Same here. Had a T42 sitting on a high lab bench doing a big database update and somebody knocked onto the concrete floor. Aside from a hairline crack in the corner it landed on, it was perfectly fine.

Well, I was agreeing with you, but I took a slightly more skeptical position with respect to science fiction enthusiasts' actual knowledge of science. You suggested that science fiction writers might be in a slightly privileged position in comparison to artists because they have more of an understanding of nature. That may be true of *some* science fiction authors (e.g. David Brin, who is a working scientist), but by in large the science fiction community displays what to my mind is a deceptively superficial knowledge of science.

Take the lithium deuteride example. Yes, I agree a sci-fi writer is more likely to know offhand that it's used in thermonuclear bombs than an average artist. But that is really just a piece of technology trivia. It's not *working* knowledge. What's the difference? Working knowledge allows you to make valid inferences, or at least leads you in the right direction. As far as the author was concerned "lithium deuteride" might as well have been magic pixie dust. He didn't realize that it's usefulness is as a way of packing a lot of hydrogen (or rather deuterium) atoms into a confined space -- the very reason LiH is of interest for storage and transport of hydrogen to be used in fuel cells. If he *had* understood this, he could have done rough scaling calculations on th required mass for his hypothetical warhead. That would be an example of working knowledge; although it wouldn't man he knows anything about economics, or biology (often a weak spot in sci-fi in my opinion).

So in my opinion a science fiction author is not in a *privileged* position relative to an artist to have an opinion about things like economics; nor is he even in a privileged position relative to an artist to have an opinion about science. Not necessarily. For one thing I think you're selling short the intellectual abilities of artists. But the sci-fi writer certainly has a right to have and express opinions; they just aren't any more credible *because* he's a sci-fi writer.

When was the last time you changed the oil in your ceiling fan? Your blender? CD player?

Hell, when was the last time you "changed the oil" in the wheel bearings of your car?

Yes, all these things require lubricant, but they are not things we associate with having substantial oil reservoirs.

As for the the Tesla, yes it'll have wheel bearings and axels, so it'll probably have a bit of grease somewhere... but I don't believe it has a transmission. So there probably isn't anything that's we'd recognize as "oil" in the car.

Because since protons prefer round, smooth booties, they won't date neutrons, which then fly off into space to shop. Didn't you learn anything in science class?

"ACME collaboration"?

Then just bang the electron on the head with an ACME anvil, and it will grow lumps.

Another challenge is the fines and penalties for installing solar cells on your roof.

An alliance of corporations and conservative activists is mobilising to penalise homeowners who install their own solar panels- casting them as "freeriders" - a sweeping new offensive against renewable energy, the Guardian has learned.

These people are actually freeloaders but of course he can't say what they really are because of political correctness that forces him to use softer words like "freeriders".

Further details of ALEC's strategy were provided by John Eick, the legislative analyst for ALEC's energy, environment and agriculture program.

Eick told the Guardian the group would be looking closely in the coming year at how individual homeowners with solar panels are compensated for feeding surplus electricity back into the grid.

"This is an issue we are going to be exploring," Eick said. He said ALEC wanted to lower the rate electricity companies pay homeowners for direct power generation - and maybe even charge homeowners for feeding power into the grid.

"As it stands now, those direct generation customers are essentially freeriders on the system. They are not paying for the infrastructure they are using. In effect, all the other non direct generation customers are being penalised," he said.

Eick dismissed the suggestion that individuals who buy and install home-based solar panels had made such investments. "How are they going to get that electricity from their solar panel to somebody else's house?" he said. "They should be paying to distribute the surplus electricity."

I don't want sewage electricity being forced down my throat after it's been on some other guy's filthy roof already! I'm an American; I have a right to choose clean electricity!

In November, Arizona became the first state to charge customers for installing solar panels. The fee, which works out to about $5 a month for the average homeowner, was far lower than that sought by the main electricity company, which was seeking to add up to $100 a month to customers' bills.

IN THE BEGINNING God created heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was floating on the surface of the waters. God said "let there be light" and there was light. God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness with a thin film of perovskite on glass so that the material formed tiny crystalline islands. The islands absorbed photons and converted them unto electrons, whilst light striking the empty areas passed through. And God saw that it was good. Then God said "let the rooftops sprout with panels: panels bearing light from the heavens"; the ceilings brought forth electricity, freeriders yielding current with voltage in it, unto the grid. And God saw that it was good. Then to be fair he charged the freeriders $100 per month, which Arizona reduced to $5, for those who drilled the formless void of the earth for the Spirit of God, and have to distribute the unwanted surplus electricity. And God saw that it was good.

"Never tell me the odds" and then plow through it like crazed cowboys

No, I mean that's what the documentation seems to say. The user can't swap SIM cards when there is no removable SIM card. It has to be done remotely. From the documentation, it seems that the carrier has the keys to do that, but the user does not. Some devices start out in "provisioning mode", from which point (I think) the first carrier to talk to the device downloads a profiile and has control of the device until they release it. Or the device might come pre-locked to a carrier. Whether the user can force the device back to provisioning mode seems to be under the control of the profile downloaded by the carrier.

it's a lot like the way domain transfer works between registrars, with the "domain locked" status being under the control of the "losing registrar". That's led to disputes.

Who tells whom what to do? - V. Lenin

Which brings me to my next point... Throughout the history of Windows, software vendors have found and used "undocumented features" (you and I might call them exploits) in their software. Most of what wan on 3.1 also ran on 95; a lot that ran on 95 did *not* run on 98 because Microsoft had fixed the brokenness that the now non-working applications were exploiting.

Why did FoxPro 6, a Microsoft W98 program, not run in XP?

Plenty of software written for XP exploits a number of security vulnerabilities in the name of user convenience and Microsoft knows they'd be pissing a lot more people off by making their computers not work anymore by patching those than they'll piss off by dropping support.

See above, do you think MS cares about their rivals? It was their own shoddy software they were protecting from user wrath. I'm old enough to remember "DOS ain't done 'til Lotus won't run." You really think they give two shits about any other vendor??

Which patch broke my software? Oops, my backup's hosed; how long will it take me to reinstall, reconfigure, and repatch? Which future patches will also break my software?

Hilarious that those problems are nonexistent in the Linux distros I've used. But that's besides the point -- I said nothing about backwards compatibility, just that MS should support their OSes for a reasonable time, and a few years is NOT reasonable.

Which patch broke my software? Oops, my backup's hosed; how long will it take me to reinstall, reconfigure, and repatch? Which future patches will also break my software?

The copy of XP Home Edition I had (I've lost the CD but not everyone does) cost $125. That's plenty for a fifteen year support period, especially considering that Linux distros do it for free. Plus, I don't have those "Which patch broke my software? Oops, my backup's hosed; how long will it take me to reinstall, reconfigure, and repatch?" problems with the Linux box.

Also, I'd love to know how you use EAC to sample LPs and cassettes; last I checked (a while after the last patch was released, over 2 years ago), it just reads CDs and doesn't touch audio devices at all. Can you point me to a writeup?

I wish I would have had a writeup, it wouldn't have been such a pain in the ass to learn how to use. Once you get past the funky learning curve it's easy. It's a matter of "what does this menu item do?" and I agree, its interface sucks. But I've been using it for years, haven't lately so I couldn't tell you which menu does "record". But you can record a CD or LP, delete the silences between sides and before and after, mark where the tracks change and burn to CD in ten or fifteen minutes. The track marking is what Audacity lacks (AFAIK, maybe it can but I haven't found it).

I used to be a fan of MS, twenty years ago when the kids had those shitty Apples at school. No longer.

OWS scared the crap out of DHS and just about every law enforcement agency at Federal, state and local levels where they were occurring. Thats why they so ruthlessly destroyed them, and DHS was coordinating the strategy for destroying them nation wide. If Occupy hadn't been crushed it would have become very dangerous to the entrenched, corrupt people who've stolen our country.

Its purely amazing that enough American's participated in Occupy to actually scare the police state that was built post 9/11. Just about everyone had written Americans off has hopelessly apathetic and too scared to do anything about anything, and Occupy disproved that. That is a seminal accomplishment.

The next crash, and another crash is inevitable since absolutely none of the factors that caused the last crash were fixed, in fact they've been massively amplified, there is a high probability American's will finally say enough is enough with the massive corruption that has engulfed Wall Street and Washington D.C.

When that time comes the occupy movement will be the framework for the next attempt to take our country back from the people who stole it from us.

Its not revolution to take your country back, its a patriotic restoration and an obligation. The Founding Fathers would be cheering it on.

Yea and they can brick those in approximately the same time it takes to acquire them. If law enforcement can do the bricking it saves tham having to rely on the phone company.

I'm talking here about a street demonstration which law enforcement wants to bring under control and which is being coordinated and filmed by people with phones. You brick all the phones in the problem area and you shut off most of their cameras and coordinatopm, they are put back in the stone age while the police are using every technology available.

Shutting off cells towers is substantially less effective than bricking all the phones because bricking kills the cameras and GPS too. Will also inflict immediate financial and organizational damage on all the protestors.

+5 funny

Not any more, W8 surpassed it. Yet another triumph for Microsoft!

I'm surprised that nobody thought "aliterate" was a misspelling of "illiterate". I usually get chuckles from that one, although the last time I did it somebody actually looked it up.

Aliterates at a nerd site annoy me. You're a nerd, you read books. But these guys that don't know their from there from they're, well, to paraphrase Twain, an aliterate has no advantage over an illiterate."

I think I'll make that my sig after Christmas.

Uhhh...what is to keep a rapist from using one of those portable "mini cell tower" boxes to find out the IMEI of his target and then report it stolen? Seems like a good way to make sure your victim can't call for help, what with more and more folks switching to cell only.

Talk to my editor, it's his fault.