I think Government / User should start thinking Internet as "Road" in real life. It should be a government's job to make sure the road is good, and free for everyone (from tax). No private company should dictate how many time you can walk on the "Road" (Internet) and how popular you're (such as Youtube). If that's the case, then New York City should start charging all retail store or company that attract so much tourist into Manhattan for the "Road" that they maintains.

I agree with you. Because, I don't follow the SSD market so close. I hear it's a performance gain but slight at that. I've not heard about slower performance over time. Would like to know more. So yes, I don't think an assumption should be made. Maybe, an assumption and then a reference link for those that don't.

Yeah ditto on that weirdness vibe. Kind of makes one wonder how they handle something like America's Sex Offender registry.

You'll get websites saying you need to download this codec to watch this video, and people will do it. With a standard codec, if a site does that, users can be educated that they shouldn't download ANY codec.

Even if delvers better sound and video? Significantly improved compression?

Closed captioning, secfond channel audio or other benefits?

Tell me why the geek thinks the web should be permenently bound to whatever codec he - and perhaps he alone - thinks is "technologically superior" or "politically correct."

Why there should be no competition, no room for experiment.

The expression language in SceneGrinder for those attributes that need more complexity is javascript. For any game system, a template is build... usually a "character" template, which holds attributes (STR,DEX,INT, etc.). Templates are built in the online template editor, but if an attribute is complex the author can resort to javascript in the expression. Most expressions are simple one line affairs ([STR]/2 + [CON]/2), but you can go multi line and as complex as you need. Attributes can "contain" other templates, so you can have backpacks which contain equipment, one of which is a pouch with a box that contains a bag of holding...you get the idea. The docs are all online with plenty of sample expressions. I have not used RPtools myself so I cannot judge the difference. I know that's a fine and respected product, though. I'd love to hear your opinion on whether we moved the bar forward or not.

You mean like the Eee 701 did?

They'd be better off getting a pseudo-memory standard like Sun is -- reusing the laptop dimm formfactor for a ssd. Or even just using a regular old ddr1 slot with fairly few of the contacts actually live. The size of a dimm is a lot closer to the size of a current-gen 2.5 inch SSD than PCI or PCI-E cards (usually) are.

Even the most basic understanding of contracts modern or historical gives simple clarity. If I make an agreement with my neighbors for the purpose of landscaping in order to create a more perfect neighborhood and the general welfare of the street, to reduce cost, time, and effort to that need, we would need to specify what that means. For example, within the contract we specify that ABC Landscaping will be the agent to the contract, and they have the right to determine how many times a month on which days our lawns will be mowed, so long as they are specified in advance; the amount of water and fertilizer necessary to promote healthy growth. If ABC Landscaping informs us that the best lawn is one mowed every other day, that was left to their discretion because it is specified in the contract. If we think this is excessive, it is not a contract violation per se, but a fault of the parties. In such a case you would probably want to notify that even if it is in the best interest of the lawn that you really didn't want the lawns mowed 15 times a month. If on the other hand, if ABC landscaping installed fences and lawn gnomes in every yard and converted one persons lawn to be a community pool, they have clearly violated the contract no matter how much they may argue that it contributes to the general welfare of the neighborhood as specified in the preamble.

The situation we have is to imagine a neighborhood of renters where the contract is made between the landlords, ABC Landscaping is still the agent but the cost of the landscaping is not included in the rent. Further, ABC Landscaping can sue you if you do not pay them. The problem we have is that ABC Landscaping has decided to convert all our yards into a giant admission free amusement park. And as if the Landlord we almost never see not caring wasn't enough, any complaints about this possibly having gone a bit too far are met with the kids throwing a fit over loosing their free amusement park and redouble that with the Union of Amusement Park Ride Operators crying that you are trying to kill jobs and put people out on the street.

This really isn't what you bargained for, but you are providing jobs, and the teenagers are reasonably well behaved, it is a bit on the expensive side, but hell, you even enjoy the rides every so often.

Now ABC Landscaping puts on their thinking caps. There really isn't any room for any more rides, but still they would like to make the amusement park better. So they get the brilliant idea of adding concession stands with free food for anyone visiting the amusement park! Everyone is thrilled, right? And anyone that complains must want people to starve to death or at very least just be miserable, right? "Buy your own damn food!" How cold is that? What possible reason could people really have for not wanting free food when everyone can get some?

This would be an interesting device indeed for those paralyzed with sudden, repetitive, stereotyped thoughts.

To build that profile they have access to your DNA. That sample may or may not be destroyed. Even if it is all destroyed we really aren't certain that the DNA that we now think is junk may correlate to something significant.

Games being digital and thus allowing zero-cost copying are the essence of the whole deal, and the whole point of your metaphor is thus to ignore the essence. So your metaphor is something like the opposite of what a metaphor is. It's like saying "you should never remove items from a store even when you've bought them, because imagine if you hadn't paid, then it would be stealing." It ignores what is essential to the whole discussion.

Really? Really? You made an html5/javascript version of freeciv? A better goal would be to make freeciv for the GPU. There it would suffer an extreme boost of power. GPU's these days have something like 256 cores to do all there processing, and never use more then like 4 (are my numbers correct?) plus most have on-board RAM, allowing them to process data more often, reducing the impact that the speed of light has.

Yeah; I’d forgotten that our system uses marginal brackets.

That and they probably didn't sit and wait until their lawyers performed a cost/benefit analysis before they sent anything to their customers.

I drive over 8 hours most days, mostly at a constant speed. I do not want leg cramps purely because someone on the internet tells me cruise control is a bad idea. I hate people who fluctuate their speed when I'm trying to overtake them in a truck, which IMO is far more problematic than cruise control.

As an aside, I did once check what putting cruise control would do if I engaged it in neutral in my manual truck... more stupid than I thought, it just kept revving up to try and maintain speed. I did suspect it might, though, so I was ready to cancel it.