The D700 is just a rebranded W9000. That card costs $3,300 retail. For each!

Apple then holds onto the original specs for years (the last Mac Pro being a perfect example), until they are forced to retool. I'll even go out on a limb and predict a five year interim before we see another significant revision.

The Mac Pro was updated every year from 2006-2010; it was only the 2010 version that was stuck in place, probably in part due to the development of this new machine.

Xeon chips are always one generation behind. Ivy Bridge for Xeon is brand-new; 'Broadwell Core' and 'Haswell Xeon' are scheduled for release around the same time (or perhaps a little later for Xeon, if memory serves).

They actually aren't compressed at all; they are stored on the CD as uncompressed 16-bit images. Perhaps what you notice is the dithering? Myst was the same way, but 8-bit. Computers of the day weren't fast enough to decompress images during game play with decent speed.

I have the original CD version, which still works on XP with a few tweaks. Have loved it since day 1. :) There is a project that is attempting to re-create the game in a real-time 3D engine: Starry Expanse. They have a small tech demo available.

Ah, a comrade in arms! :) No stitches required, thankfully, but my lower lip really hurt for two weeks afterwards.

Not really. It depends on the state you live in; in my state, there was an exam you had to take in order to graduate, but it was given in 10th grade instead of at the end - didn't make much sense, except maybe to allow those who didn't pass the first time to re-take it without graduating late. So overall, I'm not aware of the US having anything similar to the GED that students take while actually in school. So there isn't anything to pull from, in that sense.

Of course, your original question was: why privatize it? They probably did it because the college/university entrance exams have been privatized for a long time, and those seem to be okay, so why not? Sounds kind of lazy, but I don't have any better ideas :)

It's not the high school final exam, per se. It's an exam you can take *instead* of actually going to high school. Nobody does both.

I recall reading a few years ago that MS will release a patch that disables activation, once support ends.

The mono sound mix was finished last, and Lucas is on the record from that time saying it was the most complete. There is at least one fan DVD that contains this mix (where he got it from, I have no idea). Too bad it's..mono! :/

Not quite. They are taken from the same master tapes, but are not direct transfers of the LD video. The LD contained much more noise reduction (at the expense of detail). A few other sources were used for some things, too: the opening crawl and first shot of Episode IV (Tatooine and the ships flying in) are taken from a separate, higher-quality source; and the entire audio track of Episode V is taken from a different source (possibly a VHS master). It's not clear why the latter was changed, although, doing this did fix one audio glitch from the LD towards the end of the movie.

Of course, they are still 4:3 matted widescreen, with everything that entails. But they do look better than any other release of the unaltered trilogy, and in some cases, they actually look better than the SE (blue tint, anyone?).

I came from Norway, with 35 people per square mile, to Connecticut, with 739 people per square mile. Please explain that one to me again!

Well, most of Norway is desolate Arctic wasteland. The populated parts of Norway are more densely populated than the United States.
 

Yes, mass transit was better there. Given that this lowers demand without changing the supply, that should make the gas prices cheaper, not more expensive.

The mass transit is paid for from very high gasoline taxes, without which gasoline there would actually be pretty cheap.