular students sometimes took them too, and nearly all the kids came out of them with more desire to read, not less.

But even here, again, when you look at a typical OS X desktop system, now many people:

1. Have apache enabled AND exposed to the public internet (i.e., not behind a NAT router, firewall, etc)?

2. Even have apache or any other services enabled at all?

...both of which would be required for this exploit. The answer? Vanishingly small to be almost zero.

So, in the context of OS X, it's yet another theoretical exploit; "theoretical" in the sense that it effects essentially zero conventional OS X desktop users. Could there have been a worm or other attack vector which then exploited the bash vulnerability on OS X? Sure, I suppose. But there wasn't, and it's a moot point since a patch is now available within days of the disclosure.

And people running OS X as web servers exposed to the public internet, with the demise of the standalone Mac OS X Server products as of 10.6, is almost a thing of yesteryear itself.

Nothing has changed since that era: all OSes have always been vulnerable to attacks, both via local and remote by various means, and there have been any number of vulnerabilities that have only impacted UN*X systems, Linux and OS X included, and not Windows, over very many years. So yeah, nothing has changed, and OS X (and iOS) is still a very secure OS, by any definition or viewpoint of the definition of "secure", when viewed alongside Windows (and Android).

This is what you want. :P

Doh! I was thinking Erlang, where the result of the last statement in the code is the result returned to the caller. *LOL*

And if the details generated are:

int CreateGameThatIsSortOfLikeAngryBirdsAndMakeMeMillionsOfDollarsOvernight() { ... }

?

The ability to network is a skill I've spent a significant amount of time to become adept at.

Nice to see *informed* input!

I would argue that the problem is the flat rate pricing of $/KWH. A KWH produced at 1 AM has far less value than one produced at 7:00 PM. Why are we charging them the same? Much of the issue you mention would largely vanish if electricity prices were negotiated more frequently. EG: hourly or 15 minute increments. If there really is a surplus of power between 10:00-2:00, as you state, then the price during that time of day would be low to accommodate. This would create an incentive to input power when there's matching demand, and let the utility company profit off the difference.

Yes, it's a significant cost to upgrade the power grid and contracts to work this way, but when has it been bad to connect buyers to sellers in a way that reflects an accurate use of resources?

For example, I read a study a while back that pointing solar panels West of due South resulted in a much better match between electricity use and demand

I have. And my car was seized.

Why shouldn't yours be?

Oh yeah.

You're "special".

Fortunately bozos like this doofus only have jurisdiction over a couple of square miles of land, not the entire global internet.

Wanker.

As it was explained to me by the engineering dept. at SoCalEdison, the more power I use, the more it costs them, so they'd rather I used less, and if I used none at all that would be perfect.

Incidentally Sam's Club has started putting little wind generators on the lampposts in their parking lots. Manager at the one I frequented in SoCal told me this had already dropped their power bill by 5%, which is significant if you're in retail (even bulk-wholesale-priced retail).

Stop sitting on your phone, fatass! :P