Assembly teaches basic important concepts that apply to all (current) computers. The instructions may be specific to an architecture, but not the ideas.

I use a closed source solution on all systems I use - it's called "not being a dumbass". As soon as I can find a way to install it on other human brains, I'm going to make a fortune.

History only shows that you apparently don't remember the times it does work. I can remember a large number of free, ad-supported software packages, and a number of extremely cheap newsprint examples.

One guy says "I'd like to buy a $10 product at half price, with the other half subsidised by ads", and you reply with "Publishers make a profit at the current prices, this is just greed at work". Good God, people, this is what you mod up as 'insight'?

This idea has the potential to reduce the price we pay for books, possibly even to zero in some circumstances. There's no reason it has to be applied to all books, and no reason not to believe the ad-free version would be available at the typical price. It also has the potential to be abused for greed. It might be best to consider all options before condemning the idea out of hand.

+1, duplicate anecdotal experience.

Maybe I am just lucky, having not really tried NetBeans before v6.5...

You expected something, but you got something else. Sounds like you just described A Feast for Crows...

I don't agree that it "made no difference" in book 10. The story has gotten so sprawly that a book covering the missing characters was basically due next. I can understand that that upsets some people, but I don't feel that way myself. I liked the idea that the very act itself had a huge impact throughout the world, even before the consequences could be dealt with.

book 10 made virtually no mention of the "very big thing"

Say what? It was mentioned almost every chapter.

Book 10 is basically parallel to book 9 time-wise. Anywhere there were Aes Sedai, they would all suddenly stop what they were doing and stare off into the distance as they felt the huge use of saidar.

Yes, Star Trek V is definitive proof that there is no God :(

but when said AC is calling somebody a 'tard

Cease your vile slander! The poor soul was just signing his request for information.

Please don't ever tell me about your childhood.

we also have SNSB

Which, if I recall correctly from my childhood, stands for SWEDEY NATIONY SPACE BORK BORK BORK.

If we had to unlock doors to look out the window, to make a new style of breakfast, to move from the living room to the bedroom, then FUCK YES locks would not work for humans.

I don't know about emacs, and definitely not the original vi, but the help in vim is excellent. It even tells you how to get to that help if you run vim without specifying a file to edit, and has a step-by-step tutorial to make sense of the madness.

Fuck, my killer feature, MISSING!

What version of OS X was this? I have a similar machine (slightly more RAM), and it seems to me 10.4 would rather stay in bed. I would happily put an older version on there, but I don't know which one would run well on this machine (and I don't currently have any versions to test with).