"pirates can come in the side door and it really doesn't matter what the state of their Windows license is, they can get Windows 10 for free."

I own three licenses for Windows 7 Pro; two vanilla OEM system licenses, and one Dell OEM license.

Does the above mean I can install on additional systems, not enter the serial number and go past the grace period (including the three allowed grace period resets) and download Windows 10, and suddenly legitimize those licenses, and keep the legit licenses installed on my existing systems?

If so, I'm going to finally build the HTPC that I've been keeping a home-theater-style PC case hanging around for.

I hope this doesn't result in the removal of parody reviews. Manually take them out of the weighting algorithm, sure, but please leave them, for the likes of Monster cables, Denon's ethernet cable, uranium oxide samples, reviews which pop up when a price gets bumped up by 33,300% due to occasional glitches in Amazon's dynamic pricing algorithm, and so forth.

Also, PLEASE kill the reviews which rate items a 1 because UPS destroyed the package. That isn't Amazon's fault; it's UPS's fault for shoving 65,000 packages per hour through a conveyor system designed to handle 27,000 packages per hour, resulting in UPS sorters/pickoffs "accidentally" pushing packages (usually the higher ticket items) off of 25' high conveyors onto the ground below out of anger and frustration. Yes, this does happen, and it's not Amazon's fault; it's UPSes for not running longer shifts, poor planning, and putting unrealistic demands on UPS hub workers. The reviews which are based on UPS's malfeasance should not apply to the rating of the product, because the reviews are supposed to be about the product, not the shipper. Same goes for when UPS sorters mis-pick an item sending it to the wrong part of the country, making the product late. That isn't Amazon's fault either.

OMG, Amazon sells plastic spoons? JUST WHAT I NEEDED! Okay, here's a review:

"Best spoon evar! All other spoons suck!!!"

SOLD!!!

Indeed; when /. readers want to share something we generally know how to copy & paste. Now, there are always exceptions to the rule but they are in the vast majority.

Besides, /. already HAD the share feature; it was just horribly broken. Fix share, put it back where it was, and bring back the Read More link.

Now, I realize that slashdotters are your product, not your customers, but by not listening to us you're pushing us to continue to choose reddit or even (ugh!) fark over /., thereby reducing the value of product making /. less attractive to your actual customers (advertisers).

Hey I have an idea - why not take this whole trend one step further and start posting stories about the kardashians, other train wrecks like Lindsay Lohan, Britney Spears, and other child stars who delved into hard drugs or alcohol and ruined their lives, thereby increasing readership, and the all-important ad clicks?

I'm not so sure a lead injection into the skull qualifies as a cure, nor as an improvement in condition.

Try again, North Korea!

The A/B/X tests which proved botique cables are no better than coat hangers used multiple coat hangers, obviously. I'm not saying I would do this because they would be a nightmare to set up... .but based on your post I can only assume you fall within the autistic spectrum, or are simply being a pedantic nitwit, as it can be inferred that there would be a 1:1 replacement of coat hanger for each respective conductor. Duh.

Aside from noise rejection and the lack of impedance matching coat hangers work perfectly well even for analog gear as input patch cables (but due to sensitivity to impedance differences you wouldn't want to use in place of phono patch cables). They work supremely well as speaker cables, providing the gauge is heavy enough for the current (so driving the speakers at a Pink Floyd gig may not work out too well but for the average bar, wedding, etc. they would be perfectly fine).

Benefits of fine strand OFC cables:

  * they look nice
  * The interconnects are usually constructed better
  * They are more flexible than cheap cable, allowing for easier cable routing
  * They handle repeated stress better (so they're better for speakers mounted in doors)

I use fine strand OFC cables for auto sound systems because they fit into tight spaces without worrying about hitting bend radius limits.

That's because the power supply was dipped in epoxy resin - which is actually the major cause of C=64 power supply failures. The power supplies were very prone to overheating due to the epoxy encasement and were pretty much unserviceable due to the difficulty of getting to the components.

Yours didn't fail due to spillage of sprite because the power supply was in effect waterproof.

> Then again, it's rather challenging to discern an ACTUAL "point of no return" from "nothing promulgated vociferously", particularly when the people INSISTING that THIS TIME the sky REALLY IS FALLING are basically the same crew that has told us the same thing about running out of water,

Which has happened on the West Coast, so that they are now buying water rights from other states and built immensely expensive aquaducts to make up for the shortage... and now moving on to what they should have done decades ago, which is construct desalinization plants

> running out of food

It isn't that we're running out of food - it is that we mis-manage it, use food for the wrong purposes (ethanol), and actually pay farmers to destroy crops rather than can or freeze it and donate it to food banks.

> running out of oil,

We were; but then the government enacted fuel economy and emissions laws, both of which forced manufacturers to find ways to make engines more efficient than they used to be, and to not dump raw fuel out the exhaust. That's why we can now buy 600+hp supercars which achieve >30mpg when driven conservatively. This is one case where government regulations did spur some major innovations. You don't have to put up with a 25hp VW beetle with no heat to get 30mpg any more - you can get turbocharged sports sedans which can achieve > 40mpg cruise on the highway, and now full-size trucks which get better than 20mpg... and it's only going to get better.

We aren't running out because we're tapping new reserves, and are now turning to shale and fracking, and are using it more efficiently, even though we now have more cars, trucks, etc. than ever before.

> running out of land

In cities and surrounding communities we are.. but the world is nowhere near overpopulated. Certain regions are overpopulated.

> , etc, etc, ad infinitum,

I'd say that the West Coast which is suffering an unprecedented drought and massive flooding in Texas, and the incredible amount of precipitation the northeast has been getting is valid proof that climate change is accelerating beyond what can be expected; certainly faster than the "geological timescale."

We don't need to stop driving cars, or enjoying heat or air conditioning. What we DO need to do is invest heavily in green power, and consider retooling refineries to make diesel and synthetic gasoline from plant matter - making it 100% carbon-neutral. Legalize industrial hemp as well as other strains of cannabis - it's a better food source than soy anyhow, considering cannabis is hypoallergenic, whereas soy is a major allergen that is getting harder and harder to avoid.

Stop protesting wind farms - where there is high sustained winds, encourage wind power.

Give tax incentives for retrofitting homes and commercial buildings with photovoltaic panels, and do the same for geothermal heat pumps - or hell, even give tax credits for the installation of swimming pools providing the pool is being used as a heat sink (when I build my forever home I actually plan to use the pool as a heat sink, integrating it into a geothermal system).

It doesn't have to be all-or-nothing; we can have our toys and our freedom, we just need to be willing to embrace change, and we need to be willing to tell lobbyists (paper mills, soy industry, oil industry, corn/ethanol industry, etc.) to SHUT THE FUCK UP and deal with going the way of the buggy whip, and instead consider changing their business models to engage in production of green forms of petrol, or geothermal HVAC systems, or better solar panels and battery banks.

but.... how does that help Haliburton, General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin, and Boeing get rich?

Wars need to be invented so that they can buy more yachts.

> Ask the Russians and Chinese how well their 5th gen fighters are coming.

Russia's aircraft are actually quite good. For example, he F-15 was developed in response to rumors of the MiG-25... but performance was inferior. The design of the MiG-25 is so good it is the basis for the MiG-31, and is also rumored to be the basis for a MACH 4-capable interceptor... same basic design but with modern materials and construction techniques. Also other Russian (Soviet?) military aircraft were historically superior to ours in other respects; because they had little access to ICs, many of their bombers used vacuum tubes which are far more resistant to EMP than solid state electronics. Don't underestimate Russia's capabilities. It is such a shame that after the cold war we never became better than frenemies with them; if we could get alone and put our heads together we would very likely be moving much faster in developing truly practical space travel.

The Chinese stealth fighter's advanced capabilities exist largely in the form of CGI propaganda videos. Besides, even if it were real, it would likely break the day after the warranty is out, and there will be no phone number for customer support the manufacturer should it fail within the 30-day warranty. ;)

> Animals do it because, as long as they can digest it, it's a significant source of nutrition right after massive energy and biomass expenditure.

Even many animals which cannot digest it (herbivores) consume it. It's not to get nutrition but to reduce odors which attract predators. It's their way of picking it up so they can carry and defaecate it away from where their offspring are.

It's not really "cat shit." They're "cat like" but are not in the felidae order but are in the feliformia which includes felidae (cats) and hyena and mongoose. Wikipedia states that they are in the order viverridae (a suborder of felifornia, cousins of felidae but are not felidae, which are all obligate carnivores).

> So they bolt on a pair of wings, add some propellers that have to be deployed from a casing that protects them during launch, oh and another stage separation event, a mechanism for separating the fuel tank from the engine.

I do not think you know what a turbofan is based on what you stated.

> And that's supposed to be simpler than some hydraulic landing legs and grid fins?

Not simpler to build and package, but certainly far easier to land given that we have 70 years of experience building jet engines

> And carrying all those additions to space doesn't cost them any extra fuel?

It does - but turbofans and horizontal flight with lifting surfaces is far more efficient than attempting to land vertically using a rocket engine, and we have 110 years of experience landing aircraft horizontally, or if you want to combine total experience, probably approaching on a million combined "man years" of experience landing aircraft (and spacecraft if you include the X15, space shuttle, scaled/virgin's spaceship, Buran, and the space plane) horizontally.