I like how the knucklehead in the summary tries to make out what Opera is doing as somehow insidious. Opera is a free web browser, and the best one; why shouldn't they try to innovate in order to remain profitable?

I hope not. Opera is the best desktop web browser and I'd hate to see it go.

You worded this excellently. It's definitely a case of someone trying to replace a personal problem with a technological one.

It should be clear that they're using him to surf the net for personal reasons while he just bends over and takes it because he has no clue how to say no.

How about you actually be a man for once and tell people "no" without worrying about nonsense like manners and rudeness? You clearly don't want them to do it yet you tell them they can and let them simply because you don't want a confrontation.

Here's a hint: tell them upfront you don't want them on your computer. Yet you don't because you're passive; you don't want people getting angry or getting back at you, yet you're in this conondrum because nobody there thinks you have backbone. And from your question you clearly don't, you just let people walk all over you because you're afraid of making someone angry.

Stop asking questions on slashdot about how you can make someone else's viewing experience on your computer more pleasant for them instead of growing a spine yourself. It's clear you probably hand over your laptop while pretending to read your calc notes as if it's not a problem while secretely wishing they would get off so you could go back to IRC or whatever messenger you like. It certainly is a problem because you asked this question: what I want to know is why you enable them thru passivity and sycophantic considerations of having a boot flash drive for them. Booting from USB flash from laptops can take a good 5 to 10 minutes, especially with ubuntu, so I'm wondering why you think it's easier to not grow a spine than to have your time taken up by deadbeat students wanting to leech off you while providing you nothing in return.

Sorry if this harsh (actually I'm not because you're too passive and that's a flaw of yourselrf) but you need to learn how to say no. You don't need flash drives for other people's benefits or whatnot, you need to grow a sack and tell people no without giving a damn what they think.

At the very least, learn how to lie about being busy. Having to worry about being a lapdog for your fellow natty ice-drinking costudents is just disgraceful.

With this news, the constant lack of updates regarding the status of DNF throughout the years, and the fact that there are no known killer technologies associated with it (such as Half Life 2's facial editing and Doom 3's lighting) to provide marketing buzz for it, makes me wonder if the developers intentionally dragged their feet. Easier to get a paycheck and do nothing for longer than to do something, finish it, and risk getting let go. Bah, I'm cynical.

I wish we all would have hurd that a long time ago, as to not get our hopes up.

"My point is whether they find him guilty or not, he failed his duties as a senator. It's a shame the prosecution botched this case and withheld that evidence from the court as he's still guilty of failing to disclose this information publicly on his financial disclosure form."

The court system takes time, it's not just something you can dump something on.

Well, the thing with home renovations is that it's not something you just dump something on. It's not a big truck.

Especially with plumbing for your home: that's a series of tubes. So, Mr. Stevens was simply suggesting a way for you to not just dump something on.

Yeah. Pirates are much friendlier than whatever monstrosity is lurking in USENET nowadays.

So, when can we expect the new cartoon show about a lovable yet goofy software pirate who is out to save the world (with their trusty robotic companion and sidekick)?

This ISN'T a joke?!?!

I had no clue that the exploding chairs in the video game Goldeneye 007 wasn't a programming oversight, but a feature. You learn something new every day -- you really do.

The next time someone needs you to fix a computer problem and asks what went wrong, simply give them this article's summary as the reason why, replacing "router" and "Internet" with the the defective part in question. You're also guarenteed to look a bit sharper, too.

"A bug by power supply vendor A (omitting a range check from a critical field in the configuration interface) tickled a bug from power supply vendor B (dropping BGP sessions when processing some ASPATH attributes with length very close to 256), causing a ripple effect that caused widespread global routing instability last week. The flaw lay dormant until one of vendor A's systems was deployed in an autonomous system whose ASN, modulo 256, was greater than 250. At that point, the power supply was one typo away from disaster. Other power supply vendors, who were not affected by the bug, happily propagated the trigger message to every vulnerable system on the planet in about 30 seconds. Few people appreciate how fragile and unsecured the power supply's trust-based critical infrastructure really is â" this is just the latest example."

Why not have a linux lab while maintaining the main Windows network? It'll be too much work to get people to change to something they're not used to -- and a lot of professors may not be very computer savvy. A linux lab could allow people to get into OSS, provide Computer Science majors a taste of a real OS, and would let those who want to try linux do so without having it forced on them.