Yes. The codec in Windows 7 (ultimate) and its integration with Media Player produces smoother playback with less system load than VLC. The difference grows (up to a point) when other activity competes for resources while playing DVD or Blu-ray video.

You may not realize that, and it may not even occur for your particular collection of hardware. I didn't pick up on it for a long time, but at some point I noticed the difference and since then I've used Media Player. And I'm not some crazy 'phile that obsesses over imaginary minutia; I spend less than average on media gear and I'm not particularly sensitive to minor phenomena. But I can tell the difference between VLC and Media Player, and I can measure the difference in system load.

So yeah, it kinda sucks that the DVD codec Microsoft provides is going away. Will I care enough to not just use VLC? We'll see. I also use VLC frequently; it's better when coping with with random media and does a lot of tricks WMP won't. I have no problem with VLC at all. But if I can get better results with something else then I just might do that instead.

That is not the point of government. Businesses will not now my lawn free of charge and government shouldn't either.

What the op was talking about is bridge to nowhere projects and the magical more funding to make whatever isn't working all the sudden work.

I have a lift in the three-car garage. I didn't see a reason to put one into the two-car garage. Generally one lift is enough.

This is true, but if the faucet itself corrodes (really hard water around here) then it's no good to replace cartridges.

We went with a double-swing faucet from T&S in our kitchen; I have a three-basin sink and the regular faucets don't reach well into the left and right basins unless they stick so far out that they don't work in the small middle one, so this solution, while more expensive than a consumer-grade faucet, works well. Even better, they sell knobs and pulls so if we ever get arthritis we can change them out and have big wings to grab on to.

Sometimes you have no choice if you have to drill through joists and can't drill through the outside of a building to install inflexible stuff. That said, ENT (nonmetallic, the blue corrugated stuff) works well and at least in my area is within code for up to 600V applications. My ceiling in my workshop is 28' 2x12 beams with a flat roof on top, so if I don't want to hang my tubing/piping below the joists this is the kind of thing I have to use.

DO NOT USE YELLOW 77 LUBRICANT! It becomes glue after a few years. PAIN IN THE ASS.

Leave pullstrings in the conduit so that pulling new cable through later is easier.

It isn't even mentioned in the summary until the end, but "over-criminalization" has been worrying me, too. Another example, and an even better one, is the increasing criminalization of predicate behaviors, like alcoholism, that MIGHT lead to criminal behavior but are not of themselves criminal. There are many such predicate behaviors that are now criminalized, and the number increases. Making these predicate behaviors illegal allows gung-ho police and prosecutors and lawyers to indict and convict many more people than they could otherwise. It once again trades liberty for "safety".

I was replying to this: There is nothing illegal about paying blackmailers

Then he should have told the FBI the truth when they asked what the money was for. Or simply said, "I choose not to give a statement." Lying to the Feds is beyond fucking stupid. That's their "gotcha" card and it baffles me that so many seemingly intelligent people fall into such an easily avoidable trap.

There's a right to remain silent. I suggest using it....

I'm going to guess that he didn't file a gift tax return with the IRS for the millions he gave to person X. In which case he's up for tax evasion.

There's a certain degree of paranoia involved here as well. But this law isn't even the most onerous in the U.S. The worst one is the police confiscation laws that were originally intended to be anti-trafficking tools but now tend to be abused rather badly.

http://www.npr.org/sections/th...

-Matt

It's from what I remember from when the last one resigned: That was such an unusual event that they had to find a new title for him. He is now "Papa emeritus", Which boild down to "a retired pope is still a pope".

Please read what you're replying to. The crime is NOT "doing things with his own property that are not illegal". The crime is lying to the police.

Did you read what I wrote? The fact that he tried to hide what he did with his money is not a crime. Your pointing this out means nothing as I made the exact same comment. But it is a simple fact that making suspicious financial transactions triggers investigations, as they should. The police can and should investigate when it looks like people are trying to launder money. And then he made false statements to the police during the investigation, which is a crime. You never have the right to lie to the police, even if you feel you've done nothing wrong.

It's his bed that he's made and he has to lie in it.

The stupid thing is all he had to do was plead the fifth. Which any lawyer would have advised him to do. But he was so concerned with trying to sweep this thing under the rug that he didn't want to do anything that might make it look like he had something to hide and decided that lying to the police was the best option.

And there you go. The "outrage" is only from developers that really suck at what they do and are hoping they can continue half assing everything.