For those of us who dislike Microsoft and got f'd up the A with the Sony rootkit, we would purchase a console from Satan if one was made available. It just so happens that company is "Nintendo".

Gotta agree with you... you go through the process and somebody forgets to test some "little thing" that is no longer supported in the new version. If it's commercial software, that can leave you scrambling to work around the issue.

With custom software it's still a pain but you seldom run into something that absolutely can't be done, usually it's something takes awhile to program around and you impact business in the meantime. No matter how carefully you examine the requirements you will always miss something, it's the nature of the beast. If you rely on third party tools to plug into your IDE you may find the licensing has changed drastically and it may no longer be acceptable to use that widget or tool.

And let's not forget about bugs... you may run into something that is documented, works in testing, and when it hits production it just doesn't work when you have hundreds of people hitting it at once. Good design solves a lot of that but you can always have scenarios that can't be adequately tested before you roll it out. Parallel systems help with that but at some point you spend so much time and effort keeping everything in sync while you prepare for full deployment that it's easier to cut off the old system and just deal with the issues as quickly as you can.

1. We have a teen mixing chemicals that she admitted she had no idea what they would do.
2.She's doing this in the schoolyard, not in a lab or classroom, and not under the direction of any teacher.
3.Some friend was guiding her into mixing the chemicals.

Ok, so it was a prank. I understand. A teenager doesn't always make the best decisions. We have all likely done pranks before.

But the difference is, in this day and age, and after recent bombings, mixing random things together at the advice of your friend is really really stupid. She had no idea what would happen and admitted as much. That's how you get people "innocently" making real bombs and killing real people. And I think that's why there was such a harsh response.

I wish I could say race played no part, but I think it did. This is a very conservative county, a real backwater.

Insightful. The only way to stop the other bullies is to stand up to the bully in front of you now.

If he will lie about something as silly as that, who in their right mind will trust him in business? He sold his integrity for a ridiculously low price and doesn't even understand why that matters.

Thank you for seeding :) It's underappreciated.

cwRsyncServer (I'm not affiliated with them) makes setting up an rsync server in Windows straightforward. It's only 5 minutes or so in Linux. Bandwidth limiting is a --bwlimit switch. I do notice that in general rsync in Windows is slower than on Linux or OSX.

You made a sweeping generalization that "every real research institution" was concerned with treating animals humanely. Who appointed you the spokesperson for "every real research institution"? Then you followed that by stating that obviously they would do what's right because of PR.

At best, your logic is specious. It might be correct and it might not, but an analysis of the issue would lead you to other possibilities and reasons. The PR angle is very weak. Even PR over things such as pink slime and meat glue hasn't stopped people from eating meat... and that's something that can eventually kill them. Why do you think the public's interest in lab monkeys would be seen as a more important issue?

A much more reasonable conclusion is that researchers are not universally concerned about the welfare of animals being tested (or why on earth would you want to test things on animals?) and that on occasion, someone gets caught doing something they shouldn't be doing or using excessive brutality. And occasionally activists boil over and take matters into their own hands.

It's as if this were a mystery to you somehow.

After the initial shock, people go right back to doing whatever they were doing before and all is forgotten. Otherwise, we would have all watched Food, Inc or similar shows and quit eating meat because of the barbaric conditions and needless suffering of animals used in the food supply.

If people aren't willing to change because of a cheeseburger, they're not going to give a rat's ass -- and yep that's intentional -- when it comes to preventing the suffering of lab animals.

I agree it's one more thing. But in this case the Silverlight platform is usually the target of a "Patch Tuesday" exploit patch. I don't worry that a Netflix app will compromise my iPhone. I do worry that Silverlight will compromise my PC.

I had almost the opposite experience. My iPad, iPhone and Wii stream Netflix fine, but when I wanted to view it on my laptop, they wanted me to install Silverlight (no thanks). I thought it seemed stupid to require that.

Sounds like a great opportunity to discuss the issue at length with your kids. You may find that the XBox is just a prophylactic for some need that isn't fulfilled.

In place of an XBox, for instance, I bought a Wii. I know it's not a hardcore gamer platform, but my kids don't play violent games. They can do that when they're older if they want; I think my son started around 16 or so. He turned out fine and only hates me as much as any teenager should.

I get them iTunes gift cards and we build things together and cook and go outside and visit parks and cool local events, or go to the beach or the pool or the library and get movies and music and books. In other words -- in the middle of all the other stuff that's out there -- an XBox is such a very small thing. You'd never notice it's not there if you do everything else. YMMV and all that. I just think it's an imaginary duality.

The same way engineers do in every other industry on an everyday basis. I'm not defending that the process is overly convoluted or that I'm not a fan of it. But people have figured out how to do this and it's commonplace. New products arrive daily in every industry.

Quit giving excuses why you can't do something and just go do it... or sit back and complain and watch others show you how. The phrase "can't never could" comes to mind when I converse with you. Surely you're better than that.

Then use Android, or Windows phone, or I think Palm still has an OS you can develop for. There's nothing that states that Apple must make a programming environment for their hardware available to you on your terms.

If you truly don't understand what copying means regarding to patent law, you shouldn't be a part of this discussion. I think it's more likely you're a troll.

By all means, continue to sit around and bitch about it. That will certainly change things (eye roll).

"Can't" is just an excuse. I remember a quote about it: “The only thing standing between you and your goal is the bullshit story you keep telling yourself as to why you can't achieve it.” In the meantime, the rest of us will be doing well.