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Imagine, Judge being presented his own private MMS as evidence.

Reminds me of a joke:

A small town prosecuting attorney called his first witness to the stand in a trial -- a grandmotherly, elderly woman. He approached her and asked, "Mrs. Jones, do you know me?"

She responded, "Why, yes, I do know you Mr. Williams. I've known you since you were a young boy. And frankly, you've been a big disappointment to me. You lie, you cheat on your wife, you manipulate people and talk about them behind their backs. You think you're a rising big shot when you haven't the brains to realize you never will amount to anything more than a two-bit paper pusher. Yes, I know you."

The lawyer was stunned. Not knowing what else to do he pointed across the room and asked, "Mrs. Williams, do you know the defense attorney?"

She again replied, "Why, yes I do. I've known Mr. Bradley since he was a youngster, too. I used to baby-sit him for his parents. And he, too, has been a real disappointment to me. He's lazy, bigoted, he has a drinking problem. The man can't build a normal relationship with anyone and his law practice is one of the shoddiest in the entire state. Yes, I know him."

At this point, the judge rapped the courtroom to silence and called both counselors to the bench. In a very quiet voice, he said with menace, "If either of you asks her if she knows me, you'll be in jail for contempt of court!"

...demonstrate how you can make a 1GW fusion reactor out of nothing but a sweaty gym sock and the corpse of a field mouse.

No, seriously. 100%. Cross my heart.

Sure! 64 cores should be enough for anybody!

The problem isn't economics, it's the idiots that try to invoke it in the way we see them doing here. The fact that the price of a commodity increases when it's in short supply doesn't cure the shortage or make it less of a problem; it merely allocates what supplies remain to those who are willing to pay the most. It's a manifestation of the shortage, not an explanation of it.

In a severe food shortage, yes, the price of food shoots up. People who can afford it continue to eat well (albeit at the expense of other things), but others starve. As far as your typical affluent conservative is concerned, the market has efficiently "solved" the problem.

Given the number of dumbarse "reply all" mails I get, I doubt there is any legislation which prevents you from doing a reply all. "Dear Competitor, Not sure why you sent us an email. We happen to be a similar business as you and offer far better services and cheaper rates than your business. Please unsubscribe us from your mailing list, as the specials that you've offered had us rolling in the aisles. Signed, Pointy Haired Boss"

I find Linux more capable on the Desktop than Microsoft. There are often times when MS's (using XP) internal burning software is inadequate - like burning images. I don't know if it's fixed yet, but for a long time XP just would not burn an image with its built in software and you had to use something like Nero. Never had a problem burning an image running any linux distro. Same with mounting .iso right from the harddrive as a cd-rom. It usually required some pay-for software (Alcohol 120%) in Windows, while a 2 minute search yield a few command lines to do it in Ubuntu. I know I'd rather save the money.

A typical mainstream Linux distro is ready. It's often superior in many ways to MS, as MS seems to deliberately makes their OS do almost nothing useful beyond the basics it seems (or was it that Monopoly ruling that caused this?) It's now just 3rd party apps for most people. Web Browsing has reversed itself (there are enough people who wouldn't switch from Firefox due to plug-ins they can't get in IE).

On the Corporate Level, solution providers are slow to change if they're an MS only shop. I even know the university/college level has problems. Blackboard and other such garbage.

I suspect the oncoming economic shitstorm may finally get corporations to really tighten their belts and that company-wide OS licenses may just not fit in the budget anymore looking ahead 5 years in some places. I just hope the current/next generation of purchase managers learns from the past and looks to do away with vendor lock-in in so many areas as much as possible.

eldavojohn writes "Recent research has shown that microbes found in an Antarctic lake could survive the coldest temperatures on Mars. From the article, 'And they found that these species of microorganisms "huddled" together in colder temperatures to form a chemically linked unit called a biofilm. The finding marks the first time this phenomenon has been detected in the Antarctic species of so-called extremophiles. The findings provide more evidence for the ideas that liquid found beneath Mars' surface could harbor microbial life and that life could exist elsewhere in the solar system and galaxy, which is generally incredibly cold.' Their genes are currently being sequenced to determine which give the organisms 'cold-shock' proteins and their resistance to cold."