He has a 1984 DeLorean with the Mr Fusion rigged to power a miniature Liquid Nitrogen plant. Downside is the car can only do 87 MPH.

Speed assumes distance divided by time. There is no time in this case. Look at the May issue of Scientific American. Physicists are starting to wonder if Time really exists in relation to certain states of matter. If time is removed as a variable, the Unified Theory may actually be possible with all this 10 dimensional stings stuff.

As I understand quantum entanglement the state of the two electrons (photons) is instantly replicated to the other when a change occurs in one no matter the distance apart. However for this to happen the same "rest state" has to be present. You couldn't have Patten X in one and Patten Y in the other, and expect changes in X to be cause Y to be replaced with X..

Those Amdahl & Hitachi machines are still around in some places, but yes you can't buy new ones. But the statement that there is "no competition for mainframe workloads" is totally bogus. I can tell you that there is an excellent business in porting legacy code to distributed environments (linux/unix with X86 processors) for large legacy applications and even keeping the application in COBOL or moving them to .NET or Java. (http://www.tsri.com) As I said before the competition for the mainframe isn't really another mainframe. I used to work for IBM and our AIX group regularly positioned high end p-series boxes against mainframes and won. REALLY hacked of the z-series guys.. The term "monopoly" means there is NO competition even from surrogate goods. The anti-trust idea is a bust. If they couldn't outright win anti-trust against MS then no way you get IBM.

LOL.wow..what misdirection, Obama and you must have gone to the same school I've been here at Slashdot close to 10 yrs. I am NOT a current day attention seeking paid shill like you. I say it like it is. I have a top notch rating. It's YOU who are ignoring the facts. I guess the $$$ have blinded your eyes. You NEVER addressed my issues nor that of others. If you can't take the heat get out of the kitchen. Everyone has to make a living but I suspect if the devil himself came asking for your help with the right $$$ he would get it. Shoo, scram, go away, get lost, and DON'T COME BACK.

Guess you have never heard of Amdahl, Hitachi and several other systems that can run IBM Mainframe OSes. They have a small market share but 90% of a market is not a monopoly. Mainframe is NOT all about z/OS, CICS, etc. its about doing a LOT of work. With virtualization and 8-core CPUs mid-sized Linux/Unix servers are competing with the processing power of a mainframe. Your argument is baseless. Yes, memory for mainframes is expensive but it's NOT the same thing you put in your PC..not even close. Ever tried to buy memory for an HP Superdome? That can set you back $2M a GB. You are not only a paid shill, you are an idiot one at that.

OMG, this has not one bleeping thing to do with anti-trust. Where the Sam Hill did you come up with that idea? Present a case with some reasonable legal arguments not made up from thin air and people might respond more positively. The judge, the appeals court, Apple, IBM and many others would have a significantly different opinion about PyStar. The case is 99% the same. Your paid shilling isn't any more welcome here than it was at Groklaw. If I'm not mistaken, PJ banned you over there. I've never seen a ban here but you might be the precedent!

Wrong. The courts in the USA have held in the Apple vs Pystar case that tying an OS to specific proprietary hardware is a perfectly legit business strategy as it creates a barrier to entry. Even if the EU goes the other way which I doubt IBM will win in the long run as it's about copyrights not about patents. In the lefter BM was foreshadowingg a 2nd line of defense that they could choose to take up if needed, they did NOT asserting it in any way. The letter was a warning shot. As we have seen in the SCO case, IBM WILL defend itself against baseless allegations affecting or potentially affecting it's business. IBM has the law and recent legal precedent on it's side, is diligent about keeping a case going and doesn't seem to mind waiting a few years for the courts to rule on a case. Hercules and NEON will likely be history in a few years so IBM can wait. Hercules (and NEON) were/are hoping to force some sort of compromise involving a low cost licensing agreement but it isn't going to happen. IBM isn't a firm that would license technology to someone who would use it to compete against one of it's most profitable business segments. The fact NEON has some cash doesn't faze IBM as the probably piss away that much money every year on trivial items.

Umm..NO..the Gov't Agencies will still "manage" the contractor(s) into doing stupid things in order to save a few bucks or save political face for someone. And don't forget the CongressCritters who don't want DC's in their districts closed. Think the BRAC (DoD) process on a much larger scale of agencies and locations. Total freaking chaos. Looks great on paper, works pretty well in the private sector, but it will be a massive fustercluck in the Gov't.

Well the reason they won't pay real $$$ is they bid it so low to win the work and MUST staff it with H1Bs. In the end the epitath of the failed project will be "Yea, but we did it CHEAP". I've worked for NGIT on a Gov't project and as the PM (Contract..they offered me perm for 30% of my rate) saw the rates we were offering to firms to bring us GOOD Java people and they were talking $25/hr and this was during the good times in IT!!! I get 5-10 emails a week from people with Indian last names asking me to sell them my 25+ yrs of expertise for $45-55 per hour plus pay my own expenses. I don't see how H1Bs do it. Rent is the same for everyone, food is the same price and transportaton is needed. So how do you live on those kind of wages in a place like DC or Beltway or NYC or LA?? Until the Gov't gets rid of lowest bid wins and actually looks at expertise, value and past success as predictors of future sucess versus dollar cost we are going to be stuck in this rut. Unfortunately while it does cost LESS to do it the RIGHT way in the LONG term, no one looks past next year's budget number. And if the buttload of debt and other issues the US has right now those budget numbers are going to be skinny so expect the trend to continue and maybe even get worse thus the savings that were planned will not be realized and we are right back in the same overpriced and underdelivered IT.

I can't imagine lawyers in India that are in-depth knowledgeable about the US Legal System and what is required to file and what arguments to make, not to mention admitted to the bar in the USA Taking depositions and actually going to court would be difficult from India! Maybe those guys type the standard form letters MS sends out alleging patent and copyright violations. Actually their web site says they do all the legwork paralegals normally do like case law and other research, etc for IP law cases. So they aren't lawyers but lawyers helpers.

Mr Smith is acting like an asshole. That sort of language isn't going to win him any sympathy from SWA even if they WERE wrong.

Yep, I fly a lot too, SWA's response is very nice and very reasonable. It's a LOT more than other airlines, say American, would do. In this case the customer IS wrong and SWA points that out in a nice way.