The best one of all: "Santorum is synonymous with coming in #2"

(from memory, don't know the original source)

Wow. That's like... four illegal downloads!

Easy solution: turn on file sharing on the PC, connect to it from a Mac, find the ISO, double-click on it to mount it, set up the Mac's "Windows File Sharing" to share out the virtual volume (might have to edit smb.conf for that), then connect to that share from the PC. See? Simple! That's why MS doesn't bother to enable ISO mounting out of the box.

Or is that just marketing-speak?

"Online Privacy Worth More Than Marshmallow Fluff Five Pack"

See? It's a glass half full/half-empty kinda thing.

So the best way to get any value at all is to play the game. I upgrade as often as they let me. I've owned every model of iPhone and as a bonus (ON TOP OF getting faster and better each time) I'm almost never not within the 12-month manufacturer warranty. And, incidentally, each old phone has sold for enough to pay for its replacement. (Sometimes a bit more, sometimes a bit less.) I have an iPhone 4S and I haven't had to put out any cash (net) since paying $249 (4 GB, refurb, after the price drop) in 2007.

> Try it on family and friends. See if you can get
> them off the phone with that response.

Depends on your family and friends, I guess. I've worked with computers for over 15 years and done TONS of free and cheap support over the years and I haven't had a single experience I would characterize as actively "bad." The worst I've had was early on when I would fix something by recommending a change (like IE -> FF) and then they complain that some things weren't as good. That's usually easily fixable by properly settings expectations: tell them that the way to fix it is to make it different, and it will be better in many ways but possibly worse in a couple. Hell, my iPhone is ridiculously awesome at a million things, but there are a few things that my relatively-simple Nokia had over a dozen years ago that the iPhone--even after 4 revisions--doesn't. (Profiles and ascending ringtones, to name just two.)

> And just try charging them...see where that gets you...

Again, depends on the kinds of people you know. Most of the times they at least offer to trade a favor or meal. Family and close friends get free help; so-so friends, friends of friends, and people I know from work all pay. I've never had anyone actively mad at me for anything I did, and if they don't want to pay, they don't use me--they get along without or bug someone else.

My "friend" rate is about $50/hr. Professionally I start at around $100. Why should I charge any less than a plumber? I don't care if I'm doing something a ten-year-old could do, like formatting and installing Windows or updating drivers--the point is, I'm doing something they can't or don't want to do, and if they don't want to pay, they can figure it out themselves or find someone else. Unclogging a toilet might be icky work too, but you either man up and do it, or you pay Roto-Rooter $106.50 to come out for five minutes.

You realize that only the first half of your post was about CPUs, right?

Also, for future reference, a much shorter answer to "Well, can you still install it for me? After I get the discs?" is "It's easy: put the disc in the machine and then follow the instructions that automatically appear."

> I know it may sound crazy, but it really pisses me off
> when I see a $20+ Bluray title, with super high resolution
> compared to the LD, and yet still have bullshit encoding
> artifacts in high speed motion scenes. LD did not have that.

Agree 100%. On the other hand you're getting better random access, better picture for the most part, greater portability, easier storage, don't have to flip discs,* etc. I wish the new formats were better than the old in all respects, but I'm happy enough with "mostly better."

* even with a machine that flipped for you--my friend had one--there's still an annoying break that totally wrecked the mood of being really "into" the movie. And some discs held only 30 minuets per side. Star Wars (Ep. IV) spanned five sides! And a player could flip sides but not swap discs. :-)

Every time an article related to real-life security (i.e., fighting terrorists) appears, Slashdotters come out of the woodwork to say that there have been an average of 300 US deaths in the past 10 years from terrorism, more people die from car wrecks and smoking, etc.

Same thing here: out of all the evil that MIGHT come from sharing on FB, how many people actually lose jobs, have government agents show up at their door, etc?* For 99.9999% of people sharing on Facebook, there might be a few somewhat-bad things that happen (most likely someone finding out more than you would have liked) but probably not too much more common than what spreads through traditional gossip anyway. I imagine very few bad-with-a-capital-B things happen. Most people will die without having experienced first-hand (or even second-hand) any disasters from sharing on Facebook, belonging to supermarket loyalty clubs, etc.

I'm not saying there's nothing wrong or potentially bad, but like most other things in life it just won't matter to most people.

* And in cases where it DOES happen, I'm sure most belong in the category of "you shouldn't have been doing that (or at least not talking about it)"--crimes, affairs, etc.