You assume those two theses don't co-exist. Gulf I, likewise the perfect example. The OA of that war wasn't Iraq - it was Kuwait. When Iraq's ability to wage war in Kuwait was destroyed, the war was over.

To make it more specific, the Military's purpose is to destroy any other military or militant group's ability to wage war.

It's a give and take, really.

While the long-term support is good, progress is stifled by the need to make sure that, say, Windows 98 can run the modern applications. There's no way you can do that without sacrificing some functionality.

I equally have a problem with Apple's abandonment of anything even remotely older - my parents have an iMac that works perfectly, but cannot run some applications that they'd find useful because the OS is too old, even though it's, y'know, less than five years old - and I think combined with it being such a closed system, the only way you'd be upgrading the hardware is by getting the Mac Pro, or doing some ridiculously complex surgery.

With Microsoft, there's got to be a point to where they have to go, "okay, we have to cut you loose." Windows 98 was twelve years ago. I think at that point, at least, you can safely stop support and not really catch any flack. I mean, come on, we're not still supporting 3.1, right? Sooner or later you just gotta allow yourself to grow, and that long-term support will, if you let it, anchor you.

Presentation is everything, these days. Being able to display your character sheets to everyone while you're on a more real-time version of IRC with group logging and archival is a big step forward.

Swap character sheets for "business plans," and you can see the potential, here.

There's also the convenience factor. It does everything for you. Unlike IRC, you can edit within the Wave itself. Logs don't have to be outputted to a .txt file before you can edit them. You just do it right there.

What'll be interesting is if/when Skype can be added to it in a gadget. VoIP with audio/video chat, the ability to display documents to an entire group, and to collaboratively write something with real-time editing.

If you want to say it's just a repackaging of IRC and a Wiki, sure, go right ahead. It's just shaping up to be a very well done and potentially ubiquitous repackaging.

I'll offer it stimuli. I'll offer it stimuli three times a day, four if it tells me I'm cute.

Agreed. Once the ruling's come down, you abide by it. This certainly looks to me like an attempt to circumvent what they owe the RIAA. And I hate the RIAA, but they do owe them. That's how it's how it works - you lose a dispute, you pay the price. If you think the dispute was lost unfairly, you appeal. And if you want to look at it in more pragmatic terms for the PB people - don't look like you're trying to subvert the system when you're trying to appeal within it. That's just stupid and helping you lose your appeal before you file it.

What you see as "encouraging harassment," I see as enforcing the ostracizing of someone who most assuredly deserves it.

If the law isn't equipped to handle this - and judging by the lack of ability on its part to figure out just what to charge this person, I'm inclined to believe it isn't - sometimes you just have to take (lawful) measures to make sure she doesn't get to destroy a life and walk away from it.

It's not harassment; it's simply notifying employers that someone they may be hiring is a bad hire. Harassment would be sending her letter after letter, and that I wouldn't condone.