Channeling some Inigo Montoya there, binarylarry?

It's interesting to me that you (and apparently others) believe that just because we have found something on Mars that farts, it must be intelligent. You have obviously not met any of my uncles. Not that any of them have ever been to Mars, but they do meet your other requirement for intelligence quite frequently. And most of them prefer to demonstrate their 'intelligence' in public if possible.

In your IQ tests, are those who can successfully execute a 'pull my finger' joke classified as genius?

[Sarcasm generation machine breaks down from being overworked.]

What do you people require from a life-form before you consider it to be intelligent? Farting is not very high on my list. I'd say it's not even on my list, but it does at least imply that something is digesting something, so there is some degree of intelligence there, but I'd have to rate it very very low.

Or to get more detailed, if you search out and find the weak spot in the bank vault's walls, and then advertise a way to get free money and when someone calls on you, you drive them up to that spot and drop them off. You are not guilty of robbing the bank, but you are an accomplice to be certain. I'm not sure if that would be accessory to burglary, or some other charge, as IANAL. My guess is all they need to prove is that someone viewed copyrighted material through your search engine and you are 'the right way for a smack bottom.' (Yes, I quoted Shrek, so what?)

Perhaps the cake was white when they hid it in their undergarments and all of this attention scared them into changing it's color to yellow? I know, it's a bad joke. It's been a long day.

"We apologise again for the fault in the Adblock plus software. Those responsible for sacking the people who have just been sacked for slowing the Interwebs down with their ads have been sacked."

Usually, a company takes the 'safe' route, and tells all of it's remaining employees that 'so-and-so is no longer with us...' and 'there will be no gossip-talk about the reasons.' This does no good in a small company like the one I work for. We always no why someone was fired, and we usually talk about it anyways.

I am aware and agree with you on this 'secret of the industry.' I told my friend to buy the Latitude line if she was insisting on Dell. Alas, my friend called Dell and complained that the business class machine did not come in hot pink like the consumer one, and was then talked into buying the consumer model, hot pink with Vista Home Premium. We don't buy Dell at work, period. We had terrible issues with their support, and now we are an Apple/HP/Lenovo shop. We have been HP/Lenovo for a while, buy we are migrating to Apple, as we have stopped fighting things that Just Plain Work (TM). Most of our software is either Terminal Service driven or Web-based now anyhow.

How can anyone other than a female cop confiscate an object that is inside a minor's undergarments, and avoid a lawsuit? It is not socially acceptable for a teacher to retrieve any object from inside a student's undergarments. And that teacher does not have, never has had, and never should have the right to do so. That right is reserved for officers of the law, as long as they follow the proper and pertinent search/seizure and warrant laws. A person's body is off limits except for very special legal circumstances. When that body belongs to a minor, it's even more so. Very taboo, very morally wrong. IANAL, but I bet there is one lurking who can weigh in on the legal aspects of a school faculty member searching the student's undergarments while he/she is wearing them. Anyone?

My experience with XP Downgrades is with Lenovo, HP, and Dell.

Lenovo and HP gave me XP downgrades for free (I did have to cover the shipping, like $8 or something.) They said there was no cost, because the Vista Business and Ultimate EULA grants me permission to downgrade without buying an XP license.

Then, I tried to downgrade a Dell that my friend owns. It has Vista Home Premium, and Dell said the same thing - if it was Ultimate or Business, it would be free, since it is not, I have to buy and install a retail copy of XP. Apparently, the EULA is different when it comes to XP Downgrade rights. Dell also told me they do not even make any XP based restore images for their Vista Home computers. All of their Vista Home PCs have to use a retail XP disc if you want to downgrade.

The other thing that Dell told me was that they entered into an agreement with MS in which they will not give away or make available XP downgrades to customers who purchased a Vista PC prior to fouth quarter 2008, and IIRC, this was regardless of which version of Vista was preloaded.

The part that really makes me mad, is that when she bought the PC, she bought it from Dell directly, not through a retail channel of any kind. I advised her to stick with XP, and the Dell salesman talked her into buying with Vista, saying that she can always downgrade later if she does not like it.

Well, those that are non-salaried do. I end up working about 90-100 hours in eight days being salaried, but that is another story.

Many of my friends here are hourly employees and work four ten hour days with every Friday off. They love it. They do not even notice the difference after the first week or two, and they get a three-day weekend every weekend.