"The government signed the contract saying that they'll pay. They can't renege on the deal just because they decided they didn't "

Of course they can't renege on the deal just because they decided they didn't.

On the other hand, they can renege on the deal because they added a clausule that regulated such a possibility as it's done on any contract of the kind.

"DdJ was probably talking about the side of the mail server that stores received mail and presents it to the MUA"

Of course he did mean that... without being aware that IMAP doesn't need to be related at all with a mail servers!

IMAP can be offered by a completly different server (or group of servers) than the mail managing ones (i.e. by means of shared/NAS storage). IMAP (as it does POP) just interfaces with user agents on hosts unable to manage their own mail.

I just found funny that somebody that so categorically talks about how a service needs to be offered missed the service that he was talking about.

That being said, his argument is certainly right.

Yeah, sure you want your mail server talk IMAP. SMTP on mail servers is so nineties!

Well, exactly my thoughts.

The most "divine" thing up to now.

Do you really believe this shit or are you just (badly) playing devil's advocate?

"He spreads out the northern [skies] over empty space; he suspends the earth over nothing.""

What about the southern skies? Did you read my explanation about why somebody talking about the Earth back then should say it's either suspended over nothing (or a infinite column of elephants, which is basically the same)? Why is it suspended? Earth is not suspended, not even over nothing, or, if suspended, it is suspended on the Sun.

"He wraps up the waters in his clouds, yet the clouds do not burst under their weight""

Which is an obviety, even 2500 years ago. Haven't you ever been within a low enough cloud you call it mist? Isn't it obviously suspended waters that somehow do not burst under their weight? It would have been better if an explanation on WHY they do no burst under their weight had been added.

"He draws up the drops of water, which distill as rain to the streams; the clouds pour down their moisture and abundant showers fall on mankind"

What appears to be a very basic description of the hydrologic cycle."

What appears to be a very basic description of the hydrologic cycle *as already known back then* and lacks a critical aspect, that of being a cycle: "...and the water of the seas get transformed back into moisture which forms the clouds". What a pity, his divine description lack the only non-obvious step worth mentioning.

"Have you entered into the springs of the sea or walked in the recesses (valleys) of the deep?""

Sorry? This imperatively means "the seas have no sources (false), I can think of a valley so deep I can't think of its depth (unworthy)".

"Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion? Canst thou bring forth Mazzaroth in his season? or canst thou guide Arcturus with his sons?"

Which only means: "can you influence what you already know about the skies and alter their course?" Quite poetic but irrelevant since the answer is "of course not". Much more impressive would have been "but of course not, UNLESS you preach the proper pray: just say 'there's no god but the real God that happens to be Yawhe', and then the immutable bands of Orion will get loose on the spot". This, alas, isn't included within the text.

"there should be a decaying factor to that as more and more of this comes up"

Yes, like "given a vague enough assertion and a stupid enough mind, you'll be able to make a doughnut look like Saturn's rings". Is that your point?

"Job says a great many number of astrological things that turn out to be true."

Like?

I mean. Which are the astrological things that turn out to be true *that happened not to be already known by the time he wrote about them*?

"He (whoever wrote it), basically said the world is a circle on the surface of nothing,"

So he said, the world is exactly as we see it (have you been in the middle of a flat terrain? all you see is a circle of land around you), and since it's plane, what happens to be below it? ahem... a void, let's say? not quite surprising -and wrong: the world it's not a circle but a (kindof) sphere.

"What I mean is, in terms of the supernatural, or "that which is beyond our reality", if the "Very True Religion" were verifiable by Science, then it wouldn't be the Very True Religion by default."

I didn't try to go so far. I was just talking about a "God of the Anti-Gaps", so to say.

I mean, Catholic Church, for instance, is very keen to play the god-of-the-gaps game: Earth is flat and sitting in the center of the Universe, till it's no more, there's no evolution, till there is, etc. so, in the end, all that keeps are sacred misteries. I'd find better a religion that started being all sacred misteries but, alas, one by one get demonstrated true.

So, for instance, I'd want to hear from the XV century that the monks wrote down instead of "god is one and three at the same time" that "it is the h-bar miracle that you won't be able to say where an object is and its speed too, at the same time". Just as misteric but, wow, what a difference!

No, not complaining but regretting it.Which is something he not only very much can do, but it's even expected: why the heck would somebody push an idea if didn't mind one way or the other?

"Except that they aren't. Religion says "This is how you should behave". Science says "This is how things work and why.""

Except that's not what religion says. It not only say "that's how you should behave" but it also says "that's what you should take for certain" and there you have the conflict with science... unless, of course, we are talking about the Very True Religion because, in that case, whatever verifiable assertion it produces, happens also to be scientifically verifiable in the same sense.

"Why do people on this site believe that everyone who is interested in tech is a programmer?"

A Bash one-liner or even a 100-line script doesn't make you a programmer.

On the other hand, if asked "how I do move this car from here to a town 100 miles away" the answer is "the most cheap and efficient way is for you to drive it there" and whinning "why do people on this site believe that I should learn to drive" is just that: whinning.

Oh, and learning to drive will help you a lot of times, not, only on this task, as well as learning scripting basics will help you a lot of times, not only on this task.

You don't want to cope with the proper solution? Your problem, not mine.

"Even if you went with Linux... it's not like Linux kernels are necessarily supported indefinitely for free either."

But of course not. That's not the point.

The point is that they are now going to pay for support AT A PREMIUM RATE because, being closed source, there is A SINGLE PROVIDER, which has decided to take advantage of its monopoly position to abuse their customers.

"The goal of this extension is simply to wait until existing machines reach their scheduled replacement dates."

So the OS life is not paired to the hardware life? Is it that the OS vendor is breaking their contract or is it that the bank didn't proceed with their due dilligence to be sure about that from the begining? Tell me again how that's not lazyness.

"'license-based' has nothing to do with it."

License-based has all to do with it. Were there contract a support one, instead of a license one (well, their case is even worse: a license one plus a support one) they wouldn't have this decoupling problem: the vendor wouldn't be able to change one contract's conditions based on the other contract.

"closed-source also has nothing to do with it."

It has, again, all to do with it. Being closed-source means there's no alternatives for the support. Isn't there something about the abuse potential that comes with a monopoly position in Economics 101?

"It it were open source, they'd need to hire staff to do the maintenance."

No. It means they would be able to go to an open market to get a best priced support.

"The cost of the support agreements, would still be less than the replacement of several thousand ATMs and internal systems."

It won't. Is this extended support going to avoid XP from being replaced? I bet not. Therefore paying for the extended support *plus* replacing is certainly going to cost more than just replacing.

"There is a reason why people do this, and it's not just lazyniess.."

It *is* lazyness.

The very day they started deploying XP they knew that would come to an end for the very reason they were using a closed-source license-based operating system.

Paying through the nose now for something they knew it was coming but didn't nothing in time is the very definition of lazyness.

"I would have said "18 half gallon pottles to the quarter-barrel firkin."

Are you talking about English or American gallons?

And I expect you talk about English London Beer barrels, not those stupid Dry Colonial barrels, you know...