...would be when people gathered around a telegraph. Amazon is quite a bit late.

So they've got a technology to scan inside RAR files with obfuscated names now? If they start putting password lock so you have to have the password to even see the archive content what then? These courts really don't bother consulting actual Internet people, just some lawyer doing intern clerk duty on the way to their own judicial posting who happened to use the Internet a few times to try to score on craigslist. Oh well, good luck enforcing it.

"At least we can count on Hollywood to find some actress that will match Faye's rockin' tits."

Unfortunately, Savannah committed suicide YEARS ago and took those with her.

I'm worried that someone will do some superficial research, come across the more deranged otaku, and think that Ed's character will attract perverts and hence need a redo. Ten years older, male, and with green hair instead, and then offer the part to Billy Mumy. I'd actually pay money to see his reaction to that.

Ein... man, you're asking for the people who thought Garfield was perfectly believable to come into play and CGI it all up and on top of it give him a human voice.

As far as Keanu goes, if ever anyone decides to do Clay Aiken Stands In For K.D. Lang, that would be right up Keanu's alley.

Given that the system is inherently tilted towards those with money to pay politicians off, and that the courts are used to get things pushed into law backhandedly rather than through the political process (by both sides), the common folk are left with not a lot of options. Between political/social correctness on the left and fear mongering from the right, both sides seek to use government to infringe on the rights of the people. What happens when you push people into a corner? They fight back. It is perfectly human.

A smash-up distributed network that crosses torrent, freenet, anonymous remailer chains, proxies, and encryption is slowly growing in pieces and will come together eventually. Due to ongoing refusal of those who govern to even attempt to reason with the governed, and due to the governed running from responsibility and intellectual labor, it is inevitable that other systems of communication and information transfer will grow organically to stymie every system of control.

The fault lies with everybody because the governed must in the end give consent to those who govern, whether a democracy or tyranny, for a non-compliant populace cannot be controlled by anything short of a god, as revolutions throughout history prove. As long as the people continue to allow the government and business to do whatever strikes their fancy, they will do so. But their nature circumscribes their will and demands them to actions that flow around obstacles and it will happen. As a result, a system will come about allowing totally untraceable transmission of all kind of information, not just music and movies but illegal materials, spy communications, and terrorist dispatches, and all of it will be beyond anyone's reach to identify who put it out into the cloud and unable to make it go away.

You gotta take the good with the bad in life, but there's a whole lot of bad that is going to be enabled by this, all because no one could get along and come to an understanding.

...can't last forever. As in, the Mac platform is no longer a minor niche thing, and with the fundamental change to a BSD/*nix base which opens the architecture to creative accessibility, viruses were a matter of time on the Mac. About damn time they came clean and did the responsible thing and admit it isn't invulnerable. If you want a large market share, it will come with a price of making it a target for miscreants.

Three words: Quantitative Hedge Fund.

You need more than basic arithmetic to do quantitative research for any financial firm. I can tell you from personal experience that hedge funds hire Math PhDs and Masters.

e.g. http://hotjobs.yahoo.com/jobs/NY/New-York/Other/J4 87910ZD

I agree with the parent; if you can take some time to put together a business plan, you are more than halfway there. Some suggestions to help you along the way:

* Identify a "champion" in upper management and work together to get approval for the plan. If you don't have a higher-up who thinks what you are doing is worthwhile, you will continue to be a voice in the wilderness.

* Tie your project to a pain point. You and your champion need to identify something that's bothering the CEO and CFO, and figure out how to fix it. Most CxOs don't care if the receptionist's PC is running Windows 95 and takes more time for you to fix it. They will care if you can accelerate revenue (ship product faster) or reduce expenses (reduce time inventory sits in the warehouse).

* An alternative is to improve the decision-making ability: deliver more accurate information or deliver information faster. This gives a business the basis for a competitive advantage.

* Start small. Keep your project's scope simple and discrete. Grand plans to integrate systems don't fly; things to eliminate redundancy or repetitive data entry work better (wireless inventory updates from the warehouse, for example).

It's tough to see this situation when you are a person who cares about the job they do, can see how to improve the network, and yet can't get the initiatives approved. As others have pointed out, you may be working for a company that is a late traditionalist / very late adopter. If they think things are running "good enough" they will resist change in spite of evidence to the contrary.

In that case, go to where your years of experience are appreciated. Get your resume together and get another job.