Well, there are a few anomalies. But Texas was once it's own country, and Hawaii is surrounded by ocean. A better comparison would be Texas-Alaska.....

Actually, the Skylark uses a steel shift cable, so yeah, it's mechanically linked. Just not by a more traditional hard linkage. Most cars have done that for a LONG time. The trans options on that vehicle are a 4T40E or a 4T60E, depending on the engine. Both are electronically controlled, but both use a steel shift cable to move the manual valve (that's what determines what range you're in). Look under the hood/bonnet, driver's side, on top of the trans, you'll see it. If it fails, you could be left in any range, not just neutral. But you're right, Ford does work essentially the same way. And all the car manufacturers do some really cool stuff as well as some really bone-headed stuff. Most of the rants I see here against US cars may reflect personal experience, but usually they relate to a fairly rare failure or a lemon. Truth is, they ALL work pretty well, and they ALL break. ALL manufacturers produce lemons from time to time. Personal experiences of a consumer aren't numerous enough to be statistically significant, although they are all most of us have. Most mechanics I know have biases, too. The failure rates aren't as different as most people believe. And the best car is one you like that works for you and you're confident in. Niggling cable point aside, parent is pretty much on the money.

Its too bad google charges per click not per impression, meaning ad blocking would lower the cost of your advertising, not increase it if you advertise via google.

That's why basically 100% of content is moving to flash where they can control your experience.

Kudos to this guy for putting together what looks like a big budget trailer for $300. However, I don't see any original filmmaking ideas - only technical content. I saw this short film months ago and think it has a lot more originality and an awesome sci-fi slant. Plus, augmented reality is sweet. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IU_reTt7Hj4

I've never understood the commonly held implementation of censorship of profanity. "F*&%" is somehow better than "Fuck", though you can immediately tell what word I intended to use there, and lets face it, if it's a "protect the children" thing, your children have already heard that word and probably worse at school, on TV, or even just in passing in a public area.

Besides, there are things far more disturbing that a few simple profanities. Look at "Guts" by Chuck Palahniuk.

'Check' is still a word, it just means something different to 'cheque'.

Just like 'metre' and 'meter' are both words meaning different things.

Freenet's traffic is designed specifically to be difficult to fingerprint. It is all UDP traffic and there are no specific headers to identify it. The UDP part is for firewall-friendliness.

Perhaps in the long run it will need to disguise itself as some other form of traffic like VoIP or VPN but the basic problem is you are always going to have large amounts of constant traffic between yourself and several other IP addresses. Hey, you could be on the phone 24/7 to 10 other people, right?

So tell us, have you stopped beating your wife yet?

In case you can't tell, I'm pointing out the ridiculousness of telling someone to stop doing something when they were never doing it in the first place, and then punishing them after you tell them a third time when, again, they never did the deed for which you are punishing them.

DeusEx? whats that?

"Of course cash was still around. There was just nothing legel left you could do with it"
(Count Zero)*

Now get of my lawn!

* sorry, only quoted from memory

This is what I agree with. For what everybody says about Bill Gates, he knew how to run a business. And, although he had quirks (what smart people don't?), he made good decisions and knew technology.

While I don't know Ballmer personally, the jokes that surround him (throwing chairs, "Developers!", etc) indicate to me that he is easily angered and excitable. This is *not* a trait I would want in someone leading a company. In addition, I am not a huge fan of a lot of management. I would rather go with Jack Welch's method - just enough management.

I'm not anti-Microsoft - I'm relatively neutral and judge products as I use them (and, yes, I am very excited for ChromeOS), but I think MS has become too top-heavy and change needs to happen.

Knowing Nokia and their paranoia, you will probably have to attend a super secret key signing party. Where into a video camera stuffed room people enter in pairs only, no more than 4 people can be there at a time and both parties have to enter the room using doors on opposing sides. Just to get a certificate signed :)

in the grand scheme of things, the loss of AM towers are the tiniest problems facing the nation right now.

It depends on where you live:

Hurricane season runs from the beginning of June to the end of November. The past several years have seen an overall increase in the quantity and intensity of hurricanes in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, the Caribbean Sea, and the Gulf of Mexico. In 2005, there were 28 named storms of which 15 became hurricanes. This proved to be the most active hurricane season in recorded history, causing billions of dollars in damage and resulting in thousands of fatalities. Hurricane Season - Know Before You Go

It depends on your profession:

WILL AM 580 Agricultural Broadcasting

Trucking Radio

And yes, their company name is a reference to what you think it is.

Palin + Tar?
Hmmmm

No assumption was intended and I apologize for giving you that impression. I just honestly believed at the time that you had this wrong because I made a mistake. I stand corrected. Thank you for taking the time to point this out, because even when it's a rather inconsequential thing like this, I still don't want to believe things which are false.

If I may revise my answer to your question, I would speculate that they don't produce an XPI for the Flash plugin because it would be incompatible with IE, which still has a large marketshare. So to Adobe, this would represent one more separate thing to have to keep track of and maintain. I doubt that they would do this in the absence of overwhelming demand for it. I also speculate that someone else would not be able to package an XPI for them because they probably don't permit others to redistribute their copyrighted software.