I'll admit, I've downloaded some ebooks in my lifetime. Half of them I don't read, and the ones I find indispensable, I buy because I prefer a hard copy rather than an ebook (also, I don't have to tote something electronic to read them). Admittedly, sometimes I download a book to see if it worth purchasing. I doubt many people will print the ebook and carry it around with them. I don't think coworkers in the software industry would applaud your thriftiness, especially since so many are authors themselves.

So to prevent theft, I would make sure your book is jam-packed with as much relevant information as possible. Make it more reference-like; full of code snippets and tables of commonly used functions, and strategically place this information: eg in the appendixes [that way we don't have to go looking for them].

I think most people that will actually a buy book, but also sometimes download pirated ebooks, will reward you for your efforts if the book was worth it. Take it from me, I have.

Agree on both accounts. I still believe we should have some sort of disability program, but people with health issues like obesity (lung cancer for smokers) should not be able to receive aid. If you caused the disability through prolonged stupidity, you deserve the consequences.

Don't be a hippy. Those projections came after the observed casualties on Iwo Jima and Okinawa, where KIA and WIA resulted in over 200,000 on both sides. The Japanese people were so relentless in the defense of Okinawa that there were reported cases of old women attacking GI's with pitchforks. The problem is, people who criticize the use of the Atomic bomb really have no sense of history. You forget the Japanese were just as vicious as the Nazi's in there campaign of conquest against the Pacific Rim. They pioneered biological weapons which were tested on Chinese in Manchuria. By the way, you say the decision was simply a political decision, but I will remind you that Truman didn't even know the weapon existed until weeks after assuming office. I don't know what country your from, but I hope to god you are not American or a country liberated by the Allies during World War II. We, Americans, have done some terrible things in our time, but I will absolutely not include anything during WWII other than the "Japanese Internment" to that list.

And yet we capitulate to North Korea's demands every 3 months or so.

Dropping the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki certainly forced Japan to surrender. Keep in mind that it also saved millions of Japanese and American lives that would have been lost in an invasion.

Thank you. Someone in this forum that understands it's warfare and not a tree-hugging session.

Killing the internet to the hospitals might result in better service (less staff MySpacing and Facebooking while the emergency room's full).

Yes. War is a matter of escalation. The faster and harder we respond, the more likely the outcome will favor us and not the attacker. What would you rather us do, send Hilary Clinton in to resolve the matter? No, destroy their information infrastructure and surgically destroy their military assets.

I think that's the most retarded comment of the day.

Microsoft pushed the ClickOnce .NET support addon to Mozilla browsers without even asking users. Some might consider this malware.

My Ubuntu machine was really cheap. $1000 for Intel Core 2 Duo 2.13 Ghz, 2GB of RAM, 250 GB SATA Hard Drive, NVidia GeForce 7300 SE (which I guess is alright, but considering I bought it to do server work, it's fine by me), and a 20" LCD with screen res of 1440x900. Really nice. I usually build my own PC, but I wanted to ensure hardware compatibility out of the box.