Which is precisely why I don't let my wife or daughters go anywhere in public without me or their uncle. And when they do go out, I make sure they are not dressed provocatively. Never can be sure. And I do not allow my daughters to date. When the time comes for them to be married, they will marry a good man I have selected for them.

Obligatory -

You may have a long wait. This is Slashdot after all.

I have a blog that I write and own the copyright on. Will Access Copyright send me my cut if a student happens to send a link to my blog to a friend? And what if they send a link to their own blog? Will that student now be entitled to a partial refund of their 27.50 Canadian?

Seems like this could be a revenue stream that bloggers may have to wake up to!!

I mean, the stereotype of them being neat and orderly was not far off, at least from looking at their towns and cities. Some of the cleanest urban areas I've ever seen. I can see them wanting to clean up outer space too.

When you say things like

and

I tend to think that we are discussing The Silmarillion and not The Lord of The Rings. In 193 words, you mention The Hobbit twice, The Silmarillion twice and The Lord of The Rings once. What are we supposed to think you are discussing?

And when you say:

how in the world are we supposed to know that you have indeed read The Lord of The Rings, but are instead talking about re-reading it?

And just to say something about the meat of the article, do not forget that Tolkien's works were written in reverse order from the way they were published. Thus, The Hobbit, which you find most accessible, was written last and the material that became The Silmarillion and The Lord of The Rings was written well before publication of There and Back Again. I wonder of the accessibility of The Hobbit is a reflection of a writer's skill increasing with time or more a function of the audience the material was aiming for?

And yet strangely enough, the post you reply to is at 5, Insightful

That, despite mostly being a discussion of writing that was not available for the Nobel Committee to consider in 1961 since The Silmarillion was not published until 1977, well after Tolkien's death in 1973. And despite the poster admitting that he had not read the books that were published and available for the committee to judge at the time JRR was nominated for the Nobel.

So, I would say instead that when a commentator that has not read the relevant books and talks instead about material that was not yet published is modded as insightful, then you know that slashdot is dead.

Maybe you should have RTFA and not just looked a the picture. The picture attached to the article shows a view of the star as seen from the planet, NOT a picture of the planet itself. They even explain that the star looks the way it does because the apparent size of the star means that it displays every color absorption at once instead of changing color gradually as Sol does here on Earth.

I can see why you would assume that was a picture of the planet, but you're wrong.

I wish I had modpoints today. This was one of the most insightful posts I've seen in a long time.

It is not just browsers that this happens with. Microsoft reaches a position of dominance, crushes viable competition and then tries to keep everything in stasis so their market share does not shrink. Then, after enough people become frustrated with the glacial pace of innovation, alternatives begin to emerge. This then forces Microsoft to re-invigorate their products to remain relevant.

Would the advances MS made with Office have happened if Open Office hadn't started to take off? Would the OS have remained where it was if Linux and Apple hadn't started nipping at Microsoft's heels? And would IE9 be anywhere near as good if Firefox hadn't grabbed such a large installed user base?

Microsoft can be innovative and they can create good products, but every once in a while they need to be kicked in the ass to remind them of that.

I've seen your post before, but on the off chance that you're not just getting paid to copy and paste, let me tell you that there IS a home button in Chrome.

Click on "Customize and Control Google Chrome" (the wrench in the upper right corner).

Click on "Options" (about two-thirds down in the list of choices, fifth from the bottom).

On the first page that opens, "Basics", in the third section down, "Toolbar", check the box for "Show Home Button".

Close out the options page and the "Home" icon will now be in your toolbar.

You are special AND unique, just like everyone else...