Well to me it would have been a loss of rental, because I don't buy all the movies I have watched.. I rent most of them. The only ones I have actually bought are Fight Club, Akira and a few for the kids.

Kids might watch their movies over and over again so they're worth their 25$. But once I have seen Titanic once, I don't feel like seeing it again. That's why we have shops from where we can rent movies. Or online VOD like Netflix.

So in many cases it could have been translated as "loss of rent" at 10% of the price/punishment.

42?

Here in Saint Hubert (south shore of Montreal) we felt it like if the subway was passing... But there's no subway in Saint Hubert!

Then I turned around and said "sorry" while tapping my belly.

Weren't the rovers already destroyed by transformers already? Mayyybe it's really transformers posing as rovers faking to be stuck in sand to study human behavior?

updatedb
locate [bleh]

It's easy, really.

Ever played Motocross Madness? The arena is surrounded with a high wall as you describe, and if you manage to get there, try going as far of the arena as you can. Man, the first time I tried that...

Damn you engineers, never ever ever connect servers together with networks! Now look at what you have done! Looks like we're going to have to let our prisoners fix it.

Dont forget to trademark MonsterPlugs that will cost 2500% the normal LaserPlug.

I would grab my towel.

A 1997 Compaq Armada 1530 without webcam/usb/nic/wifi/bt/whatever. 33.6kbps modem for connection to the outside world unless you add up a pcmcia device.

Oh, and it has cd-rom and floppy, battery lasts a few seconds and has mmx technology.

I'll make you a good price.

http://img85.exs.cx/img85/8145/armada1530d8qv.jpg

I support this answer. It would be a real shame to drill through your webcamed device to have it rejected again because of stupid security measures, and being told a few weeks later that their IT security tech could have done it the approved way for you (even for free?).

It's like spending an afternoon making sushi for a friend that finally says "I'm allergic to fish". You could have known it before ;)

One of my friends told me something similar to this. Imagine: Joe Noob downloads something that's probably pretty expensive, but also pretty used worldwide because of proprietary formats like, say, Microsoft Office. Yes, a few hundred bucks can mean the difference between making your grocery this week or not when you're on a tight budget*. But let's get back to pirating. Joe Noob installed that pirated copy of Office, installed it on his parent's computer, his wife's, his family inlaw's, gave a copy to his friends and, who knows, mayve even Rover uses the pirated disc Joe gave him. Then Joe familiarised himself with the sofware, knows how to use the basics of it and stuff. Then he gets lucky and gets employed as an IT tech for some 200-ish employees company. Then the pointy haired boss asks Joe Noob^H^H^H^HAdmin what kind of software suite the company should buy to be able to write nice letters to its customers, and make nice presentations in meetings, and show nice graphs to big shot VPs. Oh, the company staff will need training, so they will also need to buy lots of books for that software, so Joe Admin goes on Amazon and picks a few titles from the 15000 choices available, at an average price of 30$ piece. Oh, don't forget some employees will also need specialized training from some specialized college.

So, in this scenario, how much money did Microsoft lose on Joe Noob? A few grands for about a handful of copies, maybe. But then, Joe Noob^H^H^H^HAdmin got his company to buy a few HUNDREDS of copies of the same sofware, including Books and training. Now how much is THAT? Let's see...
Joe Noob pirated a software that costs around 100$ for a home & student license about 15 times and found out how to use the software with the included help and online tutorials. Let's say Microsoft lost about 1500$ for sanity reasons.
Then, Joe Admin suggested his boss to buy a volume license of Office for a few hundred buck per workstation (can't find a quote for 200 licenses of Office online), that his company bought for.....what? 20k$? And I'm not even calculating the books and training anymore.

Now let's see... 20000$ - 1500$ = 18500$ of profits, thanks to Joe Noob who downloaded his version of Office and made it popular to his friends/family. In this scenario, Microsoft got the best publicity through Joe Noob, and made its way through Joe Admin's company to have 200 licences bought. I don't think Microsoft (or any other sofware company fitting in this model) lost any money. Losing money, in my opinion of a software business point of view, would be that Joe Noob would have legally downloaded, distributed and installed OpenOffice on each of his relative's computer, and suggested that his company also uses that software in order to save about 20 grands in licensing costs, and maybe spend a little on software support because Joe Admin can't always have the solution to every user's question. Now that would be a loss for Microsoft.

NB: For those that read too fast, please note that I already mentionned that I didn't find any online quote for about 200 licences of Office.

* For you guys who say that anyone can put a few bucks aside each week to buy that expensive software, think about this: You're on a tight budget, you have some money aside for some project, and then something primordial to your life breaks (say, your house's roof leaks, or worse, a water pipe broke) and you need the money NOW. Now what the FUCK are you going to do?? HONESTLY?! Keep that pile of money on the side and keep it away for your software you're going to buy in a few months, or use it for that emergency? If you're the kind of person leaving your roof leak to pile up some cash for a "secondary" project, you are a sick person and you really, really need to see a doctor. Obviously, if you live in your parent's basement to pile up for software, then let your parents pay for the house's repairs, since it's not your house and you don't have a life (btw, that bright thing you might see through the window is called the "Sun", and it might do you some good to go out and see it).

So, if I understand correctly, Vista is like a bear: it hibernates, but can wake up at any moment to bring destruction and havoc all over the place, then go back to sleep?

Now THAT's scary.

IIRC, there is a Pear package that works very well with most databases, you only need to specify a variable for wich one you're using...

Kind of like (maybe some errors, havent done php for a while):
$sql_type = mysql;
.database_command_bleh(database,$sql_type);

I remember I had to look for it because I needed the flexibility to change from mysql to mssql or postgresql.

Make the users use a form. A very long one. Something like Bugzilla, and lots of questions that need to be filled in. Make the users use it. Every. One. Of. Them. For. Every. Question. They. Ask.

1- It will discourage them and they will fill it only when they can't find an answer elsewhere.
2- You will be able to fill up "statistics" of the most common problems and have them fixed by the ratio of complaints.

Well, at least that's how it seems to work where I work.