On average and probably not full time. Considering kernel hacking is probably (on average) 1/3 of a full job, it's not too bad.

Even if you have good reason to believe John Smith knows your PIN, proving it is going to be next to impossible.

First you have to persuade the bank that someone else knows your PIN through no fault of your own. How do you prove this to the satisfaction of a huge organisation which is set up at every level to assume that this is physically impossible?

Next you have to convince them that not only did someone else find your PIN, that someone was one of their staff. As opposed to, say, the postman who's on a low wage and sees credit cards and PINs in his bag every day.

Next you have to persuade them to do one of the following:

• Admit that their systems are not perfect - there is a possibility that John Smith could indeed have got the PIN.
• Give you sufficient access to determine this for yourself.

Next you have to get somebody sufficiently high-up in the bank to read what you have to say and take it seriously. Though by this point the bank has already either refunded your money or asked the police to investigate what they perceive as you attempting to defraud them of the money.

And why does that matter?

Copyright is an incentive to create work, providing a period of exclusivity (for want of a better word) in which the author/creator/artist is able to monopolize on their created work. Copyright was not intended as, nor should it be allowed to become, a welfare system for artists. Surely the return on investment made in the creation of the work can be made, if it's going to be made, within a reasonable time span such as, for example, twenty years?

And if, in twenty-one years, the artist wants more money the artist should do more work. Why is this wrong?

It's been a while since I've last used Windows (I'm a health professional, not an IT specialist so...), but I was under the impression that parts of Vista's abysmal file-copy/network-copy was due to the DRM embedded in the OS? Also there's the aspects of HDCP, and CSS that preclude easily cutting/copying/pasting/recording of AV on Windows (when last I checked, but this has the caveat that it's been a while...though maybe only eighteen months, give or take).

I'd hazard that, flame-war aside, others might have better responses. For my part I'll apologise for a perhaps ill-thought-out or unsubstantiated post.

Users: No drm!
RIAA/MPAA: drm!

I'm not sure why you've been modded Troll, unless maybe you were felt to have lacked a point, but I only wish that most users were sufficiently interested and educated as to be aware of the DRM. Or the impact that it has on their machines, or its usability.

The last thing I want is a requirement to wear pants while working in my home office, thank you very much.

Uh...it's for video conferencing, or calling. I assumed you'd be having your face in the picture, unless...where are you wearing your pants? Maybe you should try a hat?

The more environmentally friendly and less wasteful colors are #0f0 and f00, thank you.

It ain't easy, being green.

Do you have a geek card? Is it still probationary? I don't know how old you are, obviously, but I find it hard to believe that people on /. aren't familiar with the old, 'classic,' series. Mind you, I just hit thirty so this might be a case of 'get off my lawn!'

If it is, you have my sincere apologies.

For my part no one's ever lived up to Troughton (second Doctor), Davison (fifth Doctor) or Baker (Tom, fourth Doctor).

Eccleston was great, and he made it work again on BBC primetime after a hiatus of decades, but he still didn't have the joie de Vivre I associate with the Doctor as well as the melancholy.

I hope that Smith makes it work, or makes the role memorably his, but...I'm not yet convinced it's going to go well...But, as I said, it's possibly just a 'get off my lawn!'....sorry...

I suppose they are looking for brains, huh.

You're saying the FBI are zombies..?