even though lots of prior art exists.

"Art", Is that what you call that crufty stuff on my windshield?
 

A normal person calls it ubuntu and moves on with life. Sheeeeeeeeesh!!

Just like the present.

In middle school we had a room with various apple II computers from II+ to a single IIgs on the wall around the edge. The keyboards were so bad that I believe I came out of that class a slower typist than I went in.

I have suffered from chronic back pain for 25+ years. I was recently given a 'sample' drug by my doctor to determine if it was helpful.

The first dose was about 75% effective. It eliminated some of the pain but not all. The subsequent dosages (which included increasing the # of pills) had ZERO effect on pain levels. I do not doubt that placebo effect accounted for the initial pain relief, but I am usually very logical and calm about drug actions on my psyche.
   

I remember reading somewhere that the artists never actually received any of the money from the CD-R levy.

However, then I googled it (gasp!), and found this:
http://cpcc.ca/english/infoCopyHolders.htm

Looks like they are actually being paid from it...

Who would've thunk it?

The levy that used to exist on mp3 players was plain ridiculous. Prices dropped considerably when they dropped the levy on those.

Hmm, I wonder if the levy is why DVD-Rs are cheaper than CD-Rs...

There has got to be a better way than this, though. I kinda wish every artist would do what Manowar did when Napster first got popular.
They put all of their songs (mp3) up for download on their own website, for 99 cents each, to a bit more, depending on audio quality. They
are still doing that, except they are going through an online music store now, instead of doing it directly on their homepage.

If you could go to a band's site, and stream the music for free, as well as purchase for download, I think that would be great,
and that money would go right to the artists. Minus bandwidth costs, of course.

Back in the day when I was a sea cadet I was part of the honor gaurd. We used to take our rifles home to polish up, repaint the blacking and clean the webbing. Now these were real WW2 .303 but had no bolts. Lots of us used to take the bus and we never had any problems.

The difference being the police officer and/or government agent has been trained, certified, and undergoes continuous psychological evaluation in order to carry that firearm, and this can be reasonably assumed. On the other hand, some random idiot. I suspect the person in question was wielding the weapon in a less than innocuous manner, possibly hoping for free publicity. He very easily could have, say, wrapped it in brown paper if he was truly worried about 'harassment'. I realize common sense is about as common as common courtesy anymore, but your post takes the cake.

You're not far wrong... It doesn't look like an AK-47, but it looks scarily similar to a Barret M107.

http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=50+cal

If Chrome gets addons like Firefox it will perform like Firefox, addons, like so many ActiveX controls used in IE are the #1 reason browser perform like shit.

Granted you can get cheap cables from retailers like GameStop (and I had to for component support on my Wii)...I think a better idea is for console manufactures to do like many said and not include ANY cables...but rather, since so many sell their own connection solutions...have an instant rebate voucher for a cable. The console makers save by not including useless cables...and consumer gets the connection option they want the most. If they want additional options...then they can purchase additional cables. However, I'm sure there are packaging cost concerns and redemption issues. However, if they could solve those problems, it'd make everyone's life a bit easier.

You know what I can do in a standard text editor but not in vi/vim/emacs? Edit text without a manual or cheat sheet. It's like using Visual Studio to edit autoexec.bat, a total waste. Linux/unix is the only OS I've ever used that the default text editor is impossible to understand by looking at it. MSDOS had EDIT.COM (and I often wished someone would port it to Linux), old Macs had SimpleText and TeachText, OSX has TextEdit, Windows has Notepad. Linux comes with vi, where it can be easier to start X with a broken configuration limited to 640x480 and use gvim.

Maybe because on the planet full of smugglers, thieves, etc. the only parts he could have get for free were protocol droid parts.
Do you remember whose slave he was? Do you think the guy like him would throw out a not broken robot part not from a protocol droid?
Or maybe being born as a slave he dreamed about being powerful someday, maybe it was the part of his dream he could afford to have. After all he became one of the most ruthless dictators one can imagine, so it had to have some roots, it is pity it was not shown in the movie.

Kind of like a crack or heroin dealer...they want you to keep playing.

The solution, clearly, is to switch to crack or heroin. Then, if it's taking up too much of your time or money you can go to rehab, and the game wont matter quite as much, because life will become a very interesting game where you'll gain lot of XP and have to deal with real world consequences if you screw up!!

Our "game" has a slammin hip-hop soundtrack and plenty of excessive violence; choose the "North Philadelphia" campaign for you newcomers, you'll get into to the action fast that way!

I read there is going to be a new Palm(not a Pre) coming to AT&T later this year or next year. I'm hoping it will be much like the Pre, but more refined and it wont spy on me.

Think I'm asking for too much?