What happens when you're playing an offline game and your internet connection is down (no connection to XBox Live) and you get three achievements while offline? When you get your connection back, do all three achievements get fed up to XBL at the same time? Would that be considered cheating?

The casino doesn't tattoo "Cheater" on their forehead for all to see, though. In a sense, MS has done this by labeling his account "Cheater."

telekineses, for the pedantic spellers out there.

And didn't Clarke say "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

How is "the force" different from telekenesis + the powers of Charlie McGee's dad?

On my hard drive, rsynced to a NAS box (mirrored disks) and backed up nightly to Amazon S3 storage via JungleDisk. (Disclamer: I work for neither Amazon nor JungleDisk)

Zeitgeist: The Movie

He's being tagged as a conservative because it was a Democrat that was shot. Would the tables be turned if it was a Republican? Would we assume the shooter was a liberal? Doubtful.

FWIW, I don't think any self respecting conservative would be caught dead watching that movie. Well, maybe if they needed a good laugh. Maybe.

I'm "Constitution protector". I'm glad the 14th amendment is there and don't have any problems with it at all.

The 16th amendment, though... I'd love to see that one go.

I'm curious... How do you get data out of a relational database if you're not using the SELECT statement?

New Orleans is still there. There were houses IN New Orleans that were destroyed, but there were plenty of places (~75%) that were untouched. The French Quarter, for example.

<not-sarcasm>Touche, sir. I salute your singular wit.</not-sarcasm>

Isn't there already a precedent in the United States Tax Code for this?

The problem is (and it's not specific to cable) is that intelligent shows tend to have long story arcs that span multiple episodes, or even seasons. When shows like that get canceled, it leaves the fan hanging as to how the story would have played out. Firefly wasn't as arc-ey (if that's a word) as some, but in it's case the absolute mismanagement and abuse by the very network that was showing it was responsible for it's demise.

Just a few shows off the top off my head that have had the rug pulled out from under them (and me): Defying Gravity, Heroes (ok, that series was really going down hill, but I would have liked some kind of ending and who doesn't like watching Ali Larter?), Journeyman, Life (not sci-fi, but had a long story arc that never got closed). And all of those shows aren't even on cable - those were network.

Actually, I have a masters in CS. I was trying to make a lexical pun of sorts saying it's not about "programming languages" but about "programming", which, in my mind, is more about the problem solving and design than the actual implementation of a particular program. Once you learn how to program - how to solve problems and design a solution - implementing it in any particular language is just a matter of getting the syntax right.

The programming language itself is a tool. Any particular problem can have solutions in any number of languages, and certain languages are more suited than others for particular problem classes.

When the electronic versions of the books cost more than a paperback and are less convenient, yes, there are more negatives to be had than positives. Fourteen days is a little short - it takes me longer than that to get through a large book (not because I'm a slow reader, but I don't get much time during the week to read). Plus you can only loan it once? Fail.

At this point in the electronic book meilu, I'd much rather have a real book that I actually own pysically - it's mine and I can do what the hell I want with it - than to "buy" a book that's not really mine - somebody is just granting me a semi-permanent license to use it.

Bingo. CS has nothing to do with programming languages. It's about PROGRAMMING. Lots of CS grads still don't get this. They are typically the mediocre programmers that move on to project management (or something else that doesn't involve programming) fairly quickly. Or they end up doing horrible ASP web apps and Microsoft Access front ends.