What a fantastic way to ensure a free press: have them paid by the very institution they're supposed to be the watchdogs for. I'm sure they won't forget how to be objective and unbiased though... /sarcasm

You must live in California.

This entire firestorm is a smokescreen for the real issue: in a democratically elected representative republic, our representatives create laws that are either voted into existance, or dissapear. I'm a conservative, and a resident of WA. I believe that the public petition should be public, as all it does is bring the initiative to the voter. It's conceivable that somebody signed the petition that doesn't agree with R71, just to have it brought before the voter and be dismissed. The entire gay marriage argument is moot, as this ref. has nothing to do with gay marriage, but civil unions. If the gay community wants the laws and traditions of our state to change, they need to change enough minds to make it happen on the ballot, or move to where it's already legal/in place. My beliefs as well as those who disagree with me are irrelevant in our country and state, as beliefs aren't law. You want it changed, change it the legal way. I'm not a bigot, I moved here to raise my children in a way that I want, around people that think like I do, because it's a free country and I sill have the right to do that. I chose this area for a reason, and there are plenty of places in this nation that are not like this place. I didn't stay in a highly liberal area and try to change their minds. I guess my point is that if you don't like the way things are where you are, try to change them the legal way or move. Why is it impossible to believe that there are always going to be different types of people in the country who can't agree on everything? Is it really wrong to live around those who believe likewise by choice, instead of trying to strong-arm those around you into adopting your way of life? Even as a conservative, I make no judgement calls on how others wish to live their lives, I simply choose to live mine differently, and away from those who I disagree with.

Man, I must be really lucky: I'm the in house IT for a small company and the owner/president is very adamant that he wants everything to be licensed and compliant. I'm starting to think that I work for the only legal and legit small business left... They'll have to pry me from my job here with a crowbar.. :) It's nice sleeping well at night.

My laptop users at work got hit with this pretty hard, Symantec endpoint 12.5 didn't even wimper when they installed it. The users were particularly upset as they thought they were actually being responsible by making sure they had "all the security software updated." *slaps head* My desktop users were fine, as they don't have admin rights.. This is one huge PITA to remove, I gave up and just re-imaged for 'em.

For what it's worth, I'm using a Netgear readynas+ here at work with 4 500GB drives in it (RAID5). I get usable throughput, but it's no PC. Reads are about 20-25MB/s on GigE without jumbo frames, writes are at around 12-15MB/s. One thing I really like about the box is the ability to SSH to it and manipulate files locally, I use it for holding security camera storage, and being able to mv 1000's of small files around is nice. Cost is high for what it is though, if I remember correctly, it's about $900 for the device with 2 drives in it. User interface is decent.